“As an interpreter of nature Weber’s position in the dramatic world is like that of Beethoven in the Symphony. Nobody has ever depicted with the same truth as he a sultry moonlight night the stillness broken only by the nightingale’s trill and the solemn murmur of the trees, as in Agathe’s grand scene in Der Freischütz; or a gruesome night scene in the gloomy forest ravine such as that in the Finale of the 2d Act. With this descriptive faculty went hand in hand consummate skill in orchestration. There is something original and intoxicating in the sound he brings out of the Orchestra, a complete simplicity combined with perfect novelty. He was able, as it were, to transport himself into the soul of the instruments and make them talk to us like human beings, each in its own language, each speaking when it alone has power to lay bare the very heart of the action.
“The phrase ‘local coloring’ in music may be defined as that which conjures up before our minds the associations connected with certain scenes, races and epochs. In the Freischütz the prevailing color was derived from the life of the German foresters and huntsmen; in Preciosa we have the charm of the south in lovely Spain, then the type of all that was romantic, with the picturesque life of the roving gipsy. Euryanthe takes us back to the Middle Ages and the palmy days of French chivalry which reappear to some extent in Oberon mingled with scenes from Oriental life and from fairyland. Weber’s melody, the chords of his harmony, the figures employed, the effects of color so totally unexpected—all combine to waft us with mysterious power into an unknown land.”[73]
Schubert’s gift to the Orchestra was his novel way of writing for the trombones and for his use of the woodwind. He gave a conversational treatment of oboe, flute and clarinet. This does not mean to say that he did not also write beautifully for the strings.
No composer ever lived more entirely in his music than Schubert. There is not much to say about his life. He was born in Vienna; he lived there all his life; and he died there at the age of thirty-one. He earned a scanty living; he found it hard to get his compositions published; he had no wealthy patrons like Handel, Haydn, Gluck, Mozart and Beethoven; he had no pleasures, no triumphs such as Weber and Mendelssohn enjoyed. Schubert’s life was dull and commonplace. Yet between the years of his birth and death—1797-1828—he produced an astounding number of works. He wrote 650 songs (the extraordinary Erl-King when he was only eighteen), ten Symphonies (of which the eighth is the Unfinished), many operettas, piano-music and a great deal of orchestral and chamber-music and compositions for special instruments.
Salieri, the old rival of Mozart, was the first to recognize Schubert’s genius. “He can do everything,” he exclaimed, “he is a genius. He composes songs, masses, operas, quartets—whatever you can think of.” In 1822 Schubert met both Beethoven and Weber. Beethoven he adored. Schubert was a singer, violinist and pianist.
SCHUBERT
By Rieder
Schubert’s first Symphony in D is dated 1813; the Second in B-flat is dated 1814; the Third in D, in 1815; the Fourth in C-minor (described by the composer as “the Tragic”) is dated 1816; and scored for two violins, viola, violoncello and bass, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets and drums.