Schubert Art Song "shepherd On Rock"

Franz Seraphicus Peter Schubert, Austrian composer, was born on 31stofJanuary 1797 and died on 19thof November 1828. He was born in Vienna and hisfather was a teacher. When he was young, he was taught to play the violin andpiano by his father and brother. His talent was found in the field of composing.Schubert created hundreds of great works during his life however it was poorall the time. He created more than 600 music compositions, 10 symphonies, 18operas, Singspiel, match play music, 19 string quartet, 22 piano sonatas, 4violin sonatas, and so on. He was called "The King of Songs". His representativeworks were the Erlkoenig, the Shepherd on the Rock, Gretchen am Spinnrade andso on. There were three song cycles that was very famous as well which wereDie Schone Mullerin, Die Winterreise and Die Stadt from Schwanengesang.Schubert was not the representative of the Romantic period only, but also iconof the process of the Classical period to Romantic period. Combination of musicand poetry was the characteristic of compositions in the Romantic period, andthe same as Schubert. There were 67 poetries from Goethe and 41 from Schiller,6 from Heine, and lots of from the others in his more than 600 hundred of works.The feature of Schubert’s compositions were with colorful contents, which wasincluding the love of the nature, the praise and love of art, the expressionof mental, and desolate lonely scene, the begging for the god and so on. Thecharacteristics of Schubert’s compositions brought great influences for thelater composers. Art songs called lied in Germany, which was existed betweenthe end of eighteenth century and the early of nineteenth century. The lied’s lyrics were using famous poetries, in order to express the feelings of human.Schubert increased the difficulties of his method and technique of composing.Piano played an important role since then on. The lyrics were the main sourceof compositions. Through the deep understanding of poetries from composers,they added cantus and orchestrate to the lyrics to complete compositions. Thelied was disparaging by people before Schubert developed it into highly expressive force, and the increased the position to opera, chamber music,symphony equally. He defined the decision for later composers. The Shepherdon the Rock was the last composition of Schubert, and someone also called itthe Swan Song, which is an excellent work that is valuable to study. It waslyrical, fascinating and dynamic. The distinctive point was the using of theclarinet and piano for accompanying. Schubert used the clarinet to show theshepherd horn in the overture. In the song, there was magnificent and flexiblecoloratura part for soprano. There was a series of coloratura phrase tosymbolize the coming of spring. In the following paragraphs, I will analysisthe musical form and harmony of the Shepherd on the Rock, the combination ofsoprano, piano and clarinet, in order to identify the feature and inspirationfor the Shepherd on the Rock and express the style of Schubert’s compositionscomprehensively.