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Here’s a little thought experiment. Read the words \u2018musical prodigy\u2019 and which name comes to mind? Ten to one you\u2019re already thinking of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart<\/strong><\/a>: composer of his first symphony at the age of eight and his first opera at 11, performing at the Court of Louis XV at seven, and going on to enrich just about every important musical genre with significant masterpieces before dying at the obscenely early age of 35. But \u2013 and granted the range of his success isn\u2019t as stupefyingly broad as Mozart\u2019s \u2013 I\u2019d like to suggest that the achievement of Franz Schubert is every bit as prodigious. Perhaps, dare one say it, even more so?<\/p> Schubert wrote no concertos and very few display pieces in any form; as a pianist he was more than competent but no virtuoso. And while some of his operas have begun to be reappraised in our time, they\u2019re still far from being standard repertory. <\/p> But the best is unsurpassed \u2013 and there\u2019s so much of it. There are two of the most dazzling gems of 19th-century orchestral music (the Unfinished<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and Great<\/em> C major symphonies), four profoundly original string quartets<\/a><\/strong>, and an even greater string quintet, a wealth of glorious piano music, some of the most original choral works of the Romantic era<\/strong><\/a>, and an awe-inspiring legacy of well over 600 songs \u2013 the latter not so much a treasure chest as an immense vault one could spend a lifetime exploring. Not that Schubert had much of a lifetime to compose them: he was dead two months before his 32nd birthday.<\/p>‘The best of Schubert is unsurpassed – and there’s so much of it’<\/h2>