Rare Franz Schubert Manuscript Sells for $156,658
Franz Schubert’s Das Grab manuscript
A one-page signed autograph manuscript featuring Franz Schubert’s choral setting Das Grab has sold for $156,658 at RR Auction.
Dated February 11, 1816, it was written during an early period of the composer's career in Vienna when he was 19. The manuscript presents a setting for male choir (TTBB) and piano of a poem by Johann Gaudenz von Salis-Seewis, notated across three systems with performance markings and the poet’s name inscribed at the conclusion. Long believed lost, the manuscript survives in fine condition and is accompanied by an engraved portrait of the composer.
Schubert returned repeatedly to Salis-Seewis’s meditation on the grave and the unknown beyond between 1815 and 1819, producing five versions. Unlike many of his lieder, all Schubert’s treatments of this text are choral.
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