My conscience is haunted by Franz Schubert.

There has been quite a bit of his music played recently, and even more coming up over the next few months. Just last Sunday, the Warsaw Philharmonic played his Third Symphony in the Usher Hall. In the past few weeks there have been performances in Scotland of two of his last Piano Sonatas, in A Major and in B flat Major, by distinguished UK musicians Llyr Williams and Martin Roscoe.

Next month, pianist Alasdair Beatson plays another, not-quite-so-late Sonata, in A minor. Also in June a wheen of Schubert's music will be played during the Cottier Chamber Project, including his final song collection, Schwanengesang, his First String Trio and the single-movement Quartettsatz, the sizzling Arpeggione Sonata and the B flat Piano Trio, one of the greatest of all Romantic chamber works; and there will be a rarity in a performance of his music for four horns and male voices. There will also be two all-Schubert concerts on June 12 and 14 in Aberdeen and Glasgow, given by Music Co-OPERAtive Scotland and conductor Tobias Ringborg, featuring Death And The Maiden in Mahler's arrangement, and the Fifth Symphony.

And the current wave of Schubert activity is not confined to the concert hall. There is a new double album release of his keyboard music featuring two of the Sonatas, including that almighty final B flat Sonata, along with his character pieces - the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux. Now, that collection is recorded by Hungarian-born Andras Schiff (now Sir Andras) and is incredibly challenging, provocative and stimulating. Schiff does not use an orthodox modern concert grand piano, such as a Steinway, but instead plays the music on a fortepiano (a very different instrument) dating from around 1820, in a set of performances that raises many issues, addressed openly and frankly in a confessional essay written by Schiff himself; and that is a major classical music story in its own right, for another day soon.

So what is it about all this activity, in concert hall and recording studio, that has me haunted about the music of Schubert? Quite simple: guilt, and it's personal. I do not think that Schubert, either the composer or the man, has ever featured in this space in his own right. I'm not sure that he's even had any significant en passant presence. That's appalling. Mea culpa. It reminds me of the dreadful neglect Schubert and his music suffered after his death, in his own time, when he was regarded by many as a lesser light - a light, moreover, eclipsed by the glitzy, starry professionals of the day, such as Paganini.

Of course the fact that Schubert didn't write big heroic concertos (no concertos at all) or have any significant success in the very public, sexy field of opera, didn't exactly help establish a high profile for the wee Viennese composer. His was a more intimate musical world in some ways, more domestic. He also had a desperately short life. Schubert was only ever a young man: he died before he made it to 32. He died of syphilis and was extremely ill towards the end. Yet what he packed into his 31 years is almost gobsmacking in its volume and depth, though it took history a long time to acknowledge and appreciate it.

So today let's just get him onto this page with a quick look at what he did in the short years he had, perhaps get just a flavour of the man behind those distinctive glasses, and then soon, something meatier, on what Andras Schiff has been doing with Schubert's music.

Let's place him in time. He was born in 1797. Beethoven was 27: the two met only once, when Beethoven was dying and received a visit from Schubert, who later was a torch-bearer at Beethoven's funeral. Schubert's own education began early, from his father, a teacher, and his older brother. Schubert's gifts were spotted early by his dad who secured professional musical training for the lad. He was composing, for domestic performances, from way before his teens, and rapidly outstripped the family.

And that's point today. His compositional life, running from his mid/late teens to his death in 1828, was itself quite brief. Yet the sheer volume of music that poured from him, unforgettably tuneful as well as dramatic, was near-incredible, including nine-ish symphonies (one's a reconstruction), 15 String Quartets, 16 Piano Sonatas and an awesome 600 songs, often at a rate of up to eight a day, including two of the greatest song cycles ever penned: Die Schone Mullerin and Winterreise. It wasn't all ivory-tower work, either: Schubert packed in an amazing, hectic, alcohol-fuelled social life with his circle. But that'll do for starters.