Boy, you want to get into a game of "historikal" what if... Schubert died at 31 (The year after Beethoven died!). He revered Beethoven so much that he turned down at least one invitation to meet him, feeling The Great Man's time was to valuable to waste on a kid like him.

I think Schubert's early death was probably the single most tragic loss in music history. Worse than Mozart's death at 35. When Mozart died, Haydn was still going strong for many more years, and Beethoven was rising. With Schubert gone, history was left with Wagner and Bruckner battling with Brahms.

Don't get me wrong, as I adore Brahms, but if Schubert had lived to even 40 years of age, we may never even have heard of Wagner, which would have been a fantastically fine outcome in my opinion. Had he been blessed with a truly long and productive life - say to the age of 60 (Remember, Beethoven died at 56 in 1827) - that would have had him working until after 1850. I think the very existence of someone like Arnold Schoenberg would have been impossible at that point, and I can't think of ANYTHING that would have been better than that.

When you stop to consider that Schubert's work was all created by a startlingly young man, it becomes a body of work best described as musical shock-and-awe. His effortless lyricism and sublime modulatory schemes - even in tiny pieces of only a few minutes duration - are simply sublime. Had his symphonic style developed into something not so prone to youthful prolixity, the influence on later composers would have been enormous. As it was, The Great C Major inspired Bruckner and later... "what's his face"- I can never remember that guy... to write ever larger pieces that really broke the bounds of even great listener's attention spans.

Alas...

Mahler was who I couldn't think of. Gag. Retch.

Well said, Hucbald (although I think we still would have heard of Wagner). With the innovative directions in which Schubert was going in Symphony No. 8 and his last mass, there's no telling what he might have developed into.

Robbo, I liked Symphony No. 9 more when I was younger. It doesn't wear well on middle-aged years. About the only context in which I still enjoy it is when I'm lifting weights, and it's not my first choice even then.

sorry, "ears," not "years"

I generally agree with both of you.

Scurvy - I listen to the 9th on the treadmill. My theory is that if I miss an idea, I don't have to worry - it'll be repeated three or four more times.

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