_Reproduced from photograph of painting which does not represent
any historical scene, as Beethoven and Schubert never met amid such
surroundings. This grouping of Schubert's friends is made by poetical
license_.]
No subsequent year of Schubert's life witnessed so great a number of
compositions as 1816. For the next year eighty-six compositions are given
in Sir George Grove's list. Of these fifty-two are songs, including many
of those set to Mayrhofer's words. The two songs to Schober's words, above
mentioned, came in this year. Special mention should also be made of the
"Gruppe aus dem Tartarus," to Schiller's words, and of "Lob der Thränen"
and "Die Forelle." "The Pilgrim" and "Ganymede" also belong to this time.
Of large compositions for piano there were the sonatas in E minor; B, Op.
147; A minor, Op. 164; F minor; and A flat; besides the sonata in A, Op.
162, for piano and violin. There were also the variations for piano on a
theme of Hüttenbrenner's; an adagio and rondo; two scherzos, and seventeen
dances for piano; a set of polonaises for violin; and a string trio. The
sixth symphony, in C, was written or finished in November, 1817, and
performed by the amateur orchestral company above described. There were
also three overtures, of which two, written in the Italian style, remind
us that 1817 was the year in which Rossini's operas, newly introduced to
Vienna, were received with wild enthusiasm. Schubert was altogether too
far above Rossini's plane of thought to feel such interest in his work as
he felt for the masterpieces of polyphonic composition. But he appreciated
highly the Italian's gift of melody, and with the assimilative power which
is wont to characterize great genius, he took hints from him which are
apparent not only in the two Italian overtures, but perhaps also in the
sixth symphony. Or in other words, as all creative work is influenced by
its environment, there was a discernible Rossini tinge in the atmosphere
which Schubert was for the moment breathing, and it has left its slight
traces upon a few of his compositions for that year, as upon the work of
less potent creators it left many and deep impressions.
The year 1818 witnessed the beginning of an episode in Schubert's life,
quite different in many respects from what had preceded. He was engaged by
Count Esterhazy to teach music in his family. There were two daughters,
Marie, aged thirteen, and Caroline, aged eleven, and a son aged five.
All were musically gifted, and their friend, Baron von Schönstein, was
a very accomplished singer. The engagement took Schubert to the Count's
country home in Hungary for the summer, while the winter season was
passed in Vienna. Schubert's intercourse with this amiable and cultivated
family was very pleasant, and in the course of it seems to have occurred
the nearest approach to a love affair that can be detected in his life.
Little Caroline Esterhazy was at the outset not at an age likely to evoke
the tender passion. But as time elapsed and she came to be seventeen or
eighteen years of age, it has been supposed that Schubert manifested
symptoms of having fallen in love with her. The evidence is slight, as
evidence is apt to be in such matters, in the absence of anything like
an overt declaration. The nearest that Schubert seems ever to have come
to such a declaration was once when Caroline in an innocent moment of
girlish coquetry asked him why, when he was dedicating so many delightful
works to other persons, he had never dedicated anything to her. Schubert
is said to have replied, "Why should I? Is not everything that I have
ever done dedicated to you already?" This anecdote does not go far as
proof. Question and answer might alike have been merely pleasant jesting.
Contemporary rumor, in the case of a man so shy and reserved on all
matters of deep feeling as Schubert, cannot be expected to tell us much.
The general impression about him was that he was almost insensible to
the charms of fair women. If this impression is to be taken as true, an
interesting question is suggested. How could a man who was never in love
have written that immortal Serenade in which all that is sweetest and most
sacred in the love of man for woman comes forth like a fresh breath from
heaven? Never was voice of love so passionate and so pure. Nowhere has
human art ever found more consummate and faultless expression than in this
song of songs. It could no more have come from a soul insensible to the
passion of love than figs can grow upon thistles. Probably therefore the
general impression about Schubert was due in the main to his reticence.
We have also to bear in mind that such a nature as his can find in
artistic creation a vent for emotional excitement strong enough to craze
the ordinary mind. We know how it was with Goethe, how the worst pains
of life were healed for him by being thrown off in passionate poetry.
This is quite intelligible. It is a special illustration of Shakespeare's
injunction:--
"Give sorrow words; the grief that cannot speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break."
This need for expression, felt by every human creature, appears in men
of profound and intense interior life as a creative impulse; it is
so not only with artists and poets, but in many cases with scholars,
philosophers, and scientific discoverers; the relief is found in giving
objective form to the thoughts that come welling up from the depths of the
spirit. But it is in art that creative expression most becomes in itself
an overmastering end, and especially in the two arts that give swiftest
and readiest outlet to emotion, in poetry and in music. Hence one of the
noblest functions of art, to be the consoler of the troubled soul, to
sink its individual sorrows in the contemplation of eternal beauty, to
bring weary and doubting humanity into restful communion with the divine
source of all its yearnings, in the faith that they have not been given
us for naught. If there ever was a soul thus sustained and comforted, it
was the pure and earnest soul of Schubert; the stream of song that flowed
from him was like the ecstatic but soothing and strengthening prayer of
the mediæval saint. One can see that this shy and sensitive young man,
somewhat inclined withal to self-depreciation, would not be quick to avow
a love which social conditions at any rate scarcely favored. He was son of
a peasant, Caroline Esterhazy was daughter of a count. Such a passion was
likely to seek relief in strains of music, as Dante's worship of Beatrice
found expression in verse. As the thought of Beatrice was in all that
Dante wrote, so the story of Schubert's momentary confession to Caroline
that all that he had sung was dedicated to her is in nowise improbable
in itself. There is a circumstance which invests it with a considerable
degree of probability. Shortly after Schubert's death his beautiful
Fantasia in F minor, Op. 103, was published with the inscription,
"Dedicated to the Countess Caroline Esterhazy by Franz Schubert," and Sir
George Grove rightly infers that the publishers would hardly have ventured
upon such a step "unless the manuscript--probably handed to them before
his death--had been so inscribed by himself." This is perhaps all that is
known concerning the question as to Schubert's love.
At the Esterhazy country-house Schubert seems at first to have felt more
at home in the kitchen than in the drawing-room. A letter to Schober,
written in September, 1818, says:--"The cook is a pleasant fellow; the
ladies' maid is thirty; the housemaid very pretty, and often pays me a
visit; the nurse is somewhat ancient; the butler is my rival; the two
grooms get on better with the horses than with us. The Count is a little
rough; the Countess proud, but not without heart; the young ladies good
children." It was not long before Schubert found himself a great favorite
with the whole household, from the count down to the grooms. From this
time until his death he was always welcome whenever he chose to come,
Baron von Schönstein, the singer already mentioned, had hitherto sung
nothing but Italian music, but he was now converted to the German Lied,
and for the rest of his life devoted himself to Schubert's songs, until
for his magnificent rendering of them he acquired a fame scarcely second
to Vogl.
During the winter seasons in Vienna, Schubert continued to give music
lessons in the Esterhazy family, but his home was apt to be in the
humble room with Mayrhofer, or afterwards again with Schober. He was
as regular with his work of composing music as Anthony Trollope with
his novel-writing or Sainte-Beuve with his "Causeries du Lundi." When
Ferdinand Hiller was about sixteen years old he made a visit to Vienna
and called upon Schubert. "Do you write much?" asked Hiller,--a question
which now sounds odd enough, and shows how little knowledge of the great
composer there was outside of his own town. "I write every morning," said
Schubert, "and as soon as I have finished one thing I begin another." This
regularity was simply an outcome of the fact that the fount of inspiration
was never dry. It was not because it was work done for much needed money,
for the larger part of Schubert's work never brought him any money. It was
primarily because singing was as spontaneous with him on first awaking as
with a bird; sometimes he could not wait to get up and dress, but seized
a sheet of music paper and jotted down his first exuberant thoughts while
still in bed. After a piece was finished, he sometimes heard it sung or
played, and sometimes did not; in either case it was apt soon to be tucked
away in a cupboard drawer and forgotten; there are several anecdotes of
his listening to old songs of his own without recognizing them.
After working till two o'clock in the afternoon, Schubert used to dine,
and then visit friends, or take a walk, or sit in a café over his schoppen
of wine or beer. At such times, as we have seen, the sight of a poem, or
perhaps some interesting incident, would call forth a sudden outburst of
song. Some of his noblest masterpieces came from the beer garden. He does
not seem to have been in the habit of drinking anything stronger than beer
and wine. Of these light beverages he was very fond, and as his head was
easily affected, an opinion has found currency that this appetite was a
weakness with Schubert,--perhaps his only assignable weakness. The fact,
however, that he was always up early and quite fresh for the morning's
work, is clear proof that it could not have been a serious weakness. Among
friends with whom he was well acquainted he was genial and jovial, and
liked to sit and talk; but he habitually entertained a due respect for
to-morrow morning.
The compositions for the three years 1818-20 were about a hundred in
number. There were some noble church works, the fourth mass in C and the
fifth in A flat, a Salve Regina for soprano voice with string orchestra,
four hymns by Novalis, the twenty-third Psalm to Moses Mendelssohn's
version, and the Easter cantata "Lazarus"; also the operetta "Die
Zwillingsbrüder" and the fragment of an unfinished opera, "Sakuntala";
an overture for orchestra, quartetts, quintets, canzoni, many dances for
piano, and many songs.
The year 1821 marked a new era with Schubert; in that year some of his
compositions were first published. Some of his friends were determined to
have a group of his songs engraved, among them the Erl King which had now
often been heard in private concerts. They applied to two or three of the
most enterprising music publishers in Vienna, but without success. There
was no profit in such publications, said the sagacious men of business.
The composer was so obscure that his name would carry no weight; and as
for the songs, they were strange affairs, the melodies too difficult for
anybody to sing, and the piano accompaniments quite impossible for any one
to play! As the publishers thus proved unmanageable, some of Schubert's
friends had the Erl King engraved and printed by subscription, and about
the same time the song was first heard at Vienna in a public concert,
with the accompaniment played by the composer himself. It was in this
year, as already observed, that Vogl began giving concerts in which these
songs took a prominent place. In the course of a few months seven groups
of Schubert's songs were published on commission, and their success was
such that publishers were afterward ready to go on at their own risk. Of
new compositions this year saw the completion of the beautiful "Gesang
der Geister über den Wassern" for four tenors and four basses, with
accompaniment of two violas, two 'cellos, and double-bass. There was also
the seventh symphony, for the most part a sketch, but so full of clues
that it would not be difficult to complete it according to the original
intention. It looks as if the composer had some other work upon his
mind at the same time, perhaps the Alfonso and Estrella presently to be
mentioned, and could not for the moment wait to fill out all parts of the
score, but made very complete indications so as to be sure of recovering
his former thoughts on returning to it. Among this year's songs are some
that rank very high, as the two Suleikas and the "Geheimes" to Goethe's
words, the "Lob der Thränen" and "Sey mir gegrüsst." All these are
outdone, however, by the "Frühlingsglaube," written in 1822, to Uhland's
words, a song which for artistic perfection is absolutely unsurpassed.
The rapid development of Schubert's maturity in 1822 is exhibited in the
two movements of his eighth symphony in B-minor, now commonly called the
Unfinished Symphony. It was written for the Musikverein at Gratz, which
had lately elected him an honorary member. Why it was presented to the
society while still half-finished does not clearly appear. The first two
movements were completed and the scherzo partly sketched. It is now more
often played and better known than any of his other symphonies except
the great tenth, in C major, presently to be mentioned. There is greater
conciseness of expression, and in the opinion of some critics, even more
grandeur and beauty in the Unfinished Symphony than in the Tenth. Here
for the first time in an orchestral work Schubert appears as a completely
independent master. In his earlier symphonies, as in Beethoven's first
and second, one always feels the dominant influence of Haydn and Mozart.
In his sixth symphony, composed in 1817, we begin to see the influence of
Beethoven, for whom he was already coming to feel the love and adoration
that never ceased to occupy his mind even upon his death-bed. In the
Unfinished Symphony he takes a new departure, as Beethoven did in his
third or Eroica; but this new departure, while it profits by Beethoven,
is peculiarly Schubertian; the composer's individuality is as completely
expressed in it as in his songs.
We have already had occasion to mention operas or operettas in the lists
of our composer's works from year to year. His insatiable yearning to
express himself in music was excited whenever he happened to come across
an available dramatic poem, good or bad, and sometimes he was fain to
content himself with a wretched libretto. Hitherto his music for the stage
had been of much less importance than his other compositions, though
it hardly need be said that it abounded in beautiful and interesting
conceptions. But the increase of maturity just noticed in his orchestral
music was also shown in the production of his first grand opera, "Alfonso
and Estrella," in 1822, followed by his second and last such work,
"Fierabras," in 1823.
[Illustration: Fac-simile of manuscript of first sketch of the Erl King,
showing that the change of the right-hand accompaniment into triplets was
an afterthought.]
In the autumn of 1821 Schubert and his friend Schober took a bit of
vacation among the Styrian Alps, where something suggested a subject
for the romantic opera, "Alfonso and Estrella," and Schober wrote a
libretto so much better than anything our hero had yet had to work with
that it quite made his eyes sparkle. It may be doubted if Don Quixote's
housekeeper would have kept back even this libretto from the flames,
but of many a musical drama that has solaced the weary mind we may say
that it was not made to be analyzed. An opera should be judged not by
the element that would instantly evaporate in a logical crucible, but by
the opportunities it affords for dramatic situations. In this respect
the Schober libretto, though better than Schubert had ever worked with,
had its shortcomings; the situations were given, but not wrought up with
sufficient dramatic power, so that, in spite of the undeniable dramatic
genius of the composer, the general treatment was felt to be more
lyric than dramatic. The opera was also regarded as too long, and the
accompaniments were pronounced impossible by the orchestras at the Vienna
theatres. For these reasons it proved impossible to get it put upon the
stage. It was first performed at Weimar in 1854, under Liszt's direction,
but was coldly received. At length it was curtailed and simplified by
Johann Fuchs, and brought out at Carlsruhe in 1881, and since then it has
been performed many times with marked success. The overture, a superb
piece of orchestral writing, is often performed at concerts.
This opera was the occasion of a little tiff between Schubert and
Weber, who came to Vienna in 1823 to conduct his opera "Euryanthe." On
hearing that work performed, Schubert said that along with many beauties
in harmony and in dramatic treatment it was wanting in freshness and
originality of melody, and was on the whole quite inferior to its
predecessor, "Der Freischütz." Probably few would dissent from this
judgment to-day, but when it was repeated to Weber it naturally irritated
him, and he is said to have exclaimed, "The dunce had better learn to
do something himself before he presumes to sit in judgment on me."
This hasty remark was tattled about until Schubert heard of it, and
forthwith, armed with the score of "Alfonso and Estrella," he called upon
the famous northern composer, to prove that he had not spoken without
knowing how operas ought to be written. After looking through the score
Weber ungraciously observed, "You know it is customary for people to
drown the first puppies and the first operas!" Poor health was already
making Weber irritable, and this remark was only an expiring flicker of
peevishness. He did not regard "Alfonso and Estrella" as a puppy opera,
but admired it, and afterward tried, though unsuccessfully, to have it
performed in Dresden. The relations between the two composers seem to have
been friendly. Indeed Schubert never bore malice to anybody, and it was
impossible for any one to harbor an unkind feeling toward him.
Of "Fierabras" it need only be said that the libretto was a bad one, the
scene was Spain in the days of Carlovingian romance, the score filled
one thousand manuscript pages, and the opera was never performed. The
romances, entr'actes, choruses, and ballet music, written this year for
the drama of "Rosamunde," rank among the composer's most beautiful works,
and are often performed as concert-pieces, though the drama itself has
been lost.
During part of this year 1823 Schubert was ill and obliged to go to the
hospital. Yet besides all this quantity of operatic music, he composed
the cycle of twenty songs known as "Die schöne Müllerin," to the words of
Wilhelm Müller, containing the exquisite "Wohin?," "Ungeduld," "Trockne
Blumen," and others scarcely less beautiful. Some of these were written in
the hospital. As if this were not enough, the same year's list contains
"Du bist die Ruh," and "Auf dem Wasser zu singen"; as well as the piano
sonata in A minor, Op. 143.
The year 1824 was marked chiefly by piano compositions,--two sonatas and
an overture for four hands, besides a vast quantity of dance music, and
the "Divertissement à l'hongroise," suggested by an air hummed by the
kitchen maid at the Esterhazys' country house, where Schubert spent the
summer to recruit his health. There was also a string quartet, and the
celebrated octet for strings and wood which is now so familiar. This
activity in the sonata form seems to have culminated next year in the
ninth symphony, which was almost surely finished about August, 1825, but
which has quite disappeared from sight. There were three piano sonatas,
besides the fragment of a fourth. Of these the sonata in A minor, Op.
42, must probably be pronounced the greatest of Schubert's works for the
piano, showing along with its wealth of inventiveness a mastery of form
almost as complete as the best of the songs. Among the grand songs of
this year must be mentioned "Die junge Nonne," and the group of seven to
Scott's "Lady of the Lake," of which the most famous is the "Ave Maria."
[Illustration: SCHUBERT'S MONUMENT IN VIENNA.--From a photograph.]
Our composer's progress toward perfect achievement in instrumental music
is marked in 1826 by the two string quartets in G and D minor. The latter
is not only Schubert's greatest work in chamber music, but is hardly
surpassed by the work of any other composer in this department. At the
same time came the piano sonata in G, Op. 78, of remarkable breadth and
grandeur. The Shakespeare songs already mentioned belong to this year.
Among the works of 1827 the most memorable was the second grand cycle
of songs to words by Wilhelm Müller,--the immortal "Winterreise." These
jewels of lyric art, what lover of music will fail to know them, so long
as art endures? But a more sombre tone prevails in them than the songster
had sustained at such length before. The note of unsatisfied longing,
of the strange contrast between the glow of aspiration and the chill
reality, is most decisively struck in "Frühlingstraum." In the last of the
cycle, the pathetic "Leiermann," the sadness is only heightened by the
indescribably delicate and playful humor which hovers about the phrases.
To us it may seem as if these lyrics contained a premonition of the end
that was not far off; but probably Schubert did not suspect it. His
grandest outburst of creative power was yet to come; he was studying his
art more earnestly than ever, and in the true spirit of artist or scholar,
as if all eternity lay before him, though the dread summons might come
to-morrow; in the sweet words of the old monkish distich:--
"Disce ut semper victurus,
Vive ut eras moriturus."
Of worldly sources of strength and comfort this great spirit had so few as
to put to shame such weaker mortals as complain of the ways of Providence.
Of what is called business and its management he was as innocent as a babe
in arms. His reticence, his unwillingness to intrude upon others, often
prevented his friends from realizing the straits to which he was reduced.
There can be little doubt that even at this later period of life he
sometimes suffered from cold and hunger, and it has been thought that his
death was hastened by such privations. Salaried positions that he might
have creditably filled were given to men with more self-assertion. His
attempts at the more marketable forms of music, as opera was then deemed
to be, failed from various untoward conditions; and he would sometimes
sell for the price of a frugal breakfast a song destined to bring wealth
to some publisher. The genial musician, Franz Lachner, declares from
personal knowledge that half a dozen numbers of the "Winterreise" were
written in a single day and sold for a franc apiece! If Schubert had
lived longer there would probably have been an improvement in this state
of things. The greatness of his posthumous fame is liable to make us
forget that his life was ended at an age when the most brilliant men are
usually just beginning to win their earliest laurels. From 1822 to 1828
his reputation was increasing rapidly, and before long would have become
so great as probably to work some improvement in his affairs. With time
the recognition of his genius was to seize the whole musical world as it
seized upon Beethoven.
The story of the relations between these two artists is touching. It seems
singular enough that Schubert and Beethoven should have lived in the same
city for thirty years without meeting more than once until the very end.
By his twentieth year, if not before, the feeling of Schubert for the
older composer had come to be little short of adoration. But Beethoven was
absorbed in work, and stone deaf withal, and not always easy of approach,
and his adorer was timid. Sometimes he came into the café where Schubert
was dining and sat down at another table. For a man of the world to get
up, step across the room, and open a conversation with the demigod, might
seem no very difficult undertaking; for Schubert it was simply impossible.
But in 1822 a meeting was at length brought about. His "Variations on a
French Air" were published by Diabelli and dedicated to Beethoven, and
Diabelli took Schubert with him to the master's house to present the
offering in person. Beethoven received the visitors graciously, and paper
and pencil for conversation were handed to them as usual, but Schubert
was too confused to write a word. Most likely it was Diabelli who handed
to Beethoven the Variations and called his attention to the tribute of
admiration printed at their head. On looking over the music Beethoven
stumbled upon some daring or questionable innovation of style, and in
his most kindly manner turned to Schubert to inquire his reason for it,
or perhaps to make some mild criticism quite proper from an artist of
fifty-two years to one of twenty-five. At this the poor fellow simply lost
his head, and with some incoherent exclamation fled into the street. Ah,
what chagrin when once safely alone, and the very thing he ought to have
said, so neat and telling, popped into his head! But to go back, or to
speak to the great man again seemed more than ever impossible.
It was during Beethoven's last illness in 1827 that he first came to
know Schubert. Beethoven's friend and biographer Schindler brought him a
parcel of Schubert's songs, including the "Schöne Müllerin" group, "Die
junge Nonne," and others. Beethoven's astonishment and admiration knew
no bounds. He studied the songs with most profound interest, declared
that their composer was destined to become a great power in the world,
and expressed deep regret that he had not known more about him. Scarcely
a day passed without his reverting to the subject, and it must of course
have been this that led Schubert to visit him twice. On the first occasion
there was some affectionate talk between them; on the second the dying
man was no longer able to speak, but only made some unintelligible signs,
and Schubert went away bowed down with grief. At the funeral he was one
of the torch-bearers, and on the way home from the graveyard he stopped
with Lachner and another friend at the Mehlgrube tavern, and they drank a
glass of wine to the memory of the mighty master who had left them. Then
Schubert proposed a second glass to that one of themselves who should be
the first to follow. It was to be himself, and very soon.
[Illustration: VIEW IN CEMETERY AT VIENNA, SHOWING TOMBS OF BEETHOVEN,
MOZART AND SCHUBERT.