Part 18
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.
From a photograph.]
An instance of the rapidly growing interest in his music was furnished by the success of a private concert which he gave for his own benefit early in 1828. The programme consisted entirely of his own compositions, the audience was large and enthusiastic, and the sum, equivalent to one hundred and sixty dollars, which that evening brought him, must have given him an unwonted sense of wealth. It was his first and last concert of this sort. For creative work this last year of his life was the most wonderful, and indeed it would be difficult to cite from the whole history of music a parallel to it. The one orchestral work was the colossal tenth symphony in C major, which showed so unmistakably upon whose shoulders the mantle of the dead master had fallen, that it used sometimes to be called "Beethoven's tenth symphony." But there is no imitation of Beethoven or any other master in this work; it is as individually and intensely Schubertian as the Erl King. It was first performed in Vienna about a month after its composer's death, but its technical difficulties caused it to lie neglected and forgotten until 1838, when Robert Schumann carried the score to Leipsic and studied it with Mendelssohn; and it was again given to the world, under Mendelssohn's direction, in the following year. Since then it has been one of the best known and most thoroughly loved of all the symphonies written since Beethoven's, and it ranks undoubtedly among the foremost ten or twelve orchestral masterpieces of the world.
Side by side with this symphony sprang into existence the mass in E flat, the most finished and the most sublime of Schubert's masses, and standing, like the symphony, in the foremost rank of all works of its kind. And along with this came the master's first and only oratorio, "Miriam's Song of Triumph," a noble work, in which, however, Schubert only supported the vocal score with an accompaniment for piano; so that it must be regarded as in this sense incomplete. It has often been performed with orchestration by Lachner, but still needs to be completed by some master more capable of entering into the composer's intention.
Outdoing his earlier self in all directions at once, Schubert wrote in this same year his quintet in C major for strings, which among his works in chamber music is equalled only by the D-minor quartet of 1826. And so, too, with his piano music; besides many other works poured forth at this time, we have three superb sonatas, of which the one in B-flat is dated September 28, less than eight weeks before his death. From all his piano works it would be hard to select one fuller of his peculiar poetical charm. Among the sonatas its only peers are the A minor, Op. 42, and the G major, Op. 78.
In some of the songs of this year the genius of the composer reached a height scarcely attained before. Besides a few others, uncounted drops in this ocean of achievement, there were fourteen, not obviously intended as a cycle, but published in a group, soon after Schubert's death, with the publisher's title, "Swan Songs." It is enough to mention that this group contains the "Serenade," "Aufenthalt," and "Am Meer," matchless for intensity of emotion as for artistic perfection of form. Whichever of this group he wrote last was truly his swan song; it is commonly believed to have been the "Taubenpost," dated in October.
During this last year of marvellous creative activity Schubert had suffered frequently from headache and vertigo. Such cerebral excitement entailed an excessive rush of blood to the head. Early in September he moved from his lodgings with Schober to a house which his brother Ferdinand had lately taken. The situation was near the open country and thought to be more favorable for air and exercise. Unfortunately the house was newly-built and damp; very likely the drainage was defective. Schubert evidently had no suspicion of his dangerous condition, until on the last evening of October, while supping with some friends at the Rothen Kreuz inn, having taken some fish from his plate he suddenly threw down his knife and fork, saying that food had become as odious as poison. This somewhat alarmed his friends, but he was as full of plans for future work as if his health had been robust. On November 3, he took a long walk to attend the performance of a Latin requiem composed by his brother Ferdinand, the last music he ever heard. He had lately begun studying the scores of Handel's oratorios, and had thus become impressed with the fact that in counterpoint he had still much to learn. Though greatly fatigued with his walk on November 3, he went next day to see Sechter, a famous teacher of counterpoint, and made arrangements for taking a course of lessons; the text-book and the dates were settled upon. It is doubtful if Schubert ever went out again. The disturbance of the stomach, which prevented him from taking food, continued, and his strength ebbed away. A letter to Schober on the eleventh says that he can barely get from the bed to a chair and back again; he has been reading the Last of the Mohicans, the Spy, the Pilot, and the Pioneer; and if Schober happens to have anything else of Cooper's, or any other interesting book, he would like to have him send it. Something like typhus fever was setting in. After the fourteenth he was confined to his bed, but was still able to correct the proofs of the "Winterreise." On the seventeenth he became delirious. The next day he complained of having been taken to a strange and dreadful room, and when his brother Ferdinand tried to soothe him with the assurance that he was at home, he replied, "No, it cannot be so; Beethoven is not here!" On the next day there passed away one of the sweetest and truest souls that ever looked with human eyes. He was buried in the Währing cemetery in a grave as near as possible to that of Beethoven. Upon a monument afterward erected at the head of the grave was inscribed the epitaph, by Franz Grillparzer: "Music has here entombed a rich treasure, but still more glorious hopes. Here lies Franz Schubert, born Jan. 31, 1797, died Nov. 19, 1828, aged 31 years." Much fault has been found with the second clause of this epitaph, and Herr Kreissle does not seem to have quite understood it as it was meant. It was true, as Schumann said of him, "He has done enough, and praised be he who, like Schubert, has striven and accomplished." Nevertheless it was equally true that he was cut off while his powers were rapidly expanding, and at a moment when even greater achievement, though difficult to imagine, would have been no more than a logical consequence of what had gone before.
[Illustration: SCHUBERT'S TOMB IN VIENNA.--From a photograph.
Erected to his memory by the Vienna Manner Gesangs-Verein (Male Chorus).]
Schubert's personal appearance was not attractive. He was short and round-shouldered, and in his homely face there was nothing to betray the sacred fire within him save the brightness of the eyes. His character was almost without a flaw. Simplicity, modesty, kindness, truthfulness, and fidelity were his marked attributes. He was utterly free from envy or malice, and not a trace of selfishness appears in anything he ever said or did. His life was devoted, with entire disinterestedness, to the pursuit of the noblest aims of art.
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Concerning his position in the history of music there is but little question, and the subject admits of a brief statement. The man who died in his thirty-second year, leaving behind him at least eleven hundred and thirty-one _such_ compositions, must surely be called the most prolific of composers, even after allowing for the fact that more than six hundred of these works were songs, and therefore brief. We may safely say, too, that for creative spontaneity such a man can never have been surpassed, perhaps scarcely ever have been equalled. This spontaneous genius found its first and most characteristic expression in vocal song, and it is commonly if not universally agreed that Schubert was the greatest composer of songs that ever lived. In this department of music he marks an era. In him the German Lied reached a plane of development to which it had not attained before him.
The German Lied (i.e. Lay) was originally a Volkslied (i.e. Folk's-lay) or popular melody. The merit of popular melody lies largely in its spontaneity. In German popular melody, from the oldest times, the merit of beauty has been added to that of spontaneity, inasmuch as the Germans, like the Slavs, are naturally musical in a sense in which English-speaking people are not. No German-speaking people would tolerate for a national air such a tune as Yankee Doodle. In the plainest German folk-song may be found spontaneous simplicity without vulgarity. Hence the Volkslied has been available as a source of melodic suggestiveness to German composers. It is one such chief source, the Gregorian chant being the other. To the presence of this folk-song element we may largely ascribe the far higher poetic quality of German classical music as compared with the more prosaic musical declamation of the modern French and Italians.
But as the earlier German composers subjected the Volkslied to elaborate contrapuntal treatment, while on the one hand they added to its range and depth of expression, on the other hand they deprived it to some extent of its indescribable charm. Artistic music began to be divorced from the Volkslied, and with the advance of musical education the latter seemed to be falling into decay. But with the revival of German literature which dates from Lessing, there began a new development of national spirit among Germans, of which we have seen the culmination in our own time. One of the early symptoms was the introduction of the Volkslied element into poetry by Herder and Goethe. About the same time we find the same element appearing in the thematic treatment of symphonies, sonatas, and string quartets by Haydn and Mozart, especially in the adagios. In Mozart's songs there is a great development in dramatic treatment, as for example, in "Unglückliche Liebe." The nearest approach made by Mozart to the kind of song afterward developed by Schubert was probably in "Das Veilchen," the only one of his songs set to Goethe's words. As Mozart was pre-eminently a musical dramatist, so was Beethoven first and foremost a symphonist; and in his songs the most noticeable new feature is the enrichment of the harmonies and the profound increase of significance in the instrumental accompaniments. We see this in the magnificent "Adelaide," which, however, resembles an aria rather than a genuine Lied. In some parts of Beethoven's exquisite cycle, "An die ferne Geliebte," he comes nearer to the Schubertian form of song.