Schubert

A Musical Wayfarer

By: Lorraine Byrne Bodley

Narrated by: Christa Lewis

An insightful biography of the great composer, revealing Schubert's complex and fascinating private life alongside his musical genius

Brilliant, short-lived, incredibly prolific—Schubert is one of the most intriguing figures in music history. While his music attracts a wide audience, much of his private life remains shrouded in mystery, and significant portions of his work have been overlooked.

In this major new biography, Lorraine Byrne Bodley takes a detailed look into Schubert's life, from his early years at the Stadtkonvikt to the harrowing battle with syphilis that led to his death at the age of thirty-one. Drawing on extensive archival research in Vienna and the Czech Republic, and reconsidering the meaning of some of his best-known works, Bodley provides a fuller account than ever before of Schubert's extraordinary achievement and incredible courage. This is a compelling new portrait of one of the most beloved composers of the nineteenth century.

©2023 Lorraine Byrne Bodley (P)2023 Tantor

The narration is very tiring.

Unfortunately, I can’t say much about the book itself, it may well be excellent and worth buying in print, but the narrator’s voice is too difficult to listen to for long. Adjusting the playback speed didn’t improve the experience either.

Brilliant biography

This is a highly detailed biography of Schubert. The scholarship is masterful. The narrator has a pleasant little voice but her attempts at German and any other accent is so painful I lose the continuity as I struggle to figure out who is Shoebut? Or Shuput? Or Sayeri? This is a common problem with numerous otherwise successful audiobooks here on audible. Although some books have been rendered absolutely unlistenable because of this issue, like The Romanovs by Montefiore. I wish the narrator would just pronounce foreign names and words clearly without attempting to pretend they know these languages. Shoebut! I pity the authors who have their work butchered because of this failing.