A Day with Schubert
by May Byron
Introduction
Schubert has historically had a very bad press, often by misguided enthusiasts such as Grove. For many years he was represented as an unthinking, bohemian composer, who composed without being aware what he was doing, was oblivious of good or bad poems, was poverty stricken, unloved and unappreciated, and so on. Of all the great composers, he is the man, and his is the life we know least about. This Romanticised view of him, combined with the relative lack of facts, led to much garbage being written about him, including ballets, plays and fiction about his love life, and ultimately things like 'Lilac Time' an operetta using arrangements of his themes with a rediculous libretto about Schober stealing his girlfriend.
These days, things are slowly improving, in parallel with his rise through the ranks of composers to the status he now has. This article consists of the entire text of a book which is very representative of the stuff which was churned out in the past. I've posted it because I thought it might amuse and inform about the historical view - but don't take anything it says too literally. I've made various comments which can be found in the footnotes, but tried to keep them to comments about facts - if I clambered into opinions, there would be more comments than original text...
The book was obviously part of a series. My copy advertises other similar books about Mendelssohn (which I've seen at a bookshop) and Beethoven - in addition, one of my local book shops had a copy of one on Schumann when last I visited it. The book is undated, and was published by Hodder and Stoughton, and printed by the Bushey Colour Press. My copy has the inscription "To Cissie from Bert, Aug 17th 1913", so we can assume the publication predates that time (the bibliography in Flower quotes 1910). It's quite small, with large print and 'romantic' pictures of scenes from some of the songs.
Much of the English, and the spelling, is somewhat archaic - but there should be few if any typos since I scanned the book and shoved it through an OCR program. So don't blame me!
My notes are indicated by links in square brackets. If you follow the link to the notes at the bottom of the page, press 'back' on your browser to get you back to where you came from.
The full text of the book is as follows:
TIME, - A cloudy April day in the year 1824. Scene, - a gloomy, dusty, ill-furnished apartment in a back street in Vienna [1]. Enter a short, round-shouldered, podgy-looking man, unbrushed, unwashed, unshaved, - who, without a glance at the coffee going cold on the extremely dubious table-cloth, drops clumsily upon the broken chair before the piano, and flings himself into an animated rendering of the song which he has composed during his so-called toilet [2].
There is little doubt that, in the case of many great geniuses, not only is their treasure in earthen vessels, but themselves are merely vehicles and media for the expression of some divine immortal impulse, - for the ebullition of aspirations and inspirations with which they naturally have but little in common. And no one meeting Franz Schubert for the first time, could doubt that he was an instance of this paradoxical state of affairs.
For the extraordinary rapidity and ease with which he can compose under every variety of unfavourable circumstances, induce some of his friends to believe that he writes in a state of clairvoyance: and this may not be altogether remote from the truth [3].
He often seems to evolve his lovely creations with the facility and flexibility of a bird who sings, it knows not how. And - with the mysterious intuitive perception of genius - he can render into lovely symmetry of ordered sound, and express with the most delicate tenderness, some phase of life or emotion of which he has had no possible experience, - whether it be the religious rhapsody and austere fervour of renunciation which inspires the "Young Nun," [4] as she gazes into the depth of the tempest - or the undulating phrases of some "Slumber Song," such as that upon which he is now engaged [5]:
Soft sighs the wood, the stream sings clear,
"Thou darling babe, O come thou here!"
He comes, he stays, the lovely child,
And all his sorrows are beguil'd.
In leafy fields the quails do cry,
In colours gay the day goes by :
On petals red, on petals blue
Is poured the heaven's glistening dew.
In softest grass the babe shall play,
While clouds above him take their way,
Until on Mother's drowsy breast
The dream-god rocks him into rest."
Johann Mayrhofer
Here, between melody and accompaniment (which in Schubert is not a mere obbligato, but in integral and essential part of the song), the whole gracious and graceful composition would yield, to any hearer who was quite ignorant of the words, the sense of rocking winds, rocking leaves, rocking grasses - it is the sum of Nature's own cradle-songs, gathered up and transmuted into the "tone-art".
Yet it would be hard to discover a more unprepossessing exterior than the outer man which belies the exquisite imaginative powers of Franz Schubert. His low forehead, thick lips, and retroussé nose, give him almost a negroid aspect [6], and his eyes, which in conversation can light up with brilliant fire, are in general dull and melancholy.
These characteristics, combined with the spectacles which he wears, make him look very much older than his real age - which is only twenty-seven. "Happy is the nation," it has been said, "that has no history": but the man who has had no history is apt in personal appearance, if not in mental habit, to reflect the drab monotonous circumstances of his life. The "chronicling of small-beer," which fate inflicts on some, eventually affects their very features.
And never was a genius condemned to more unexhilarating tasks, or fostered in more hopeless obscurity. The son of a poor parish school-master picking up a musical education here and there in sparrow-fashion [7], as a means of livelihood, - precocious, but no performer, - painstaking, yet hardly brilliant [8], - Schubert mastered the principles of his art quite early in life, and acquired a knowledge of vocal and instrumental music which stands him in good stead. He has been composing, with almost fatal fluency, ever since he was thirteen years old [9]. Music is, in short, "the essence of his being." But few composers can find a hearing unheralded by influential friends, or unaided by executive ability; and Schubert has had neither one nor the other.
His only means of earning a bare livelihood, for three years, was to teach in his father's school, - not music, but the three R's; to instruct the lower-class urchins of Vienna, under circumstances of unutterable weariness.
But he did not, for this, forego his rainbow dreams, or demolish his castles in the air. He went on composing as inveterately as ever, and these monotonous years of drudgery have made him what he now is; a patient, painstaking, conscientious man, turning out so much regular work per diem. A certain patient, methodical habit has been bred in this most spontaneous and prolific of composers - that "capacity for taking infinite pains" which has been said to characterise the greatest geniuses. And therefore we now behold him, seated at his somewhat cracked piano, carefully and lovingly committing to paper the charming numbers of his Schone Mullerin song-cycle [10]: having already completed the swaying melody of the Slumber Song.
He is not now, as in his early days, hampered by sheer want of pence for music paper,[11] from setting down his fluent inspirations: he is not now obliged to go eight hours and more between his very frugal meals [12]. Indeed, he is at present selling his songs easily, and might be in comparative affluence but for his hopeless helplessness in business matters. But his needs still remain very simple, his pleasures very few; and his cheerful, sociable disposition preserves him from much of the storm and stress which devastate stronger personalities.
As he transcribes the notes with neat, rapid hand, he occasionally sings a stave or two to a not very skillful accompaniment[8]; and it then becomes still further evident how he has been handicapped by Nature; for his fingers are short and stumpy, a fact which has denied to him, from the very outset, any pride of executive ability. He can throw great expression into the pianoforte part of his songs, and he at least makes some show with his Sonatas which, according to modern Standards of performance, are simplicity itself. But in his more ambitious works, he is confronted by insuperable difficulties and is apt to break down repeatedly, and at last to jump up from the piano in desperation[13].
The "Pretty Miller-maid " songs, however, upon which he is at present engaged[14], do not call for any very strenuous achievement, either on the vocal or instrumental side. one might almost say that they sing themselves - these little episodes of wistful love and mournful jealousy; so exquisitely blent and with such gentle cadences and tender inflections are voice part and pianoforte part. The mill-brook is audible throughout, bearing its refrain as running water will. The Brook is the first dramatis personae to appear, in the initial song:
The brook is girt with blossoms bright,
Which look thro' eyes of azure light:
The Miller joys the stream to view, -
And Sweetheart's eyes are heavenly blue, -
The flowerets mine are, therefore.
And on her lattice I will lay
Their petals in the twilight grey,
To whisper low, when slumber deep
Hath wrapped her little head in sleep,
'Tis only she I care for !
And when my dear her eyes doth close,
And softly sinks to sweet repose,
Then murmur as a dream might do,
'Forget-me-not,' - 0 blossoms blue,
My meaning you shall borrow !
And when at dawn her dreams shall end,
With looks of love above her bend;
The dew within your eyes shall be
The tears of longing shed by me,
Who weep for love and sorrow."
Wilhelm Muller.
(The Pretty Miller-Maid. Song-cycle, No. 1.)
...and the last to leave the scene, when it croons the requiem-lullaby of the poor, deluded lover, the Miller's lad forsaken for the green-clad huntsman. "Quiet rest, sweet repose! " sings the Brook:[15]
"Quiet rest, sweet repose,
Weary eyelids close...
I will cradle him cool
In my deep soft pool,
In my chamber of crystal and blue:
I will rock him to sleep as a mother might do."
Schubert works on with indefatigable energy for some three hours creating, transcribing, polishing.
No one but a musical composer can fully realise the peculiar delight which is born of such inspiration. Not the painter, shaping his thoughts into form and colour - not the sculptor, moulding his dreams into plastic form; not the "lord of language," with whom words are but the raw material for eloquence and beauty - can enjoy a pleasure similar to his who works in sound. The elusive phrase, caught and imprisoned - the eternally fit setting of the exactly right word - these present such possibilities of subtle and intricate treatment, as appeal not only to the " sensual ear," but to the most refined intelligence of man. And the inspiration is authentic: it fluctuates, or comes and goes; some days it is absent altogether It leaves its votary worn out by the sheer stress of its impetus while it lasted; he has poured himself out in spendthrift energy upon the affluence of his own creations.
Therefore Schubert quite suddenly becomes aware that he is not only exhausted, but decidedly hungry. He mechanically swallows the cold coffee, and munches a few mouthfuls of dry bread.
One of the waves of depression to which he is periodically subject, sweeps over his easily affected mind, and reduces him to a condition of limp and immediate misery.
He casts a bewildered glance round the untidy, unswept room: and, sitting down at the table, buries his head in his hands for a few moments. Then, rummaging about for a pen and paper, he begins to pour out his woes in a letter to one of his numerous friends.[16]
The attacks of rheumatic gout [17]to which he is increasingly subject, and which are gradually vitiating and enfeebling his whole constitution, induce this somewhat unreasonable melancholy.
"Alas!" he writes, "that happy, joyous time is gone, when every object seemed encircled with a halo of youthful glory; and that which has followed is a miserable reality, which I endeavour, as far as possible, to embellish by the gifts of my fancy (for which I thank God).[18]
"Picture to yourself a man whose health can never be re-established, whose most brilliant hopes have come to nothing, to whom the happiness of proffered love and friendship is but anguish ... whose enthusiasm for the beautiful threatens to vanish altogether - and then ask yourself if such a condition does not represent a miserable and unhappy man.[19]
"Friendlessly, joylessly, should I drag on the days of my existence, were it not that sometimes my brain reels, and a glimpse of the sweet days that are gone shoots across my vision."
What he means by these references to former joys it is impossible to imagine: for certainly they have never existed save in his own imagination. But that a present grief is preying upon him, in addition to the trouble induced by bad health, is very certain.
For Franz Schubert, the plain, squat, awkward, ungainly genius who has known so many of those romantic friendships with men, to which the sentimental German youth is prone, but whose acquaintance with women has been of the most meagre and uninteresting character, - Franz Schubert, after all these years, is deeply, irretrievably in love.[20]
And it is a hopeless passion, this one romance which has entered into his life: for Schubert is enamoured of a girl of seventeen, Caroline [21], the younger daughter of Count Esterhazy.
For years he has been resident music-teacher, off and on, in the Esterhazy family, - usually staying with them at their country seat, Zelesz. But now he alternately desires and dreads the annual visit to Zelesz [22] - for the charming creature who has so completely enslaved him is absolutely out of his reach. Disparity of age, difference of rank, - the utter poverty of the lover in looks, wealth, position, in everything but genius - these in themselves would be insuperable barriers to all but the most ardent reciprocal affection. And Caroline Esterhazy does not even pretend to care for this shy, awkward, ugly young-old man, her tutor ever since she was eleven. "Why do you never dedicate any of your pieces to me ?" she has questioned him with unconscious cruelty: and hardly waited to hear his answer, "What would be the use ? All that I do is dedicated to you." [23]
But it is possible that the bitterness of unrequited love has awakened hitherto unknown depths in Schubert's somewhat shallow nature: and that he realises the full significance, in setting them to music, of Goethe's noble words: [24]
"Who ne'er his bread with teardrops ate,
Who ne'er, thro' mournful midnight hours,
Upon his couch hath weeping sate,
He knows ye not, ye heavenly powers!"
For now, before laying aside his pen, he makes a brief entry in the diary which he has lately been keeping: "Grief sharpens the understanding and strengthens the soul, whereas joy seldom troubles itself about the former, and makes the latter either effeminate or frivolous... No one fathoms another's grief, no one another's joy. People think they are ever going to one another, and they only go near one another. Oh ! the misery of him who knows this by experience!" [25]
Before he has finished inscribing these gloomy sentiments, a step is heard upon the stairs, and his friend the poet Mayrhofer enters: at sight of whom the volatile composer brightens up and utters a merry greeting.
Mayrhofer has previously shared Schubert's lodging for two years[26]; pole-wide apart in temperament, they have many tastes in common. The saturnine, cynical, melancholy man is induced to something resembling cheerfulness by the company of the easy going Franz; they bandy pleasantries and "chaff," teasing each other affectionately with nicknames and practical jokes.
"And have you written me anything?" at last Schubert enquires: he is always avid after material upon which to exercise his genius. "No, I have brought nothing," says the poet, ''but I will not keep you waiting."
And, seating himself carelessly at the table, he picks up any paper that lies handy, writes a couple of stanzas, and throws the MS. to Schubert: who proceeds at once to "wed them with immortal strains."
This absence of all selective descrimination, this happy-go-lucky readiness to "set" the first lines that came handy, is, perhaps, the weakest point in Schubert's artistic character. His magically-romantic musical faculty exists, so to speak, per se: it is a power to create, to combine, to develop the most beautiful phraseologies of sound, such as could, presumably, only emanate from the most lofty and poetical intellect. "He has learned everything," said one of his first music-masters, "and God has been his teacher." But, taken on any other plane, Schubert's mind, owing, it may be, to the dreary and sordid conditions of his existence, is undoubtedly banal and mediocre. He has no literary knowledge or appreciation whatever: he is utterly indifferent to his materials in the way of lyrics and libretti, because he cannot gauge their intrinsic value: and his fertile fancy will link itself with equal readiness to a Shakespearean song or to the lines of some tenth-rate Teutonic poetaster. He has been jestingly told that he will gradually set the whole of German literature to music, should he live long enough: and that a poster on a wall will inspire him to melodic phrases.
In short, he is incapable of discriminating good verse from absolute rubbish: and, therefore amongst his hundreds and hundreds of songs, too many are already dead beyond possibility of resuscitation. For it is the essential of great song, that it shall fulfil the sacred rule-of-three, the mysterious triplicity which governs almost all things: that the words, the voice part, and the instrumental part, shall at least be worthy of each other.
But fortunately for Schubert, although he is mainly known to the Viennese connoisseurs by the beauty and multiplicity of his songs, yet his greatest and most ambitious works are purely instrumental.
While yet the poet and composer are pursuing their singularly haphazard methods, at the table and pianoforte respectively, - a more robust personality enters, and the dingy gloom echoes to a sonorous voice. Johann Michael Vogl, the most famous baritone of the time, a man of fine intellect and splendid judgment, is one of Schubert's best friends. He tells him the truth about his compositions: sings them both in private and in public: and assists him with sound advice on all those mundane matters of which the poor music-tutor is so lamentably ignorant.
"Franz," says he, "did you, as I desired, send your settings of Goethe's poems to the master himself?" [27]
"1 did," replies Franz, with modest self depreciation written large upon his face, "but it is very many months ago, and no notice whatever has been taken of them. I fear that he considered them unworthy of his words."
"I have heard," says the great baritone "that Goethe has no true feeling for music: his favourite composer, they say, is Zelter - du lieber Himmel! Zelter! - and of your noblest song of all, the Erl King, he has merely observed that it 'does not agree with his views of the subject.' He is indifferent, because he is incapable of enthusiasm."
"Were Goethe any less great than he is," remarks Mayrhofer, "I should write him down an ass. What are his 'views upon the subject' of the Erl King - I don't care whether it is his own poem or not - compared to the immortality with which our Franz here has invested it? Sing, Vogl, - play, Franz - and let the very chords cry shame on Goethe in his selfish silence."
Without hesitation Schubert's fingers fall upon the keys, in that weird and terrible galloping rhythm which rushes ever faster and faster through Erl-könig, - and the mighty baritone lifts up his voice, - and Mayrhofer sees the very visions of the verse drifting bleakly through the narrow room.
THE ERL KING. (Erl-könig.)
"Who rideth by night thro' the woods so wild?
The father who carries his own dear child,
He folds the little one close in his arm,
To hold him safely, to guard him from harm.
'My son, upon what with such fear dost thou stare?'
O, see'st thou not, father, the Erl-king there?
The Erl-king standing with crown and shroud?'
My son, 'tis nought but a wisp of cloud.'
"Thou darling child, come home with me!
In beautiful games I will play with thee!
Where loveliest flowers thy path shall light,
My mother shall deck thee in raiment bright.'
My father, my father, and did'st thou not hear
The Erl-king whisper so low in my ear?'
'Now hush thee, now hush thee, my treasure, be still:
The wind thro' the branches doth wail at will.'
'O say, pretty boy, and with me wilt thou live?
My daughter is waiting sweet welcome to give:
Away thro' the moonlight with her shalt thou sweep:
She will sing to thee, dance for thee, rock thee to sleep.'
'My father, my father, and seest thou not there
The Erl-king's dim daughter with dark flowing hair?'
'My son, my son, yes! I see it right plain,
'Tis but the old willow that sways in the rain.'
'I love thee! come hither, without more delay,
Or else by my power I will drag thee away.'
'O father, O father! keep fast now thy hold!
The Erl-king has seized me - his grasp is so cold!'
Then trembled the father: he spurred thro' the wild,
He clasped more closely the shuddering child,
He reaches his dwelling in doubt and in dread, -
But, held to his bosom, the child was dead."
Goethe.
"And now," says Schubert, as with a gasp of relief he lifts his weary wrists from the pianoforte, "and now let us go and comfort the inner man. For, Goethe or not, I am a very hungry person."
And the three friends adjourn, as is their wont, to the nearest wine-shop; where, amid a congenial circle of young men, friends and admirers of the musician, mirth and easy laughter banish for a while the clouds of destiny which are gathering over Schubert's head, and he practises what he has preached to his old schoolfellow Spaun: "Brave your fate: let your gentle spirit expand like a flower-garden, that you may diffuse the warmth of life, ... and show your divine origin wherever you go."
His naive simplicity and cheerful, sociable disposition have won him a host of friends, of his own class. With those more influential and wealthy folk, aristocratic amateurs who are ready to patronise and advance him, he has little in common: he becomes abashed and awkward in their presence. And his inveterate incapacity to realise his own interests, whether financially or artistically, is the main stumbling block in his way. Hence, Beethoven's dying predictions "Truly Schubert possesses a spark of the divine fire... Some day he will make a noise in the world," has not been so far fulfilled.
The man himself, as is so often the ease, has fixed his own limitations. He presents the amazing anomaly of one, in himself ill-read, prosaic, commonplace, of no particular aims or ideals, seeking only the simple satisfaction of the moment; yet thrilled through and through with the flame of that consuming fire, which for want of a better name we call genius.
The characteristic of this fire is, that eventually it purifies. It burns away all that is unworthy in a man; as years pass on it refines all that is best in him: and Schubert, unconsciously to himself, is reaching loftier altitudes than he knew of old.
But so far as fame goes, he is making no great stir in the world. Genius, like murder, "will out," and he is discussed in dilettante artistic circles, encouraged by music-publishers and concert managers.
But he has never succeeded in "placing" a single composition anywhere outside Vienna: he has never heard any of his great orchestral works adequately performed: he has never given a concert on his own account: and as to pecuniary circumstances, he has never in his life received as much as £100 per annum.
Ill-health and pain, continually on the increase, are breeding in him a sluggishness and carelessness as to his own interests, though they have no influence whatever upon the lavish output of his creative power.
And, in short, he is becoming day by day more inert toward the present and the future, to everything except that glorious art which to him is all in all.
Yet the cheerful conversation of his intimates, and the exhilarating effects of his modest repast, have brightened Schubert's eye and infused a new animation into his features as he passes along the street: and the delicate stanzas of a Heine lyric dance themselves to music through his brain.
From that perennial fount of inspiration, the verse of Heine [28], Schubert is destined to draw but very seldom: its natural magic would seem to appeal to him almost in vain.
But as he repeats to himself, with a smile of pure enjoyment, the "Fishermaiden" song he cannot fail to associate it with the maiden of his dreams, and with his own adoring heart.
"Thou lovely Fishermaiden,
Come, draw thy boat to land,
And let us sit together,
so tenderly hand in hand.
O. rest upon me, dearest!
What terror is shaking thee,
Who daily never fearest
To dare the wild dark sea?
My heart is like yon ocean, -
Has storm, and ebb, and flow,
And pearls of pure devotion
Stored in its depths below."
Heinrich Heine.
He pulls out a tattered note-book and hastily jots down a few bars of the melody: then, still happy, pursues his ordinary afternoon routine.
To visit his father's house and chat awhile with his brothers: to call upon various music-publishers and submit his latest compositions to them, avoiding any haggling over terms by the acceptance of some mere driblet of remuneration: to visit the Opera House with a view to the performance of the comic opera Der Haüsliche Krieg (The Domestic War), for which he is making efforts to secure a hearing, - to compose in season and out of season, whilst conversing with friends in music shops, or waiting to interview some patron, or even while drinking a glass of lager in some quiet tavern: such are his usual avocations during the latter part of the day.
Nor are they only songs in which his ideas find such unremitting outlet; but pianoforte pieces, string quartets and quintets, concerted choral works, operas and masses, incidental music for the theatre, and great orchestral composition. Every known form and mould in which music can be cast, Schubert essays with a light heart and with a prodigal fertility of invention.
When evening arrives, the composer must needs pay a little attention to his outer man, and rummage his scanty wardrobe for a few clean articles of attire, for he has to attend one of the soirées, termed Schubertiaden, which his particular friends have organised in his honour.
And here, after the sedulous industry of the morning - after the rebuffs, and disappointments, and snubs so patiently borne, which have been only too frequent in the afternoon - for a little while Franz Schubert tastes the joy of fame, if it can be dignified by such a name; of popularity, at least, amongst his own small bourgeois circle. The songs and dances are invariably of his own composing; light-hearted convivial companions surround him: for an hour or two he is in his element.
But presently an invasion of nosier admirers, - what he terms "a coarse crew addicted to beer-drinking and sausage-eating," [29] jars upon his weary nerves; and he slips away into the spring night, the cool air falling pleasantly upon him after the glare of the overheated room. He feels that he has been, in his own words, "tickled towards idiotic laughter, instead of elevated towards God...[30] A mind that is too light generally hardens a heart that is too heavy."
And with that cooling touch, more peaceful thoughts come softly to Schubert, as he gropes his way upstairs and sits down for a moment's thought before lighting his rushlight candle.
"Man," as he has said, "is a ball between chance and passion"; but at present he is susceptible to nobler impulses, and the things which are invisible draw near to him in the darkened room, as the starlight glimmers through the windows.
Beautiful melodies float into his mind, linked with elevating words, such as those of Kindled Skies (Himmelsfunken):[31]
"The breath of God outflows,
And stills the yearning breast:
The heart with rapture glows,
That longed in vain for rest:
And, soft as in a dream,
Is loosed each earthly band:
And holy teardrops stream
Towards the heavenly land...
O touch of joy divine!
As mild as morning dew,
The fires of God do shine
From out the tranquil blue;
The hearts that exiled roam
Have heard the call from far
And long to be at Home,
Where all their treasures are."
J. P. Silbert.
"I never force religious ecstasy upon myself," he has said, "I never set myself to compose hymns or prayers, except when I am involuntarily overcome by the feeling and spirit of devotion." [32]
And as his simple emotions express them selves in sweet and solemn sound, and the old piano once more answers to his eager touch strange reveries pass before the gaze of the lonely musician. The masters of his art, with benign and approving faces, seem to smile upon him out of the past, - those masters whom he venerates with such unfeigned humility.
Here is Haydn, "Papa Haydn" - with his kindly face and powdered periwig; "May thy pure and peaceful spirit hover around me, dear Haydn," murmurs Schubert, "and if I never can become like thee, peaceful and guileless, at all events none on earth has such deep reverence for thee as I have." [33]
The face of Mozart, - half-humourous, half melancholy, - wanders fugitive athwart the room, companioned by lovely strains. "Gently as from a distance," says Franz to himself, "the magic tones of Mozart's music sound upon my ears. Thus do these sweet impressions, passing into our souls, work beneficently in our inmost being, and no time, no change of circumstance can obliterate them. In the darkness of this life they show a light, a clear beautiful distance, from which we gather confidence and hope. O Mozart! immortal Mozart! how many and what countless images of a brighter, better world hast thou stamped upon our souls!" [34]
Images out of his own songs now float before his mind in a motley phantasmagoria, - romantic, picturesque, expressing themselves half in terms of sight and half of sound. For there is a point in the mental processes of a composer where the senses may be said to converge.
The lovely Margaret, forsaken by Faust, sits sorrowful at her spinning wheel, whose low, incessant humming, in the accompaniment, bears a monotonous burden to her song: [35]
"My rest is gone, my heart is sore,
And I shall find it never more."
The jolly vagabond of Courage (Muth) strides through the snowstorm, carolling lustily, as he brushes off the stinging flakes:[36]
"Gaily onward thus I roam
Facing wind and weather:
If no god makes earth his home,
Be we gods together!"
Silvia, pure and perfect, the very Silvia of Shakespeare's imagining, smiles to hear herself portrayed in such lovely accents:[37]
"Holy, fair, and wise is she,
The heavens such grace did lend her,
That adorèd she might be;"
and Imogen, half awake, hears the actual flutter of skyward wings in those exquisite phrases which tell how
"... the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes."
The impassioned lover of Serenade (Ständchen) pours forth his pleading in immortal strains, - he is just vaguely visible through the warm enchanted darkness where the nightingale also sings, and the unhappy hero of The Wraith (Du Doppelgänger) stands horror-struck before his beloved's dwelling in the moonlight, and sees his phantom likeness wringing its hands.[38]
"Thou pallid spectre, thou phantom before me,
Why mock'st thou thus my love and woe,
The pangs that on this threshold tore me,
So many a night, long years ago?"
The Wanderer paces his unending course:[39]
"in calm despair,
My constant sighs demanding, where ?
always where?"
The lonely shepherd in Rosamunde, softly mourning to his reed-pipe, utters himself in tender melancholy notes. And the Monk and the Crusaders go past in dim procession, chanting how
" All life it is a wild crusade
To gain the Holy Land:"
and the waves gather and roll and roar around the weeping women of Am Meer (By the Sea).
These, and a thousand other transitory forms, follow each other in fragmentary staves of music through the brain of Schubert: with a child-like modest pride he welcomes each, recognising its authentic and intrinsic beauty.
Great echoes of his more ambitious works shape themselves augustly in the silence: and to the echoes of symphony and overture the whole universe seems to make momentary answer, "You were never born to oblivion. You were never created for obscurity. Play the man, Franz Schubert! Take, by storm, if need be, the place for which Music herself has wholly made you. Tread down the stumbling-blocks of circumstance - let a just ambition urge you on. Are not all these the children of your brain? And shall they despise their father?"
But soon the vast reverberations cease: they have kindled no responsive impetus of energy. The medium of divine inspirations must remain perpetually a medium, and no more. Fate has no further guerdon for him in this life, beyond his own immediate pleasure in the outcome of his art; his single-minded devotion to it is destined to be its own and only recompense. For, whatever a man hopes of posthumous fame, there is no doubt that a present recognition of his merit is worth them all. And although "they may sit in the orchestra and noblest seats of heaven, who have held up shaking hands in the furnace, and humanly contended for glory," it is certain that our poor and patient Schubert would welcome a little ordinary happiness, - just a few bright years on earth. The compensations of art are frigid ones at best: "how cold are thy baths, Apollo!"
Lastly, blended with these phantasmic sounds and sights, the rosy smile of Caroline Esterhazy gleams across the silence. And, with a sudden reversion of feeling towards the hard realities of existence, the composer is recalled to himself.
Slowly and sadly he betakes himself to rest: and as he divests himself of his threadbare clothes, the words of 'Good-night!' are haunting his lips and heart;
"A stranger hither coming,
A stranger I depart:
In May 'mid blossoms roaming,
What gladness held my heart!
The mother might be scornful,
The maiden's smile was bright, -
But now the world is mournful,
The pathway wrapt in white
Thy sleep shall not be broken,
My step thou shalt not hear, -
Nor this one word, low spoken,
Good-night, good-night, my dear!
Afar I needs must wander,
But on thy door I write,
To show, on thee I ponder, -
This little word, good-night!"
(Winter Journey, Song-cycle, No. 1.)
"All that I do is dedicated to you," he has said to Caroline: and his last thought is hers, as he sinks into a heavy slumber. His last conscious act of mind is to give her, far away in some green delightful distance, "this little word, good-night!"
End of text of book
Notes:
| [1] | According to Deutsch in the Docs, in April 1824, Schubert was living with Josef Huber, in the Inner City on the Stubentor bastion, no 1187 (buildings were numbered for the district, not by the street), on the first floor. The building is now demolished. |
| [2] | Although Schubert dated most of his works, there are still quite a large number of Schubert songs which cannot be definitely dated, and of course some may be lost. However, on the basis of current knowledge, he wrote only 6 songs in the whole of 1824 (his least productive year), and none of them were in April!. |
| [3] | This 'clairvoyance' theme, or
Schubert the country bumpkin who didn't know what he was writing,
was a common thread during the 'romantic' treatment of Schubert. The
specific reference to clairvoyance comes from a letter from Vogl to
to Albert Stadler, 15 Nov 1831."...there are two kinds of composition, one which, as in Schubert's case, comes into existence during a state of clairvoyance or somnambulism, without any conscious action on the part of the composer..." |
| [4] | The young nun is a reference to the Lied, Die Junge Nonne, D828, from the poem by Craigher, where a nun longs for heaven during a storm. |
| [5] | That song is Schlaflied, D527, which was written in January 1817, not April 1824, by which time it had already been published as Op 24 no 2 in 1823! |
| [6] | There are references to Schubert's appearance, quoted at length in the Memoirs, from Sonnleithner, Eckel, and others. The 'Negroid' reference was from Sonnleithner, in written notes to Ferdinand Luib. These were quoted from in Hellborn's first biography, and attacked by Josef von Spaun. |
| [7] | Schubert's education at the convict was probably as good an education as was available to anyone of his class. There was significant exposure to music during it. |
| [8] | Schubert's contemporaries described his piano playing as sympathetic but not virtuosic. It seems likely that this, together with his tendency to shyness contributed to him never producing a concerto. He was said to be a very good accompanist, though he often left this to others, possibly because he did not like the way that certain singers, especially Vogl, embroidered the songs. He also, like Mozart and Mendelssohn, played the viola. |
| [9] | This is just nonsense. Just because the first surviving work (Fantasia in G for Pianoforte Duet, D1) is dated April-May 1810, doesn't mean he had written nothing before then. You don't write a four hands fantasy as your first work! In Josef von Spaun's biographical note of March/April 1829, he says that at 10 or 11 Schubert had tried his hand at songs, quartets and short piano pieces. |
| [10] | The diacritics, and the "Die", were missing from the book, and they put the capital "S" on schone. This is one of the very few times when the name of a piece is quoted in German, and they got it completely wrong. Die schöne Müllerin was almost certainly finished in October or November 1823 (and therefore he could not have been writing it in April 1824) - in any case, the first book had already been published in February 1824 and the complete set of 5 books had been published by August. |
| [11] | Josef von Spaun was said to have provided Schubert with music paper at the convict, though Brown, amongst others, disputes this. |
| [12] | This is a reference to the first surviving letter from Schubert to a brother, probably Ferdinand, on 24th November 1812. He asks for pocket money, and complains about having to wait 8 and a half hours between 'a middling lunch' and a 'miserable evening meal'. |
| [13] | There is one story of Schubert giving up during the playing of his Wanderer Fantasy, and shouting "the devil may play this stuff". The fantasy was orchestrated by Liszt in the early 1850s; it is said to be one of the few works easier to play in his transcription than in the original. |
| [14] | See note 10. |
| [15] | A very, very loose translation of part of Des Baches Wiegenlied, the last song in the cycle. |
| [16] | Schubert was by no means a prolific writer, and few letters survive. Those of any length tended to have been written when he was away from Vienna. |
| [17] | Not even close. These days it is generally accepted that Schubert was suffering from the second phase of syphilis. |
| [18] | From a letter to Schubert's brother, Ferdinand, written from Zseliz on 16-18th July 1824. |
| [19] | Hey, this one is about right, time wise. It, and the following paragraph, are from a letter to Leopold Kupelwieser the painter, who was in Rome at the time, which was written on 31st March 1824. |
| [20] | The story that Schubert was in love with Caroline Esterhazy is deeply rooted in the Schubert myth, based from comments by Eduard von Bauernfeld, Karl von Schönstein and others (quoted at length in the Memoirs). Given the social gap, and the fact that Schubert almost certainly knew that he had a serious venereal disease (medical science still could not distinguish between syphilis and gonorrhea), no one can seriously believe that if there was 'love' he could have had any serious expectations. |
| [21] | According to Deutsch, Caroline (he spells it Karoline) was born on 6th September 1805 - this would make her 18. |
| [22] | Annual visits indeed. At the time this drivel is supposed to have been set, he had been to Zseliz just once, in 1818. There is no direct evidence that he continued to act as a music teacher to the Esterhazy's in Vienna, but it seems to be generally accepted that there was some sort of ongoing connection. |
| [23] | The manuscript of 2 German dances (D145 no 5 & 8) has the dedication 'German Dances for Countess Caroline' vigorously crossed out, as though in a fit of pique. He eventually dedicated the Fantasy in F minor for piano duet, D940, Op 103 to her. The source of the 'everything I write is dedicated to you' quote was Karl von Schönstein in written notes to Luib, January 1857, quoted at length in the Memoirs. |
| [24] | This is a reasonable translation of the first stanza of the Goethe poem "Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen Ass" (Who never ate his bread with tears), which Schubert set 3 times (D480) in 1816 and 1822. |
| [25] | These are about right too, coming from late March 1824. The originals are lost, but were quoted by Bauernfeld. |
| [26] | It was actually Schubert who shared Mayrhofer's lodgings, not the other way round. The last 4 of the 47 Mayrhofer settings were in March 1824. |
| [27] | The first attempt to interest Goethe in Schubert's settings was on 17th April 1816, when Josef von Spaun wrote an extremely obsequious letter to accompany a specimen book of songs, which was returned with no comment. Schubert himself tried again, but not until June 1825, when he wrote enclosing special copies of Op19 which was dedicated to Goethe. This was also unanswered. It arrived on the same day as some piano quartets from Mendelssohn, who got a detailed letter of thanks. There is no record of Vogl suggesting that he should send settings to Goethe. |
| [28] | Unfortunately, Schubert did not come across any Heine poems until the last few months of his life in 1828. I say unfortunately, since he set but 6 Heine poems, each of them masterpieces, all published posthumously in the collection of songs (not really a song cycle) named Schwanengesang by the publisher, Haslinger. The verses which follow are rough translations of the song, Fischermädchen from Schwanengesang. That verse, and the other 5 Heine settings, were not published until 1826. |
| [29] | The beer drinkers and sausage eaters are blamed by Schubert for the breaking up of his friends' reading circle, in the letter to Kupelwieser mentioned in note 19. |
| [30] | This comment, from his diary 16th June 1816, was a swipe at Beethoven, stimulated by Salieri's jubilee celebrations, and probably Salieri's view of Beethoven. The 'Mind that is light' and 'Man is a ball' quotes which follows are also from his diary, 8th September 1816. |
| [31] | D651, February 1819. |
| [32] | This famous quote is from a letter to his father and step-mother, dated 25th July 1825, from Steyr, where he was 'on tour' with Vogl. It is a reference to the song Ellens Gesang III (aka 'Ave Maria') which was being played to rave reviews. |
| [33] | This is very naughty. It comes from a letter written in Gmunden by Franz to his brother Ferdinand, on 12th Sept 1825. The reference, however, is not to Josef ('Papa') Haydn, but to his brother Michael!, whose monument Franz visited in Salzburg. |
| [34] | This famous quote comes from
Schubert's diary for 13th June 1816. |
| [35] | The opening words of Gretchen am Spinnrade, D118, 19 October 1814. |
| [36] | Mut! (without the 'h'!) is the 22nd song of the Winterreise cycle, D911, written in 1827. This is the last of 3 verses. |
| [37] | The closing words of the first verse of An Sylvia (To Sylvia) taken from (although these are NOT the exact words) The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act IV Scene 2 by someone called Shakespeare. D891, July 1826. The next quote is from Ständchen (Serenade aka 'Hark, hark, the lark'), also by Shakespeare. This one is from Cymbeline, Act II Scene 3. The words here ARE Shakespeare's, except the first couple are left out, and so are the 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th lines! D889, also from July 1826. |
| [38] | The last verse of Der Dopplegänger (not Du), by Heine, from Schwanengesang, D957, no 13 (which I happen to be listening to as I type this). The word 'Wraith', does not get over the point that the spectre or phantom looks is a mirror image of the hero - a clearer translation might be 'ghostly double'. |
| [39] | From the middle of Der Wanderer ('The Wanderer'), D489 October 1816. The next quote is from Der Kreuzzug ('The Crusade), D932, November 1827. |