Schubert 2028: marking the bicentenary of the composer’s death
Explore works from the Boosey & Hawkes and Sikorski catalogues inspired by the iconic example of Franz Schubert. Read work notes outlining the Schubert connections for programmers, conductors and performers and listen to our playlist.
19 November 2028 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Franz Schubert. Despite his short life, Schubert composed a body of work of extraordinary breadth and lasting influence. For audiences and programmers alike, his music offers a rich and seemingly inexhaustible source of connections across artistic disciplines, styles, and historical periods.
We invite readers to explore a dialogue across the centuries through a selection of works from the Boosey & Hawkes catalogue that engage with Schubert’s music, life, and legacy. These compositions offer compelling opportunities for programming alongside Schubert’s own works, illuminating his enduring impact on generations of composers who followed.
> Visit our Schubert 2028 website
> Download our detailed Schubert 2028 brochure (German)
> Listen to our Schubert 2028 playlist
Schubert's compositions shaped some of the most important musical developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from Gustav Mahler and the Second Viennese School to post-war modernism in Germany and Austria, and on to the present day. Given their central place within his musical output, his songs and chamber works have been especially significant sources of inspiration.
At the same time, the brochure lists a number of larger-scale orchestral tributes and reworkings of Schubert's music that are particularly well suited to symphonic concert programming, created by contemporary composers including Lera Auerbach, Brett Dean, Detlev Glanert and Elena Kats-Chernin. The brochure also includes a collection of scores inspired by the example and scoring of Schubert’s celebrated Octet in F Major (D 803), which can be performed coupled with the classic work. For the stage, we highlight the adaptation of Schubert’s Die Bürgschaft (The Pledge), which reimagines the operatic fragment based on Schiller’s dramatic ballad for contemporary audiences of all ages.
> View our complete list of Schubert-inspired works