Schubert has been described as the last ‘classical’ and as the first ‘romantic’ composer, but it is really impossible to pin a meaningful label on him. He was and still is a very special case, a lonely figure in musical history, a dreamer who brought into music a degree of intimacy, despair, hope and disappointment previously unknown. Schubert was a sincere, shy and vulnerable man (though he did not lack confidence in himself as an artist) and his personality is clearly reflected in his music.