l choir and shortly afterwards
entered the Imperial Convict School, where for the next three or four
years he made rapid progress in composition. In 1813 he returned home,
and to avoid the conscription entered his father's school as a teacher,
where he remained for three years, doing drudgery but improving his
leisure hours by studying with Salieri and devoting himself assiduously
to composition. His life had few events in it to record. It was devoted
entirely to teaching and composition. He wrote in almost every known form
of music, but it was in the Lied that he has left the richest legacy to
the world, and in that field he reigns with undisputed title.
Unquestionably many of these songs were inspirations, like the "Erl
King," for instance, which came to him in the midst of a carousal. The
most famous of them are to be found in the cycluses "Muellerlieder," "Die
Gesaenge Ossians," "Die Geistlichen Lieder," "Die Winterreise," and "Der
Schwanengesang." They are wonderful for their completeness, their
expression of passion, their beauty and grace of form, the delicacy of
their fancy, and their high artistic finish. Among the other great works
he has left are the lovely "Song of the Spirits over the Water," for male
voices; "Die Allmacht;" "Prometheus;" "Miriam's War Song;" the eight-part
chorus "An den Heiligen Geist;" the "Momens Musicale;" impromptus and
Hungarian fantasies for piano; the sonatas in C minor and B flat minor;
nine symphonies, two of them unfinished; the trios in B flat and E flat;
the quartets in D minor and G major; the quintet in C; two operas,
"Alfonso and Estrella" and "Fierrabras;" the mass in G, which he wrote
when but eighteen years of age, and the mass in E flat, which was his
last church composition. His catalogued works number over a thousand. He
died Nov. 19, 1828, and his last wish was to be buried by the side of
Beethoven, who on his death-bed had recognized "the divine spark" in
Schubert's music. Three graves only separate the great masters of the
Symphony and the Lied in the cemetery of Waehring.

Miriam's War Song.

The majestic cantata, "Miriam's War Song," was written in March, 1828,
the last year of Schubert's life,--a year which was rich, however, in the
productions of his genius. The beautiful symphony in C, the mass in E
flat, the string quartet in C, the three piano sonatas dedicated to
Schumann, the eight-voiced "Hymn to the Holy Ghost," the 92d Psalm