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Schubert was rescued from the drudgery of a life as a schoolteacher at his father’s school. Daddy Schubert was a monster, always informing on his neighbors to the secret police of the Austrian police state under Metternich. The rescuer was Johann Mayrhofer, one of the great German poets of his era. He offered to share an apartment with Frannie, and because Jack Mayrhofer was a censor working in an imperial office censoring books and plays, Daddy thought he would make a good socially conservative roommate for his son. What Daddy didn’t know was that Jack was gay. Jack was always giving Frannie an education in Greek mythology and behavior, introducing him to homoerotic undertones in current German poetry – and possibly teaching his boy other things best left unmentioned. Eventually, Frannie got tired of Jack’s poking and probing at night and left the apartment for rooms with Franz von Schober.

Schober could be best described as omni-sexual, in that a ripe melon would not have been safe in his presence. He never married, tried many careers and failed at all of them, and spent a lot of other people’s money. He had a gift of getting other people into trouble, but when the bill came due, he was always on the other side of town. He played a critical role in Schubert’s death at age 31, but he managed to live to the ripe old age of 86, dying surrounded by mourning great-nieces and great-nephews who thought the world of him.

Schober was a poet, but third rate. His poetry survives only because Schubert wrote such ravishing melodies for them. It was the love of poetry that attracted Frannie to Schober, along with the fact that Schober was dangerous. It was a moth-and-flame situation. One of Schubert’s failed operas, “Alfonso and Estrella,” had Schober writing the book.

Schober liked sex with women, sex with men, and smoking opium, although it’s hard to discern which order he preferred. Getting Frannie free from Jack Mayrhofer, Schober took him out for a night on the town, finishing up at a bordello with a liberal dose of smoked opium – and eventually a case of syphilis. This was the Sword of Damocles that hung over Schubert’s head for next six years of his life until secondary syphilis and typhoid finished him off at age 31. This was why Frannie made such a quantum leap in his music.

This mature symphony was left unfinished because Schubert lost the thread after the second movement. A partial third movement, a scherzo, was discovered in 1969, and it reverts to his juvenile style.

This is the first movement, and it sounds nothing like Schubert’s early symphonic material. It’s as though it came from a different composer entirely. Although it’s marked “allegro moderato,” most conductors take it at a plodding pace. This is a period instrument recording that takes it at a proper pace. It shows a sense of both dread and beauty, and it’s one of his best known pieces.

Schubert: Symphony #8 in B minor, D. 759, first movement