On January the 31st, 1797, Franz Schubert was born in a family where music was a queen. He very early appeared as a  happy and talented musician and singer. 

   His first known composition dates back to 1810. He composed for the rest of his life. In 1813 he obeyed his father and entered teachers’school. 

   In 1814 his first mass was played in the Lichtental church, his first love, Thérèse, singing the soprano part. The following years his beloved’s father did not allow her to marry such a poor man... In 1821 the breach turned final and Thérèse married another man...

   In 1816, Schubert obtained a year-leave from his position as a schoolteacher;  he never returned.

   In 1818, he visited the Earl Esterhazy in Zelesz, Hungary, for a few months, teaching music to his daughter. After this long Hungarian summer, Schubert resisted his father, who had  ordered him to be a schoolteacher again.
Schubert was already convinced he must dedicate his life to music alone! .

   He then found himself homeless and alternatively lived at some friends’ and in rented rooms, his biggest worry being music, not cosiness. In the morning,  he worked, studied, composed, and in the remaining time he wandered around and met friends, feeling a kindred spirit with musicians, poets and artists. 
Thus, more easily than a lover, he became a confident for the Fröhlich sisters, the four of whom were musicians.

   Franz Schubert doesn’t display the beauty  that inhabits him. He is rather short (1,52m), and, as he  neglected the sensual and outward sides of his person, he quickly grew fat.

   On the summer of 1824, Schubert returned to Hungary and fell in love with Caroline,  the Earl’s younger daughter. It was his second great love, yet this time  it proved much more unreachable than the first: illness had become his master.

   At the end of October 1824, he returned to Vienna altogether torn and happy. This love had brightened him up and, in the year 1825, the friendly  musical evenings were back again., but for one year only. Soon after, pain and worry beca
me too heavy a  burden.

   Schubert started working on THE WINTER JOURNEY,  in February 1827. A “pure stroke of luck ” had him open a book where 12 out of Wilhelm MÜLLER’s 24 poems were written, and he was seized  by a feverish urge to compose music on them on one spot. 

   His own anguish found an echo in these simple poems: Müller too, as he wrote, knew about his illness and mortality!
  This book opened on what his life had become since he had been aware of his sickness. Schubert recognised in these lines his own moood and disillusion.

   Beyong the churchyard figure and the mortality constantly called up by the poet, the musician goes wandering with the souls, and gives us an account of his genius.

   In the Winter Journey, the poet and the musician are fellow travellers.

Here is their way : 
Turning his back to ...Les Amoures déçues...
(Fare Well - 1, The Weather-Vane - 2, Torpid - 4, Flood of Tears - 6, Spring Dream - 11, The Mail Coach - 13)

The Wanderer cannot go astray, (The Sign Post - 20) indicates “ The Road from which no one has come back” , and he must sink into Solitude (- 12...
At the Village - 17, Deception - 19, The Organ-Grinder - 24)

His Death Call (Will-O’-the Wisp - 9,The Grey Head - 14,The Raven - 15,The Inn - 21, Rival Suns - 23)

Does not prevent him 

From facing the Acute Cruelty of Regrets ( Frozen Tears - 3, The Linden Tree - 5, On the River - 7, Glance Back - 8)

Nor from suffering Harassing Pain (Rest - 10)

And When Courage (22) comes and surprises us with its sudden optimism,

The Present proves to be no more than autumn falling leaves (Last Hope - 16), and the start of  a Last Winter, “ nothing but the winter, the winter wild and cold” (The Stormy Morning - 18).

   He completed the last of the 24 lieder in October 1827. He considered it his masterpiece; having put so much of himself into it.

   Yet, at the first hearing, his friends did not recognise in The Winter Journey the work of the kind Franz. They did not appreciate it as he would have expected. The musician was deeply hurt again. His friends’ lack of understanding...  was a hard blow for the musician!

   Though overwhelmed by pain, with his remaining strength, all his courage and talent, he retired to compose...

   He passed away while staying at his brother Ferdinand’s, on November 19th, 1828.
   This journey, is also many an artist’s.
   The winter journey also represents the way taken by artists or others: the hardest way the most lonesome. where one wonders, as Schubert said with emotion flowing out of his eyes,

“Welch ein törichtes Verlangen - treibt mich in die Wüstereien?”

(Quelle aspiration insensée - m’aiguillonne vers les déserts?)