Introduction * Schubert the Composer * Schubert's Times * Schubert's Vienna
Related Information
Downloadable Teacher Resource Guide:
Schubert's
Party : the melody musician* - This guide features the life,
times and music of Franz Peter Schubert with great classroom activities
and information about Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre
Orchestra.
Schubert's Times
The Vienna Schubert was born into in 1797 was a prosperous city, but it was also a city that had seen much political unrest and military action. Twice during his boyhood, when he was eight and again when he was twelve, Napoleon's forces occupied the city. On one occasion, a canon ball landed right outside his school; another shell actually went through the roof. Scary times!
Social struggles - what was going on?
This was a time of great change in the way common, ordinary people thought. Up until Schubert's time, Europe had been ruled by powerful, immensely wealthy families - known as the aristocracy. They passed down their power and wealth generation after generation. No one voted for them, and no one could vote them out. Unless you were born into that social class, there was little you could do to improve your life. You had almost no rights, you worked very hard for very little money, and you paid high taxes to support the extravagant lifestyles of the rich aristocracy.
But with the American and French Revolutions in the late
eighteenth century, people began to question these ideas. They fought
for freedom, equality and economic improvement - all basic human
rights, they believed. And they won these rights. But not without great
hardship, bloodshed and sometimes even war. One of the most important
results of this struggle was the development of the middle class -
a large portion of society that could afford to live quite well - not
like the aristocracy, to be sure, but not in poverty either.
Important Events in Shubert's Lifetime
| 1797 | First copper pennies minted in England Napoleon defeats Austrians at Rivoli; advances toward Vienna |
| 1799 | Austria declares war on France |
| 1800 | Ottawa founded Alessandro Volta produces electricity from a cell |
| 1801 | Robert Fulton produces first submarine ("Nautilus") |
| 1805 | Battle of Austerlitz: Napoleon's victory over Austro-Russian forces |
| 1806 | Official end of the Holy Roman Empire |
| 1809 | Lamarck publishes his "Système des animaux sans vertèbres" Louis Braille, inventor of reading system for the blind, is born Metternich named chief minister of Austria |
| 1812 | Laplace writes his "Théorie analytique" Napoleon defeated in Russia |
| 1813 | Founding of McGill University, Montreal "Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig; Napoleon defeated |
| 1814 | Congress of Vienna opens |
| 1815 | First steam warship, the U.S.S. Fulton (38 tons) Napoleon defeated at Waterloo |
| 1816 | Sir David Brewster invents kaleidoscope R.T. Laënnec invents stethoscope |
| 1819 | Danish physicist Hans C. Oersted discovers electromagneticism |
| 1822 | Birth of Gregor Mendel, founder of the science of genetics Birth of Louis Pasteur, microbiologist |
| 1827 | Joseph Ressel invents ship's screw propeller Karl Baedeker begins publishing travel guides |
| 1828 | Birth of Jean Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross |
