Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
Four Impromptus Opus 90 D. 899
Four Impromptus Opus 142 D. 935

Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797, the son of a schoolmaster who had followed his brother to the Imperial capital from his native Moravia. Descended on his mother's side from Silesian stock, Schubert was as Viennese in language and outlook as any other inhabitant of the city, the cultural strength of which lay in its very mixture of races.

Schubert's family showed considerable musical enthusiasm, his father evidently the least proficient member of the family string quartet, in which he played the cello. Schubert himself, like Mozart before him, played the violin and viola, and was a proficient enough keyboard-player, if no great virtuoso. His musical and general education was at the Staatskonvikt, an institution he attended as a member of the choir of the Imperial Chapel directed by the Kapellmeister Antonio Salieri, his composition teacher. In 1812, when his