Austrian composer Schubert Franz Peter (1797-1828) was born in Vienna. At the age of 8, he learned violin from his father and piano from his brother Ignatz. At the age of 1 (1808), he was recruited as a singer of the Imperial Temple Choir in Vienna and a student of the Imperial School. Later he became the leader of the temple band and often served as conductor. At the age of 14, he composed his first song "Haga's Lament". In the history of European music development, Schubert is an artist who connects the past and the future. On the one hand, he inherited the classical music tradition of Mozart and Beethoven; on the other hand, he created a new world for subsequent composers through the innovation and development of tradition, and is known as the first romantic musician. Although Schubert's life was short, he created a wide range of fields, involving symphony, chamber music, piano, opera and religious music, especially his art songs, which are unique in content and form and fully demonstrate the potential of Schubert's music. Unique style.

Although Schubert, the founder of the Romantic School, died only one year later than Beethoven, it can be said that he and Beethoven belong to two different eras. When he was resurrected, the French Revolution, which shocked Europe and influenced Beethoven's worldview and creation, had disappeared, and the entire continent was restoring the feudal dynasty. The slogans of "liberty, equality, fraternity" that inspired the German and Austrian people had been eclipsed by the bloodshed and violence during the revolution and Napoleon's invasion, and could no longer attract the young people of Schubert's generation. What he advocates is not "rationality" but "fantasy." Romanticism, as a new artistic trend, became popular in Germany and Austria and appeared in almost all fields of art. It is not only the creative expression of Romanticism, but more importantly, the reflection of this literary genre’s worldview and artistic outlook. The major social ethical themes and heroic spirit in Beethoven's works quietly disappeared in Schubert's creation.

He focuses on the life circle of ordinary people and deliberately expresses his "self" feelings and fantasies. He composed music for a large number of famous contemporary poems, which were widely related to the social life of the time. At the same time, Schubert sometimes used shepherds, wandering grinders, and girls forced by death to express his feelings in his songs, and sometimes personified flowers, birds, fish, and insects. These all reflected the ever-changing aspects of his personal inner world. Thought. He used a large number of songs to sincerely praise nature and spring, such as "On the Top of the High Mountain" and "Listen, Listen, Lark"; or to enthusiastically praise art and love, such as: Dedicated to Music, Love messengers and serenades; or earnestly praying to God and heaven, such as "The Suffering Man" and "Ave Maria", using these beautiful things to build his ideal kingdom, so as to obtain happiness and comfort that reality cannot give. Like other romantic artists, he eulogized "fantasy" and declared that "you are the treasure of mankind and an inexhaustible source"; he often rejoiced that he was "using my imagination to decorate this reality as much as possible."

Schubert’s vocal suites "Winterreise" and "Beautiful Mill Girl" are adapted from the German romantic poet Müller's poem of the same name, and can be regarded as representative works of Schubert's art songs. According to friends' memories, the long poem "Winter Journey" strongly shocked the composer's soul, and he devoted himself to creating a vocal suite composed of 24 songs in series. It can be said that this is a set of narrative and lyrical musical poems, a musical. Schubert deliberately depicts the inner world of the characters and vividly depicts the lonely, lonely, dissatisfied, hopeless and depressed souls in Mill's poems. He left the familiar city and his cheating lover who married a rich man, and walked in the endless winter wilderness, looking at the wind flags in the north wind and the frozen river, listening to the wind and snow and the jingling bells of the mail train, hiding from I was deeply moved by the evil dogs and ominous crows in the forest. He deeply felt the indifference and desolation of the world, and found no sympathy or compassion here. He will always be a stranger and a wanderer. He wanted to avoid the glitz of the world and seek inner peace during his wandering journey. When all attempts to escape his painful fate finally failed, he forced himself to curse the world and follow a lonely old beggar artist. It can be said that this is Schubert's inner expression, which profoundly reflects the thoughts and emotions of this class and contemporary composers. Schubert worked hard to explore the rhythm and tone of Müller's beautiful poems, so that the suite contains infinite poetic flavor. He followed the Romantic school's idea of ??"breaking the boundaries of various literary categories", achieving drama in music and poetry in singing; he also broke some of the strict norms of the classical school, and based on the content and rhythm of the poem, he changed the melody, harmony and He created the sound, tonal layout, and musical form, especially to improve the expressiveness of the piano accompaniment, so that it no longer just simulates the image and sound externally, but vividly depicts the inner feelings of the characters against the natural environment. Thus the lyrics, melody and accompaniment are integrated into a perfect whole.

These breakthroughs and developments in the composer's tradition are not only reflected in vocal suites such as "Winter Journey", but are also widely used in his other songs. The unusual and novel sound of Schubert's lieder was criticized by conservatives in society at the time.

"Good Night" is the first song in the suite "Winter Journey". It starts with the pathos of the piano, the falling tone with heavy sighs, and the steady marching rhythm, which immediately foreshadows the basic tone of the entire suite and depicts the gloomy mood of the travelers who have just set off.

In the second song "The Weather Flag", the piano accompaniment on the one hand creates the ever-changing scene of the flying weather flag, and on the other hand uses the allegro sound to set off the extreme excitement and resentment of the lovelorn traveler. Feeling.

"Bodhi Tree" (song 5) is the most popular song in the suite. The comfortable and gentle melody, the light and dark tones of E in the same main note, contrast the protagonist's beautiful past and bleak present.

Schubert’s melodies are inextricably linked to folk songs. It has adapted a large number of folk songs from various ethnic groups in Germany and Austria (including Austria, Germany, Hungary, Czech and other ethnic groups). His early works "Wild Rose" and "Trout" are as concise, clear and moving as folk songs. At that time, it was a prominent phenomenon for German and Austrian romantic artists to collect and organize their own nation's fairy tales, legends and songs. On the one hand, this is caused by the national pride aroused in the Napoleonic Wars; on the other hand, they feel that reality is too ugly, and it is better to indulge in innocent and wonderful fairy tales and legends far away from reality.

The melody of the Linden Tree has a kind and simple Austrian folk song style. After Schubert's death, this song was widely sung among German and Austrian folk, and later generations even believed that it was really a folk song.

By the ninth song "Will-o'-the-Wisp", the traveler's excitement gradually subsided. He felt that "the world is happy, but the pain in this world is as elusive as a will-o'-the-wisp", and he imagined burying his pain like a river that would eventually flow into the sea. This heavy thinking is accompanied by slow, deep but still ebbing tones.

The eleventh song "Spring Dream" contains three artistic conceptions: dreaming - there are flowers and birds, joy and happiness; waking up - all the good things are disillusioned, there is only darkness and cold, and the crows are noisy; continue "Dreaming" - fantasize about the green leaves blooming in winter and the return of love. The composer used three different musical images to depict this different picture: the first section is a lively and cheerful melody, in the prelude the piano imitates birdsong, and turns into a stable accompaniment in the dream; in the second section, chords suddenly appear, in the e-d-g-a The four minor keys change one after another, matching the cold recitation tone, announcing disillusionment; the beat of the third section changes from 6/8 to 2/4, and the melody is gentle but has an inherent melancholy color. The seemingly isolated three sections make clever use of tonal changes and unity (A-a-A) to maintain the integrity of the three-section structure.

In the fourteenth part "White Hair", the traveler finally reaches a pessimistic and fatalistic conclusion; living in suffering, he looks forward to the moment of "relief". A tonal wail is an exaggerated recitative tone.

The 20th "road sign" and the 21st "hotel" indicate that the traveler's final destination is the tomb. Schubert himself, from the beginning of his life journey, has been looking for a way out and a conclusion. However, as he lamented in a poem written in 1820, "People meet in the dark, searching for their goals along the way, but all in vain, unable to find the truth." Therefore, the sad and painful ending of the traveler in the song It reflects the composer's disappointment and despair, which is why Muller's poems caused Schubert to scream strongly. Helplessly, the only attempt to relieve the pain failed. The "hotel" of the tomb does not accept travelers, and he has to muster up his "courage" again to continue the long and endless journey of life.

Courage 22 is quite fast, but the tone changes with each phrase. (g - G- g - G), the song ends in G major, while the piano ends in G minor. This treatment has an ironic meaning to "courage".

"Old Artist" is the end of the suite. The travelers saw their own destiny and "future" in the begging old artist who "suffered human suffering but was indifferent". The 8-sound box has a monotonous sound from beginning to end, and its accompaniment melody is like the singing of an old artist, or the inner groaning of poets and composers, thus ending the entire suite. The artistic features mentioned in the above selections are also present in other songs in this suite. The distinctive characteristics and melodic beauty of Schubert's art songs, such as the strict logic of songs and music, are clearly permeated in his symphonies, piano pieces and other forms of works.

"Winterreise" is Schubert's most important and influential vocal suite. It clearly demonstrates the composer's unique artistic temperament and also clearly illustrates Schubert's "romanticism". "The relationship between the ideological content contained in it and social life. From his early songs "Devil", "Trout", "Death and the Maiden" to his last songs "Land God" and "Fantasy", although he subjectively tried his best to avoid reality, these works still reflected reality. Schubert's status in music history is not only because he created romantic music, but also because his original romantic music art expressed the social and life ideals of ordinary people at that time. Schubert and his art songs represented the romantic genre embodied in music. Moreover, songs with piano accompaniment, this traditional music genre, have been brought to a perfect artistic height by Schubert. Many of his famous art songs, such as "Trout", "Devil", "Wanderer", "Linden Tree", "Spring Dream", "Earth God", etc. , is still popular today because the musical image he created is vivid, vivid, and profound, and can withstand the test of history.

Schubert created a large number of songs to establish the image of poetry, using simple and beautiful melodies, rich harmonic changes, clever timbre contrasts, and poetic and appropriate piano coordination. These are still worthy of our study and Excellent work of art for research. His songs have reached a new artistic realm that has never been reached by predecessors, and are the artistic crystallization of romantic music.