Ludwig Van Beethoven was a badass. The German composer and pianist smashed the keys hard enough to break the strings. He used vulgar language. Baffled by Beethoven's iconoclastic composing style, a group of string musicians refused to play the last movement of his 13th quartet. Beethoven's response was blunt: "What do I care about you and your fucking fiddles?"

Franz Schubert, on the other hand, was the Tom Hanks of classical composers: a shy workaholic with an amazing body of work. Schubert, nicknamed "Mushroom" by his friends for his retiring personality, wrote almost 1,000 works of music before he died of typhoid fever at 31. These included more than 600 songs, nine symphonies, operas, liturgical music, and chamber and solo piano music.

"You have to love the guy, who died at 31, ill, impoverished, and neglected except by a circle of friends who were in awe of his genius," New York Times music critics Anthony Tommasini wrote. "For his hundreds of songs alone - including the haunting cycle Winterreise, which will never release its tenacious hold on singers and audiences - Schubert is central to our concert life."

Friday, March 30, University of Puget Sound's School of Music will give its own bow to Mushroom with the Jacobsen Series concert Schubertiade, featuring a small sampling of the Austrian composer's immense portfolio of work.

[Schneebeck Concert Hall, Friday, March 30, 7:30 p.m., $12.50, $8.50 for seniors, students, military, free for UPS students, 1500 N. Warner, Tacoma, 253.879.3419]