Why is Schubert buried beside Beethoven? Not at first: in 1828 three other graves lay between them; in 1888 Vienna reburied both side by side in the Zentralfriedhof. This is the full life story of Franz Schubert, who wrote more than 600 songs, never held a steady paying job as a musician, and died at 31.

This Franz Schubert biography documentary tells his life in four movements: the rise, the work, the last year, and what came after. Schubert never held a stable court or church post; he was mostly heard by his own friends, at evenings they called a "Schubertiade" - now also a festival marking its 50th anniversary in 2026. Along the way: the 1815 miracle year, when he wrote well over a hundred songs including the now-popular "Erlkönig"; why the "Unfinished" Symphony stops after two movements, still unresolved; the live medical debate over typhoid, an earlier illness, or its mercury treatment; and the 1888 reburial that placed his grave beside Beethoven's, where both lie today in Vienna's Zentralfriedhof.

It is also a listening film: "Erlkönig" plays, explained plainly first - the song Schubert sent to Goethe, who never wrote back. About 29 minutes, 28 chapters, with Schubert's own letters, the death record, and the 2025 hair-analysis study shown on screen.

CHAPTERS
0:00 The question: 600 songs, dead at 31, buried beside Beethoven
0:50 1797: Franz Schubert is born in a Vienna suburb
1:41 A schoolmaster's family plays string quartets at home
2:13 1808: 11-year-old Schubert auditions for Vienna's choir school
3:11 1812: a teenage Schubert's letter describes hunger and cold
3:57 1813: Schubert becomes a schoolteacher, and hates it
4:36 1815: the miracle year, and what '600 songs' really means
6:04 Erlkönig: the listening movement, and Goethe's silence
7:44 A friend rescues Schubert from the schoolroom
8:40 The Schubertiade: how Schubert's circle heard his music
10:06 1816: Schubert applies for a post in Laibach, and loses it
10:34 1822: illness, and why the Unfinished Symphony stops
12:09 A court musician admits he's never heard Schubert's music
13:00 1827: Schubert loses the Vice-Kapellmeister appointment
13:39 1827: Schubert carries a torch at Beethoven's funeral
14:04 The toast to whoever would die next - and who it was
14:37 1828: Schubert's only public concert of his own music
15:17 1828: the String Quintet, last sonatas, Schwanengesang
16:12 Typhoid, syphilis, or mercury: what actually killed Schubert
17:48 19 November 1828: Schubert dies at 31
18:01 The 'dying wish' to rest by Beethoven - who wrote it down
19:56 Schubert's funeral, and a first grave not beside Beethoven's
20:22 1830: Grillparzer's epitaph on Schubert's first gravestone
20:54 The Unfinished Symphony sits undisclosed for decades
21:57 1839: Schumann finds Schubert's 'Great' Symphony
23:02 1865: the Unfinished Symphony premieres, decades late
23:54 Decades of Schubert manuscripts keep surfacing
25:09 1888: Schubert and Beethoven are reburied side by side
26:15 Where Schubert's grave and his music stand today

The Lost Chord - the lives behind the music.
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MUSIC - no credit is drawn on screen, so these lines are the attribution:
Franz Schubert, Erlkönig, D.328 - Robert Leonhardt, baritone, with orchestra, cond. Nathaniel Shilkret (Victor, rec. 27 December 1921; Library of Congress National Jukebox, courtesy UC Santa Barbara Special Collections; public domain, published before 1923)
Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in A major, D.664 -- Paul Pitman, piano (Musopen 2012 Kickstarter recording; public domain)
Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in A minor, D.845 -- Paul Pitman, piano (Musopen 2012 Kickstarter recording; public domain)
Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in A major, D.959 -- Paul Pitman, piano (Musopen 2012 Kickstarter recording; public domain)

IMAGERY - Creative Commons Attribution, credit required:
Andreas Praefcke - the Red Crab house, Schubert's birthplace, Vienna, present day (CC BY 3.0)
Wellcome Collection - a period schoolroom engraving (CC BY 4.0)
Wellcome Collection - a period Vienna apothecary interior (CC BY 4.0)
Fischer, Hann, Amory et al., Wiener klinische Wochenschrift (2025; PMC12241130) - the hair-analysis study's title page (CC BY 4.0)

Public domain, CC0 and no-known-restrictions sources: Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek; Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde; Albertina; Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere; Sammlung Schack; Houghton Library; The Morgan Library & Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The British Museum; Rijksmuseum; Beethoven-Haus Bonn; Wien Museum; Library of Congress National Jukebox.
Bellotto; van Aken; Kupelwieser; Kriehuber; Stieler; Teltscher; Hensel; Dave Pape; Peter Gugerell.
Everything on screen is real; none of it is AI.