This is a very enjoyable film for its charm and idyllic musicality with much of the best music of Schubert - the only other music in the film is by Beethoven, who appears in a few scenes with very impressing pathos, like a continuance of the great Beethoven film of 1949 with Ewald Balser, who here completes the picture of the Beethoven tragedy with poignant acuteness. Karlheinz Böhm plays Schubert with convincing sympathy and communicates a very truthful image of the young composer's amiable personality. The story is of a promising love affair that unfortunately reached an unintentional end and is a typical operetta intrigue - "The House of Three Girls" was a successful operetta based entirely on Schubert's music, but the film goes deeper into characterization and feeling - it's actually a very sensitive film with music playing the lead exquisitely illustrating the moods of the Schubert circle with their parties - you recognize much of it from the equally heart-warming Mozart film three years earlier with Oskar Werner as the ultimate Mozart. The film focuses on the bright sides of Schubert's life and omits the rest, which adds to the charm without going superficial - after all, the unequalled melodious music of Schubert is anything but superficial in its perfect musical purity. This is not only a film for lovers of music and Schubert but for anyone who just want to have a moment of delightful company and entertainment in a perfectly harmonious environment.
