Sunday Feature: Claiming Schubert

John Tusa explores the many and varied ways in which the Viennese composer has been used and reinvented after his death, in politics, art and literature. For many decades across parts of Europe there was a romantic interpretation of Schubert as lovelorn, naive and at one with nature. He has also been seen in a feminine context, especially after Robert Schumann described him as having feminine qualities when compared to Beethoven. However, Schubert has also been appropriated by political leaders. The emerging Christian Socialist Party in 20th-century Vienna used the composer to exemplify a nostalgic, non-multicultural way of life, which fitted in with their anti-semitic and anti-liberal policies. John explores the significance of this and how the link with fascism developed throughout the century. He also hears how novelist George Eliot and painter Gustav Klimt refashioned the composer and brought a different view of him to a wider public