These outstanding achievements along with his poor health didn't deter him from making arrangements to study counterpoint. He believed that he still had a great deal more to learn about music in spite of the vast amount of works that he'd produced in his lifetime.
Even when he was terminally ill, he corrected the proofs of the final part of Winter's Journey. His dying wish was to be buried near Beethoven, and his wish was granted.
As an adult piano student, I am in awe of Franz Schubert. Not only his genius as a composer, but his determination to continue to produce works in spite of illness makes me feel so very small in comparison. Yet, I do not have his talent, nor do I have the drive to do as he did. He wrote, "No one understands another's grief, no one understands another's joy....My music is the product of my talent and my misery. And that which I have written in my greatest distress is what the world seems to like best." And as a writer, I do understand and relate to these words.
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