In the first of a major four-part series, Graham Johnson explores Franz Schubert’s early life in Vienna.

Focusing here on the formative influences on Schubert’s musical development, Johnson delves into Schubert’s home life, the first concerts he experienced and his school years.

Having engaged with Schubert’s music for over five decades as an internationally celebrated performer, scholar and author, Johnson offers unique insights into Schubert’s story, building a vivid and detailed picture of this incomparable composer.

In the second episode of a landmark series about Schubert’s life, Graham Johnson looks at the great composer’s friendship with the poet Johann Baptist Mayrhofer.

Mayrhofer was someone who instantly recognised Schubert’s musical genius, writing in his diary, “The fog of the present time will be lifted by listening to Schubert’s melodies”.

For the third part of Graham Johnson’s journey through Schubert’s life, he explores the years 1821-1824.

These years are shaped by Schubert’s friendship with Franz von Schober, and in 1823 Schubert composed the first of his epoch-making song cycles Die schöne Müllerin. However, the period of 1823-24 was one of great pain, panic, depression and tragedy for the composer.

In the final installment of Graham Johnson’s account of Schubert’s story, we learn about the last four years of the composer’s life.

This was a period of astonishing creativity before Schubert’s tragic death aged only 31, and we are left wondering what musical future there might have been, had Schubert not died so young.