Composer
Franz Schubert
Over 600 songs and a life cut short at 31, standing right at the Classical-Romantic hinge.
Franz Schubert died at 31, yet left behind one of the largest and most admired catalogues in classical music, including over 600 songs that essentially founded the German Lied as a serious concert form. Where many composers wrote a handful of significant vocal works, Schubert treated the combination of solo voice and piano as a genuinely major outlet, setting poetry by Goethe and others with a melodic gift that's rarely been matched.
His Symphony No. 8, nicknamed the "Unfinished," breaks off after only two complete movements — whether from illness, self-doubt, or simply moving on to other projects is still debated — and yet those two movements are considered complete and satisfying enough that the symphony is performed regularly exactly as it stands, unfinished.
Schubert worked right at the hinge between the Classical and Romantic eras: his structures often echo Haydn and Mozart, while his harmonic language and emotional directness point forward to the Romantics who idolized him after his early death, including Schumann and Brahms.
Where to start listening: "Ave Maria" is his most universally known piece; the "Unfinished" Symphony's first movement shows his gift for melody at orchestral scale.