Schubert had been seriously ill for more than a year when he penned unusually anguished words to Leopold Kupelwieser on the last day of March 1824:

Schubert reached out desperately to his close friend, who was in Rome painting and studying art: “at last I can once again wholly pour out my soul to someone.” He had confided to Schober earlier: “I hope to regain my health, and this recovered treasure will let me forget many a sorrow” (SMF 301). While the omnipresence of the sick and the dying in an overcrowded city such as Vienna made illness and mortality all-too-familiar aspects of everyday life, perhaps this familiarity also made them somewhat less terrifying. Grave illness only intensified an acquaintance with death that Schubert had known for years. His mother died when he was fifteen; only five of fourteen siblings from his father's first marriage survived childhood.

Although Schubert's health had apparently been robust until this point, letters make painfully clear that he was under no illusions once it was shattered: his life was forever changed.