Schubert's Vienna: 17 Syphilis

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Franz Schubert, as part of a season of programmes devoted to the Viennese composer

Sean Rafferty is taken to the ‘Sterbewohnung’, the house where Schubert spent his final days and where he composed some of his greatest works, and goes to the Zentralfriedhof where Schubert is buried.

Sean Rafferty sees grisly evidence of Schubert’s syphilitic condition with Dr Beatrix Patzak, director of the Federal Pathology and Anatomy Museum, and hears about the symptoms, progress and treatment of the disease.

In the eight and final episode of The Schubert Lab, Tom Service tries to answer the question: Is Schubert's final year an end or a begining?

Romance proved difficult for Schubert - he stood barely five feet tall, with a long oval face and a deeply cleft chin. In turning to the streets of 19th century Vienna, "a night in the arms of Venus lead to a lifetime on Mercury" Whilst uncertainty exists about the cause of Schubert's death from syphilis, what do his attempts at mercury remedies reveal about his final few years? The medical historian and author of Romanticism and the Sciences Andrew Cunningham, examines The UnRomantic death of the mercurial Schubert.

Sean Rafferty is guided round the Lichtenthal Church, scene of Schubert’s baptism and first public performance, by parishioner Hannah Martin.

In the seventh episode of The Schubert Lab, Tom Service tries to answer the question: Who is Schubert? Prove whether he was a composer up with the angels or bathed in slime.

Sean Rafferty follows in Schubert’s schoolboy footsteps as Nora Tunkel takes him to Mass sung by the Vienna Boys’ Choir at the Hofburgkapelle, and reads Schubert’s school report with Simon Posch, director of the Vienna House of Music.

Donald Macleod explores the life and work of Franz Schubert, as part of a season of programmes devoted to the Viennese composer

During the 19th century public performance became polite and professional. Audiences listened attentively in an environment free of gimmicks, and performance criticism blossomed. Night Waves' Matthew Sweet examines the legacy that controlling an audience would create, and how this new wave of respectability enabled writing, composing and performance to prosper.