What do you think?
Rate this book
Die Post: A Franz Schubert Postcard Catalogue
This is a large size, 'coffee table' book, with associate kindle version, with pictures in colour. Readers are encouraged to provide feedback, and especially to provide details of cards unknown to us. Colour versions are very expensive to print, so we offer a black and white version of the physical book in another listing.
Current 1.0
Release July 2020
Physical catalogue 25 pages of introductory editorial matter, including a table of contents. 210 pages of the catalogue, small bibliography.
Number of Approximately 1477 'base postcards', some of which have 2 or more 'variants', with a total of around 2231 different catalogued cards, with over 850 pictured.
This is a catalogue of postcards of, about and in many cases with just a subtle reference to the composer Franz Schubert . Of all the great composers, he has probably got the largest, most diverse range of postcards (I suspect that Wagner is next, and then Beethoven). This is not because he is universally agreed to be the greatest or most popular composer, but because of a 'perfect storm' of events. Schubert's short life (he died aged just 31) meant that his birth centenary in 1897 was around the beginning of the 'purple period' for postcards, and his death centenary in 1928 towards the end. 1916 was the start of the phenomena that was Das Dreimäderlhaus , an operetta about Schubert using melodies 'butchered' (to quote Maurice JE Brown) from his works. That was a smash hit in several languages (the English version was named Lilac Time , and the American one was Blossom Time ), and spawned lots of postcards. At the start of the 20th century ‘song cards’ were all the rage. These were mostly for ‘popular songs’, of course, but Schubert (known to the Austrians as the Liederfurst or "Prince of Songs") wrote over 700 classical songs many of which appeared on song cards. Finally, in 1928 there was the 10th Deutsche Sängerbundesfest in Vienna, a celebration of Male voice choirs, the Schubert centenary, and rather darker issues of pan-Germanic unity. That led to an influx of more than 100,000 visitors to Vienna who all needed Schubert postcards to buy to send home and to keep as souvenirs.
I have collected and maintained a catalogue of Schubert postcards for nearly thirty years, initially to help me remember what I already owned, but subsequently to drive a point-and-shoot website of the Schubert Institute (UK) (SIUK). It includes not only my collection, but details of several other collections from collector friends. Also incorporated are details from a couple of catalogues of exhibitions from the 1997 Schubert birth bicentenary, and Otto May’s postcard book on Schubert (search for it on here). I no longer have the technical ability to write a new website, so Print on Demand seems to be the best way to get the details of the catalogue into the hands of interested parties. Many months of effort to check, reformat, clean up and generally polish the catalogue has got it to the stage where it is ready to print. So I then wrote Excel calculations and word macros to suck the data out of Excel, and build and format the text of the catalogue – the pictures being added manually.
Postcards catalogued include lots of portraits and pictures (including some rather rude ones), pictures of various buildings he is associated with - his birth and death houses, the buildings where he lived and so on. Cards of his graves (he had two, and there are even some cards of pictures of his skull when they dug him up) and statues are included. There are also large numbers of cards about his works, including many song cards. Miscellaneous cards also cards about pseudo-biographical films and operettas, cards of various museums, and cards with incidental Schubert references, and more.
Richard Morris , The Schubert Institute (UK)
Current 1.0
Release July 2020
Physical catalogue 25 pages of introductory editorial matter, including a table of contents. 210 pages of the catalogue, small bibliography.
Number of Approximately 1477 'base postcards', some of which have 2 or more 'variants', with a total of around 2231 different catalogued cards, with over 850 pictured.
This is a catalogue of postcards of, about and in many cases with just a subtle reference to the composer Franz Schubert . Of all the great composers, he has probably got the largest, most diverse range of postcards (I suspect that Wagner is next, and then Beethoven). This is not because he is universally agreed to be the greatest or most popular composer, but because of a 'perfect storm' of events. Schubert's short life (he died aged just 31) meant that his birth centenary in 1897 was around the beginning of the 'purple period' for postcards, and his death centenary in 1928 towards the end. 1916 was the start of the phenomena that was Das Dreimäderlhaus , an operetta about Schubert using melodies 'butchered' (to quote Maurice JE Brown) from his works. That was a smash hit in several languages (the English version was named Lilac Time , and the American one was Blossom Time ), and spawned lots of postcards. At the start of the 20th century ‘song cards’ were all the rage. These were mostly for ‘popular songs’, of course, but Schubert (known to the Austrians as the Liederfurst or "Prince of Songs") wrote over 700 classical songs many of which appeared on song cards. Finally, in 1928 there was the 10th Deutsche Sängerbundesfest in Vienna, a celebration of Male voice choirs, the Schubert centenary, and rather darker issues of pan-Germanic unity. That led to an influx of more than 100,000 visitors to Vienna who all needed Schubert postcards to buy to send home and to keep as souvenirs.
I have collected and maintained a catalogue of Schubert postcards for nearly thirty years, initially to help me remember what I already owned, but subsequently to drive a point-and-shoot website of the Schubert Institute (UK) (SIUK). It includes not only my collection, but details of several other collections from collector friends. Also incorporated are details from a couple of catalogues of exhibitions from the 1997 Schubert birth bicentenary, and Otto May’s postcard book on Schubert (search for it on here). I no longer have the technical ability to write a new website, so Print on Demand seems to be the best way to get the details of the catalogue into the hands of interested parties. Many months of effort to check, reformat, clean up and generally polish the catalogue has got it to the stage where it is ready to print. So I then wrote Excel calculations and word macros to suck the data out of Excel, and build and format the text of the catalogue – the pictures being added manually.
Postcards catalogued include lots of portraits and pictures (including some rather rude ones), pictures of various buildings he is associated with - his birth and death houses, the buildings where he lived and so on. Cards of his graves (he had two, and there are even some cards of pictures of his skull when they dug him up) and statues are included. There are also large numbers of cards about his works, including many song cards. Miscellaneous cards also cards about pseudo-biographical films and operettas, cards of various museums, and cards with incidental Schubert references, and more.
Richard Morris , The Schubert Institute (UK)
242 pages, Paperback
Published June 10, 2020
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.