FRANZ PETER SCHUBERT
(1797-1828)
God sent his singers upon earth
With songs of gladness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men
And bring them back to heaven again.
—Longfellow.
One winter's night in 1797 a little child was born in Vienna. He was called Franz Peter, and his father was Schubert the schoolmaster. The home into which the child came was one of poverty. There was a large family of children to be cared for, and there was but little money with which to feed and clothe them.
On the day that Franz Schubert was born in that humble home, Haydn was sixty-five years of age, and the great Beethoven was a young man of twenty-seven. Mozart had passed away six years before. Little did Schoolmaster Schubert and his good wife dream that their little son would one day make the name Schubert as famous as any of these.
Famous, indeed, did the family name become through Franz Peter. And to-day, if you were to visit Vienna, you would find his first home marked with a gray stone tablet. Carved into the marble are words meaning Birthplace of Franz Schubert.
Franz started to school when he was six years old. A year or two later he began the study of music. His teacher soon found that the boy already knew a great deal. At the close of a lesson one day, he said to the child, "Who has been your music teacher?"
"May it please you, I have had none but yourself."
"How, then, have you learned so much about music?"