Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1928-11)

November, 1928 The Phonograph Monthly Review 43 M M" 1 — " — spent six months to the advantage of his health. This was the time of Schubert’s reported love for Caroline Esterhazy, then seventeen. The only work dedicated to her was the F minor piano fantasia, Op. 103, but, according to Kreissle, Schubert answered a playful reproach from Caroline as to why he had dedicated nothing to her with “Why should I, when everything I write is dedicated to you ” Grove does not take the matter as a certainty, leaving it with the remark “we must be content to leave each reader to decide the question for himself”. Schubert’s grandniece, Carola Geisler-Schubert, finds more trustworthy an account of Schubert’s love story as quoted from Schubert by Hiittenbrenner, who has asked him if he had ever been in love. He answered that he had loved and been loved by one “somewhat younger than I, the daughter of a silk-merchant” (Therese Grob). “She was not pretty, as she was marked by smallpox, but she was so good!” He hoped to marry her for three years, but could not find a posi- tion to support them, and afterwards, at her parents’ wish, she married another. Schubert added that he loved her still (Musical Courier, April 1, 1928). Schubert, back in Vienna, found 1825 happy and productive. He became acquainted with Mm. Sofie Muller, an actress of note, who sang, it is said at sight, “Die Junge Nonne” on March 3. Among his compositions early in the year was the famous A minor quartet. On March 31, he set out on a five months’ tour with Vogl, including a visit of three or four weeks to Gastein, and here, according to Grove, wrote the work, if such there be, known as the “Gastein” symphony— which has never been discovered, despite recent research. He found his works well known in Upper Austria, and Grove, writing in 1881, remarked that even then old people were found to talk with equal enthusiasm “of his lovely music and of the unaffected gaiety and simplicity of his ways and manners”. The summer over, Vogl went to Italy for his health, and Schubert returned to Vienna. He was made an “Ersatzmann” or substitute by the Vienna Society of the Friends of Music. The best known of Schubert’s quartets, the D minor, with the “Death and the Maiden” variations, was probably begun late in 1825. He obtained some money, not much, by the sale of seven songs from Scott’s “The Lady of the Lake” to Artaria in October of that year. The sum was 200 silver gulden, a little less than $100. 1826 was entirely, or mainly spent in Vienna. On September 9, the Board of the Friends of Music was informed that Schubert desired to dedicate a symphony to the society, which led it to vote him 100 silver florins (about $50) as a testimon- ial. Schubert forwarded the symphony (believed to be the missing “Gastein”) with a letter of thanks. Two more pub- lishers approached Schubert, but with no helpful results. Grove thinks that the publications of 1826 would have been enough to support him adequately, had it not been for the friends who virtually lived on his carelessness and good-na- ture, so that money which came in was soon spent. On one occasion, he narrates, Bauernfeld and Schubert each detected the' other ordering cafe-au-lait and biscuits at a cafe, neither having money enough to pay for dinner. Schubert was urged to apply for the vacant post of vice-Kappellmeister in the imperial court, but the post went to Joseph Weigh The “Winterreise” cycle was begun in February, 1827. About this time, Beethoven, whose illness was a matter of concern to all Vienna, saw some of Schubert’s songs, which had been handed him by Schindler. Beethoven, much im- pressed, remarked, “Truly Schubert has the divine fire in him”, and asked to see other works of Schubert, but his renewed illness made it too late. Schubert visited the dying composer twice, the first time with Anselm Hiittenbrenner and Schindler. Asked who was to be first admitted, Beethoven answered “Schubert may come first”, and is supposed to have said “You, Anselm, have my mind, but Franz has my soul”. At the second visit Beethoven was aware of his visitor’s pre- sence, and made uninterpretable signs with his hand. Schu- bert left overcome with emotion. At Beethoven’s funeral, on March 29, he was one of the thirty-eight torch bearers pre- ceding the coffin. After the ceremony, Schubert went to the Mehlgrube tavern with Lachner and Randhartinger, called for wine, and drank two toasts, one to Beethoven’s memory, the other to the first of the group who should follow him. This was Schubert himself. Another opera, “Graf von Gleichen” was begun in 1827, MM but never finished. In September, Schubert paid a three weeks’ visit to the Pachler family in Gratz, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Back in Vienna, he composed the second part of the “Winterreise” cycle. Recognition from Germany came in the form of a letter from Rochlitz, editor of the Leipzig “Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung“ proposing that Schubert should compose music to a poem by him. The proposition, however came to nothing. In the same year, Schubert received furthur recognition at home, when he was elected as a representative of the Friends of Music. 1828, Schubert’s last year, produced some of his most fa- mous works, including the symphony in C major, dated March. With this, he apparently took more pains than before; there are signs of alterations, but nothing like the arduous erasing and lewriting practised by Beethoven. On March 26, Schu- bert gave a concert, which netted him $150, in the hall of the Musikverein, He was, however, too poor to leave Vienna that summer, though he visited the nearby resort of Baden in June. For some time, he had been living with Schober at the “Blaue Igel” (Blue Hedgehog), but in August he moved to live with his brother Ferdinand in the Neue Weiden region, then 694 Firmiangasse. He had been ill, but was better early in the fall, and able to take a short walking tour at the beginning of October. But after his return, he relapsed; on the 31st, at supper at the Rothen Kreuz in the Himmelp- fortgrund, he took some fish, but at the first mouthful threw down his knife and fork, declaring that it tasted like poison. He was able to attend a performance of his brother Fer- dinand’s Requiem Mass on November 3. Afterward, he wand- ered for three hours and returned home exhausted. He rallied, and called upon the theorist, Sechter, with a view to lessons in counterpoint. Ferdinand’s Requiem was the last performance heard by Schubert. He wrote his last letter abcAit the 11th, to Schober, asking for books, and stating that he had read four works of J. Fenimore Cooper’s. On the 14th, he took to his bed, but was still able to sit up and correct the proofs of the “Winter- reise”. On the 16th, the doctors still had hopes of his re- rovery, but by the 17th, typhus had broken out, On the 18th, he said, clutching at the wall, “Here is my end”. The next day, at three in the afternoon, he died, only thirty-one years old. “There has never been one like him”, writes Grove, “and there never will be another”. The funeral took place on Friday, November 21, with Scho- ber, at the family’s request, as chief mourner. The coffin was borne by a group of young men to the little church of St. Joseph in Margarethen, and then taken (according to Schu- bert’s own wish) to the cemetery at Wahring, and laid beside Beethoven’s grave. Schubert left no will, and few possessions. Various testimonial ceremonies followed in the next few months. Proceeds of memorial concerts and subscriptions yielded funds enough for a monument. In 1863, the Friends of Music undertook the exhumation and reburial of Schubert and Beethoven, owing to the dilapidation of the tombs. On September 23, 1888, Schubert was reburied in the central ceme- tery at Vienna. Schubert was not handsome, short and stout, and bespec- tacled from early youth, but, according to Duncan, “a pic- turesque head, showing a profusion of black, vigourous hair”, and “remarkably expressive eyes”. He was shy and reserved, but all indications point to an appealing personality; he was transparently truthful, good-humored, remarkably generous, fond of a joke and possessing, says Grove, “a cheerful con- tented evenness”, while he could be deeply moved by a poem or music which appealed to him. The love and admiration of his friends is an indication of the attractiveness of his character, while he was entirely free of the “jealous suscep- tibility” which is sometimes associated with musicians. How much was lost to us by the untimeliness of Schubert’s death, and whether much would have been gained had he de- voted more attention to subjects such as the study of counter- point, must remain but a subject for speculation. He com- posed with ease, he wrote music, as it were, because he could not do otherwise, but he was more than an inexhaustible,, but untutored fount of melody. The tendency of modern scho- larship is to call attention to Schubert’s mastery of form and harmony, to point to his significant innovations, and to em- phasize the wide scope of his musical genius. One hundred years after his death, the star of Schubert is still rising, and ‘closer acquaintance with Schubert and his music brings in- creasing regard and admiration for this unique, unrivalled musician.