Music for a Better World. A New Biography of Franz Schubert
Two hundred years ago, in 1823, a young, incredibly prolific composer—who had written 600 of his 1000 works by the age of 21— discovered the power of music to transport him ‘to a better world’. Having grieved the loss of his mother at 15 and unable to secure a permanent position, partner or place to live, Schubert was in deep conflict with himself. His contraction of syphilis brought his existential crisis to a head and forced him to confront his own mortality at the age of 25. In his remaining six years, his ability to achieve his life’s purpose is an inspiring story of extraordinary achievement and incredible courage.
This biography offers a fresh appraisal of Schubert’s often chaotic and turbulent private and professional life, and thereby contextualizes the singular growth of his musical imagination under the impact of family (especially his relationship with his father), friendship, sexuality and the cultural politics of early nineteenth-century Vienna. It reconsiders the structural and emotional meaning of many of Schubert’s best-known works through the agency of new research (notably in relation to the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony), and it countenances the significance of his contribution as a composer of astonishing song settings, sacred music, the symphony, piano dances and duets, and his persistent if unsuccessful enterprises in the opera house, among much else. Above all, it privileges Schubert’s lifelong debt to Italian compositional technique (against the grain of his more general reception as a quintessentially ‘German’ composer) at the hands of his teacher, Antonio Salieri, together with the composer’s own exceptional immersion in and response to contemporary German poetry. Schubert’s life was constantly prone to what Virginia Woolf memorably described as ‘the assault of truth’: this biography seeks to understand that life in relation to the imperishable music it nevertheless produced.
Lorraine Byrne Bodley is Professor of Musicology at Maynooth University and Member of the Royal Irish Academy. She is the first woman in Ireland to be conferred with a DMUS in Musicology, a higher doctorate on published work (NUI, 2012) and the first woman elected President of the Society for Musicology in Ireland (2016–2021). She is Invited Member of the Internationale Schubert-Gesellschaft (Vienna), Board Member of the Schubert Research Centre at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and General Editor with Harry White of the international book series Irish Musical Studies (Boydell and Brewer).
Prof. Bodley is known internationally for her work on Schubert, on Goethe and Music, on which she has published prolifically and given over 150 international guest lectures in German and in English. She has published 15 books, which have consistently challenged conventional narratives. Her first monograph, Schubert’s Goethe Settings, challenged the then-prominent view of Goethe’s neglect of the composer. Most recently, she is the author of major new biography on Schubert. A Musical Wayfarer (Yale University Press, 2023), which takes an unparalleled look into the composer’s life, from his early years at the Stadtkonvikt through his harrowing battle with syphilis and to his death at the age of 31. In between she published five volumes of essays on Schubert including Rethinking Schubert (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style (Cambridge University Press, 2016), both seminal contributions to the field.
One of the hallmarks of Bodley’s research is that it is internationally recognized in two disciplines: Musicology and Germanistics. Interdisciplinary publications include: Music in Goethe’s Faust: Goethe’s Faust in Music (Boydell & Brewer, 2017) and Goethe and Zelter: Musical Dialogues (Ashgate, 2009) which has been widely acclaimed as ‘a major contribution to Goethe studies and an ‘excellent translation’ (Music and Letters, The Schubertian, Choice, Modern Language Review, German Quarterly).
In addition to her work as a music historian, she has prepared numerous critical editions of musical works for professional performance. Her first edited score, Schubert’s opera, Claudine von Villa Bella was conducted by Colman Pearce in Trinity College Dublin (2003) as part of a Northern Ireland Peace Project funded by the EU (2001-3) for which she was Principle Investigator; the North American Premiere was given by the Regina Symphony Orchestra (2004). Her critical edition of Eberwein and Goethe’s melodrama, Proserpina, was premiered by the National Symphony Orchestra (2007) toured by the Thüringer Symphoniker throughout Germany (2010) and most recently performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra in 2016 with Salome Kammer as Proserpina.
A large part of her work includes public outreach including an invitation to guest curate a lecture series on Schubert Symphonies performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel (2016) for which she wrote and delivered six talks reimagining Schubert’s contribution to the symphony broadcast on LA Phil’s Upbeat Live series. She has shared insights gained through her research on Schubert’s Late Works with a wider public through talks and radio broadcasts for Schubert. Dreaming the Sublime, Kilkenny International Arts Festival Ireland (2017). She is a regular teacher at the Oxford Lieder Festival (2012–).
As curator of her husband’s manuscripts, she corresponds regularly on Seóirse Bodley’s behalf and is deeply committed to the promotion and preservation of life’s work.