Schubert had an image problem. During his lifetime, he was largely unknown beyond his native Vienna, where in any case the public was familiar with only a select portion of his vast output. After Schubert's death, scarce, inaccurate, and often conflicting information about him meant biographers and commentators could create almost any representation they fancied, the all-too-familiar portrait whose authenticity deserves a hard look. This introductory chapter examines Schubert's malleable image by contemplating the larger meanings of three important nineteenth-century pictures. Pondering specific visual depictions, I believe, can help us better understand Schubert's ba¬ling place in the popular imagination. The sketch, sepia drawing, and painting reproduced here raise crucial issues concerning Schubert's compositions, cultural milieu, and general reputation. Even if this preliminary investigation does not ultimately yield the “real” Schubert, at the very least it alerts us to some of the complicating factors in representing his life.

But before looking at these visual portraits, I should say a few words about the verbal portraits of the composer that have so powerfully informed public views. The first significant biography of Schubert appeared nearly forty years after his death, an inconceivable lapse of time for any other leading nineteenth-century composer. No doubt a major reason for this delay was the unusual course of Schubert's lived and posthumous career, particularly that so many of his supreme compositions were only discovered long after his death. When Schubert died in 1828 at age thirty-one, few people would have considered his life worthy of a substantial book. Only in the mid 1860s did Heinrich Kreissle von Hellborn, a Viennese lawyer who had never met Schubert but who loved his music passionately, finally realize the task others had started yet never finished.