[Illustration]
Franz Peter Schubert was born in Vienna, January 31, 1797, and died there
November 19, 1828. The house in which Schubert was born is now Number 54
in the Nussdorfer Strasse, and the fact is recorded upon a marble tablet
over the door. His immediate ancestry were peasants. His father and
uncle came from Moravia to Vienna, and were schoolmasters there for many
years. His mother, Elizabeth Fitz, before her marriage, was in domestic
service as a cook. After her death in 1812 the elder Schubert married Anna
Klayenbök. By his first marriage he had fourteen children, of whom Franz
was the thirteenth; by the second marriage there were five children, two
of whom were living about 1880. The step-mother was an excellent mother
to Franz. Two of his elder brothers, Ignaz and Ferdinand, lived and died
as schoolmasters, like their father. It seems to have been an admirable
family; its members, so far as we know, were noted for conscientious
industry and integrity, and were affectionately devoted to one another.
It is clear that there was a love for music in the family, though we have
few details on this point. Ignaz and Ferdinand were taught the violin by
their father. The little Franz began of himself to pick out melodic themes
on an old piano much the worse for wear, and thought it a rare treat when
a friendly joiner's apprentice used now and then to take him to a piano
shop, where he was allowed to try his infant hands upon new and fine
instruments. At the age of seven he began to study the violin with his
father, and the piano with his brother Ignaz, then aged nineteen; but in
a very short time he had got quite beyond these teachers, and was sent to
the parish choir-master, Michael Holzer, for instruction in violin, piano,
organ, and thorough-bass, as well as in singing. But the astounded Holzer
soon found, as he said long afterward, "whenever I wished to teach him
anything fresh, he always knew it already." Holzer was fond of giving him
themes on which to extemporize, and used to exclaim with rapture that the
little fellow "had harmony at his fingers' ends."
Instances of precocity among musicians of genius are by no means rare. But
for precocity of the highest order, as well as for spontaneous exuberance
of musical originality, Schubert has probably been equalled by none save
Mozart. The world is familiar with the stories of Mozart found by his
father in the act of scrawling a piano concerto at four years of age, and
of his composing a symphony for full orchestra at eight. A piano sonata
in D major for four hands, which he wrote in his ninth year, is still
very commonly played, and is astonishing for its maturity of thought
and its complete mastery of the sonata form. There is no evidence of
the beginning of such work on Schubert's part at such an early age. His
fantasia for four hands was written when he was thirteen years old, and
his first recorded song, "Hagar's Lament," in the following year; but
there is reason for believing that he had before that time composed songs,
pieces for piano, and string quartettes. Before completing his eleventh
year he had come to be leading soprano singer and violin player in the
choir at the parish church of Lichtenthal, in Vienna. The next year he
obtained a situation as chorister in the Emperor's Chapel, and became a
pupil in the Imperial school known as the "Convict," a name derived not
from _convincere_, but from _convivere_, and implying that the members
or "convictors" were "messmates." It was but scant conviviality that
was allowed by the ignorant parsimony with which that somewhat famous
institution was managed. Those poor growing boys, with the wolfish
appetites belonging to their time of life, had but two wretched meals
daily and more than eight hours apart, while in the winter season their
benumbed fingers shrank from contact with the ice-like key-boards. How
often some promising lad may have succumbed to such a regimen, while
his death was piously ascribed to Providence, we are not informed. That
the effect upon Schubert's constitution was deleterious may readily be
believed. In one of the earliest of his letters that have been preserved,
dated November 24, 1812, we find him beseeching his brother for a few
kreutzers wherewith to get now and then a roll or some apples to keep off
starvation during the long exercises in the freezing schoolroom.
In the _Convict_ more or less instruction was given in history and
mathematics, French and Italian, drawing and writing. In such branches
as he studied, Schubert seems to have done fairly well, but as he went
on the tendency grew upon him to neglect everything else for the sake
of music. Instrumental music was elaborately studied, and symphonies
and overtures of Haydn, Mozart, and others were diligently practised
by an orchestra of boys, in which Schubert distinguished himself from
the first. Soon after his arrival in the school, the conductor of this
orchestra--a big boy, named Joseph von Spaun, afterward Baron and Member
of the Imperial Council, and well known as an amateur musician--remarked
how finely "the little fellow in spectacles" played; from which we may
infer that Schubert's near-sightedness dated from his childhood. After
a while the little fellow himself became first violin and often served
as conductor. A warm friendship grew up between Schubert and Spaun, who
presently discovered that the shy boy of twelve was already possessed by
an unappeasable rage for composition. His head was brimming over with
melodious thoughts, with which he would cover every scrap of music paper
that he could get hold of. But either the _Convict_ was niggardly in
its supply of writing materials no less than of food and fuel, or else
the needs of the new-comer were such as had never before been heard of;
for he could not get enough paper on which to jot down the daily flow
of musical ideas, nor was his scanty stock of copper coins sufficient
to procure sheets enough to meet his wants. Having made this discovery,
the kindly Spaun determined that his little friend should no longer
suffer from this kind of privation; and from that time forth Schubert's
consumption of music paper was astonishing. In April, 1810, he wrote the
four-hand fantasia for piano, probably the earliest of his compositions
that is still preserved. It fills thirty-two closely written pages, and
contains a dozen movements, each ending in a different key from that in
which the piece begins. "Hagar's Lament," written in March, 1811, is
the earliest of his songs still preserved. Perhaps it ought rather to
be called a nondescript vocal piece, or an attempt at a song-cycle; it
comprises twelve numbers, with singular and sometimes irrelevant changes
of key, and covers twenty-eight pages. In spite of its fragmentary and
inorganic character, it bears the unmistakable stamp of genius. From the
outset, whatever his faults, Schubert was always free from the fault of
which Schiller complains that it fetters so many of us poor mortals: he
was never guilty of being commonplace. Whatever came from him was sure to
be something that no one else would have thought of, and it was sure to
be rich in beauty. In view of this, the spontaneity of his creativeness
was almost incredible, and fully justifies the comparison with Mozart.
This same year saw the production of two other vocal pieces, a second
piano fantasia, a string quartet, and a quintet-overture,--to mention
only those that have survived. Doubtless many writings of that early time
were neglected and lost. Schubert seldom showed much interest in a work
of his own after it was finished, for his attention was absorbed in fresh
composition. But he had a methodical habit of dating his works and signing
them "Frz. Schubert, _mpia_," i.e. _manu propria_; and this habit has
been helpful to his biographers in studying the progress of his artistic
labors. The list for 1812 is remarkable for this half-starved boy of
fifteen, containing as it does an overture for full orchestra, two string
quartets, and a sonata for piano, violin, and viola, besides other works
for piano and strings.
But the list for 1813 begins to seem portentous. Here comes the first
symphony (in D; four movements), an octet for wind instruments, three
string quartets, a third piano fantasia, thirty-four minuets, a cantata
for his father's birthday, and about thirty other vocal pieces, including
canons, terzets, and songs for a single voice. Besides all this he began
to set to music Kotzebue's opera "Des Teufels Lustschloss," which he
completed in the following year. In looking over the vocal pieces, one
observes an almost unbroken succession of about a dozen with words by
Schiller; and this illustrates one of Schubert's ways of doing things.
When he happened to turn over the leaves of a volume of poetry, verses
that pleased him would become straightway clothed in melody; they would
sing themselves in his mind, often in all their concrete fullness, with
superb accompaniments, noble in rhythm and rich in wondrous harmonies.
If paper happened to be within reach the song would at once be written
down, and the inspired youth would turn to some other poem, with like
results. What in the ordinary reader fond of poetry is simply an emotional
reaction of keen indescribable pleasure was in his case a sudden thrill
of musical creation. Thus we are told that on a July evening in 1826,
after a long walk, the thirsty Schubert strolled into a beer-garden and
found a friend sitting at one of the tables with a volume of Shakespeare.
After he had laid down the book Schubert picked it up and alighted upon
the song in Cymbeline, "Hark, hark, the lark!" The beautiful melody with
its accompaniment, as we now have it, instantly flashed upon him and was
written down upon some staves hastily drawn across the back of a bill
of fare. In like manner, in the course of the same evening, he set to
music the drinking song in Antony and Cleopatra, and clothed with fresh
immortality the verses "Who is Sylvia" in the Two Gentlemen of Verona. In
its matchless perfection the Sylvia song would of itself suffice for a
composer's reputation. In such wise would Schubert often look through a
book, and come from its hasty perusal with a dozen or more new songs.
[Illustration: SCHUBERT'S BIRTHPLACE IN VIENNA.--From a photograph.]
It is in this astonishing spontaneity that Schubert's greatness largely
consists. In some elements of artistic perfection he is lacking, and
the want may be traced to some of the circumstances of his education.
His early teachers were simply overwhelmed by his genius and let him go
unguided. Holzer, as we have seen, whenever he wished to teach the boy
anything, found that the boy could teach him. So Ruzicka, instructor
in thorough-bass at the _Convict_, simply protested that Schubert must
have learned music directly from heaven, and he could do nothing for
him. Sir George Grove very properly asks, "If all masters adopted this
attitude toward their pupils, what would have become of some of the
greatest geniuses?" Schubert certainly suffered from defective knowledge
of counterpoint; after coming to maturity he recognized this defect
in his education and sought to remedy it by study. Herein he was at a
disadvantage compared with his younger contemporary Mendelssohn. Himself
a musician of extraordinary precocity and spontaneity, Mendelssohn became
thoroughly grounded in counterpoint under one of the best of teachers,
Zelter; and in all his works Mendelssohn shows that absolute mastery of
form, the lack of which is often noticeable in Schubert, especially in
his instrumental works. Upon this point we shall have occasion to make
some further comment. There can be little doubt that the worthy Ruzicka
would have done well had he given his wonderful pupil a careful training
in counterpoint. The heaven-sent music would have lost nothing of its
heavenly quality by enlarging its means of expression.
About the first of November, 1813, Schubert left the _Convict_ and studied
for awhile in the Normal School of St. Anna, in order to qualify himself
for a school-teacher. He escaped conscription by entering his father's
parish school, where he served three years as teacher and discharged the
monotonous and irksome duties of that position with scrupulous fidelity.
He still, however, found time for music. The compositions of the year
1814 show a marked advance in maturity. The most important is the first
mass, in F, a work that has been pronounced superior to the first mass of
any other composer except Beethoven's mass in C. Then we have the second
symphony, in B flat, the overture in Italian style for full orchestra,
five string quartets, eleven dances for strings and horns, and twenty-two
songs, more than half of them to Matthisson's words. Among the songs
"Gretchen am Spinnrade," to Goethe's words, is especially to be noted.
The record for the year 1815 is marvellous:--the third symphony, in D, the
second mass, in G, and the third, in B flat, one opera and six operettas,
a stabat mater, a salve regina, the string quartet in G minor, four piano
sonatas, thirty miscellaneous pieces for the piano, and one hundred and
thirty-seven songs! Among the larger of these works the mass in G merits
especial notice for its beauty. Among the songs are some of Schubert's
most famous,--"Heidenröslein," "Rastlose Liebe," the "Wanderer's
Nachtlied," the exquisite "Nähe des Geliebten," the Ossian songs, and
the magnificent Erl King. This most dramatic and descriptive of songs
was thrown off instantaneously in a fit of wild inspiration. Schubert
had just come upon Goethe's ballad, which he had not seen before; he had
read it two or three times and was dashing the music upon paper when his
friend Spaun came in and found him. It was all done in a few moments, the
rushing accompaniment and all; and that same evening it was sung at the
_Convict_ before Schubert's friends and devoted admirers, his old teachers
and fellow pupils. It was quite customary for Schubert to carry his new
compositions there to be tried, and he was wont to find warm sympathy and
appreciation. But the Erl King was received rather coldly, as will be
hereafter explained.
This year 1816 saw one hundred and thirty-one new compositions by
Schubert. Among these were the fourth or "Tragic" symphony, in C minor,
the fifth symphony, in B flat, an overture for full orchestra, a concerto
for violin and orchestra, a rondo for violin and string orchestra, one
string quartet, one string trio, seven pieces of dance music for piano,
three sonatinas for piano and violin, and other piano music. There was
an unfinished opera, "Die Bürgschaft," followed by four cantatas; one,
called "Prometheus," was the first work composed by Schubert for money;
it was written in a single day and the honorarium was one hundred florins
in Viennese currency; the occasion was the name-day of a certain Herr
Heinrich Watteroth, of Vienna. Another similar but slighter work was
composed in honor of Herr Joseph Spendon, chief inspector of schools;
a third was for Schubert's father; the fourth was for the occasion of
Salieri's jubilee hereafter to be mentioned. Among the sacred compositions
was a magnificat for solo and mixed voices with accompaniment of violin,
viola, hautboy, bassoon, trumpet, drum, and organ; the duetto "Auguste
jam Cœlestium" for soprano and tenor voices, accompanied by violins and
violoncello, double-bass, bassoon, and hautboy; the "Tantum ergo" for four
voices and orchestra; the fragment of a requiem in E flat; the "Salve
regina" for four voices and orchestra; and especially the noble "Stabat
mater" in F minor, one of the finest of Schubert's earlier contributions
to church music. Of this year's songs ninety-nine have been preserved,
including the Wanderer, the three songs of the Harper in "Wilhelm
Meister," Mignon's "Sehnsucht," and "Kennst du das Land," "Der König in
Thule," and "Jäger's Abendlied." These songs are remarkable for strength,
originality, and exquisite beauty. In the Wanderer, and "Wer nie sein Brod
mit Thränen ass," we find Schubert at an elevation which he afterward
scarcely surpassed.
It was Schubert's custom, from an early age, to have quartet parties at
his father's house on Sunday afternoons. When at the _Convict_ he used
to go home on Sundays for this purpose. As first arranged, the elder
Schubert used to play the 'cello, Ferdinand first violin, Ignaz second,
and Franz the viola. In those early days, if a wrong note was heard from
the 'cello, young Franz would modestly say, "Father, there must be a
mistake somewhere," and the hint was always well received. These Sunday
quartets were often joined by friends and neighbors. By degrees the number
of violins was increased, a double-bass and sundry wind instruments were
added, and the affair grew into an orchestra which could perform Haydn's
and Mozart's symphonies. Presently it became necessary to have the
performances in a larger house, and in this way two or three moves were
made, and the Orchestral Society of Amateurs was organized. Overtures
by Cherubini, Spontini, Boieldieu, and Méhul, and the first and second
symphonies of Beethoven were performed. It was for this Society that
Schubert wrote his fourth and fifth symphonies and other orchestral works.
In the autumn of 1820 the society broke down, as such societies are apt to
do, under its own weight. It became necessary to have a large public hall
for the meetings, and the expense thus entailed put an end to the pleasant
and instructive enterprise. There can be little doubt that it was of much
use to Schubert in giving him a chance to hear his own instrumental works
performed and criticised. To a young man of his extremely modest and
retiring disposition, moreover, the friendships thus formed were of much
value.
Schubert was a man to whom friends became devotedly attached. He was
faithful and true, a man of thoroughly sound character, disinterested
and unselfish, without a particle of envy or jealousy about him. He won
affection without demanding it or seeming to need it. He was one of
those men whom one naturally and instinctively loves. Among his special
friends we have already mentioned Spaun. Toward the end of 1814 he became
acquainted with the poet Johann Mayrhofer, about ten years his senior,
and the acquaintance ripened into a life-long intimacy. Mayrhofer was
a man of eccentric nature, with a tinge of melancholy, possibly an
incipient symptom of the insanity which many years afterward drove him
to suicide. Perhaps the most interesting feature of his intimacy with
Schubert was the powerful influence which the latter's music exercised
upon the development of his poetical genius. It was under the spell of
Schubert's charm that Mayrhofer's best poems came to blossom; and many of
them were set to music by Schubert, among which "Erlasse," "Sehnsucht,"
"Nachtstück," "Die zürnende Diana," "Der Alpenjäger," "Der Schiffer," "Am
Strome," and "Schlummerlied" deserve especial mention.
Another of Schubert's friends, and the one who probably exerted the most
influence upon him, was Franz von Schober. Their acquaintance began at
a critical moment. After three years of faithful and conscientious work
in school-teaching, Schubert began to find the drudgery of his position
intolerable, and in 1816, as a public school of music was about to be
opened as an appendage to the normal school at Laybach, near Trieste,
he applied for the post of director. To appreciate the situation, we
must not fail to note the amount of the director's salary, five hundred
Viennese florins, or about one hundred dollars, a year! Such was the
coveted income to which the _alternative_ seemed to be for Schubert, in
Herr Kreissle's phrase, "an impecunious future." From Salieri and from
Spendon recommendations were obtained, such as they were. There was
nothing cordial in them, nothing to indicate that Schubert was a person
of greater calibre than a certain commonplace Jacob Schaufl who obtained
the appointment instead of him. Perhaps, however, they may only have
doubted Schubert's capacity for a position of executive responsibility.
It was at this juncture that young Schober came upon the scene, a student
in comfortable circumstances, about eighteen years of age, who came to
Vienna to continue his studies. He had fallen in with some of Schubert's
songs a year or two before, and had conceived an enthusiastic admiration
for the composer. When he found that the wonderful genius was a boy of
about his own age, wearing out his nerves in a school room, and yet
turning off divine music by the ream, he made up his mind to interpose. He
could at least offer a home, and he persuaded Schubert to come and occupy
his rooms with him. There Schubert began to give music lessons, but his
earnings do not seem to have been considerable or constant. With Schober
he remained a chum for some time, until the need of room for Schober's
brother, a captain of hussars, led to a temporary change. From 1819 to
1821 Schubert had rooms with his friend Mayrhofer. After 1821 he lived
nearly all the time with Schober until within a few weeks of his death.
Their acquaintances were in the main a set of fine, cultivated young men
who felt strong affection and respect for the inspired musician. Among
Schubert's songs we find several set to Schober's words, among which we
may mention "Pax vobiscum" and "Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden."
The third of the friends whose names are inseparably associated with
Schubert was not one of the circle of young men just referred to, but a
much older person. Johann Michael Vogl was nearly thirty years older than
Schubert. In his youth he had had some monastic training and had afterward
studied law and practised at the bar, but his rich baritone voice and
his love for music led him in time to become a public singer, and for
eight-and-twenty years he was a member of the German Opera Company. In
an epoch notable for its great dramatic singers he was rated high, not
so much for his vocal method as for the native quality of his voice and
his intelligent and sympathetic rendering of his parts. He was a learned
man, widely read in philosophy and theology, with a deeply religious
nature and an intense feeling for music,--not a bad sort of man to sing
Schubert's songs. It was in 1817 that Vogl first became aware of these
treasures. Schober pestered him to come and see his wonderful friend and
try some of his songs, but it was not the first time that this veteran
had heard of wonderful young men, and he did not want to be bored. After
a while, however, he called one evening, hummed through half a dozen
songs--among them "Ganymed" and "Des Schäfer's Klage"--and became more
and more interested. "Well, young man," he observed, on taking his leave,
"there is stuff in you, but you squander your fine thoughts instead of
making the most of them." But the more Vogl thought about the songs the
more they loomed up in his memory as strangely and wondrously beautiful.
He called again at the young composer's room, uninvited, found more
and more music which riveted his attention, and it was not long before
that house became one of his haunts. It was this intelligent and highly
cultivated singer who first made Schubert known beyond the limited circle
of his early friends and school-mates. People in the fashionable society
of Vienna made their first acquaintance with the Wanderer and the Erl
King as sung by Vogl's rich voice and in his noble style, with Schubert
himself at the piano. Presently this furnished a new career for Vogl. In
1821 circumstances led to the discontinuance of his work at the Opera
House, and he then began giving concerts, in which German _Lieder_ were
sung, and those of Schubert occupied a foremost place. In 1825 the two
friends made a little concert tour together in the Salzburg country and
Upper Austria. By that time the new songs were becoming famous, though
one serious obstacle to the wide diffusion of their popularity was the
want of singers able to grapple with their technical difficulties and to
express their poetical sentiment in an artistic manner. Operatic quips
and cranks and wanton flourishes would by no means answer the purpose.
Old conventional methods were of no use. A passage from Vogl's diary is
worth quoting in this connection for the glimpse it gives us of his fine
artistic intelligence:--"Nothing shows so plainly the want of a good
school of singing as Schubert's songs. Otherwise, what an enormous and
universal effect must have been produced throughout the world, wherever
the German language is understood, by these truly divine inspirations,
these utterances of a musical _clairvoyance!_ How many would have
comprehended, probably for the first time, the meaning of such expressions
as 'speech and poetry in music,' 'words in harmony,' 'ideas clothed in
music,' etc., and would have learned that the finest poems of our greatest
poets may be enhanced and even transcended when translated into musical
language! Numberless examples may be named, but I will mention only the
Erl King, Gretchen am Spinnrade, Schwager Kronos, the Mignon and Harper's
songs, Schiller's Sehnsucht, Der Pilgrim, and Die Bürgschaft."
[Illustration: Bauernfeld. Schubert. Kupelwieser. Beethoven. Betty
Fröhlich. Mayrhofer. Schwind. Spaun. Vogl. Grillparzer. Josephine
Fröhlich. Kathi Fröhlich.