Story-Lives of Great Musicians

by Francis Jameson Rowbotham

It was not until five years after this event that Beethoven realised how great a singer had been uttering his sweet notes within the span of the city in which he lived, and then the master lay upon his death-bed. Into his hands had been placed a collection of Schubert's songs, some sixty in all, and as he turned them over his attention was arrested by their beauty, and he uttered frequent expressions of surprise and delight. But even greater was his astonishment when he learned that there were more than five hundred of such songs extant. 'How can he have found time,' he asked, 'for the setting of such long poems, many of them containing ten others?' (by which he meant to convey that they were as long as ten ordinary poems). For several days the collection occupied his attention. 'Ah, if I had had this poem I would have set it myself!' he would exclaim. 'Truly, Schubert has the Divine fire in him!' He made frequent references to Schubert, expressing his regret that he had not sooner known him for the composer he was, and prophesying a great future for him in the world of music. Schubert himself longed to pay his respects to the master he revered so highly, and one day, in company with his friends Anselm Hüttenbrenner and Schindler (both of whom were well known to Beethoven), he presented himself at the door of the sick man's chamber. Schindler informed Beethoven of their arrival, and asked who he would like to see first. 'Schubert may come in first,' was the reply. Before they left, Beethoven, regarding them with a smile, said: 'You, Anselm, have my mind, but Franz has my soul.' When for the second time Schubert found his way to the bedside of the master death was very near, and though as they stood around the bed he made signs to them with his hand to show that he recognised their presence, he could not speak, and, overcome with emotion, Schubert quitted the room.

A little more than three weeks after the second visit Schubert was walking as one of the torch-bearers beside the coffin of his loved master, as the latter was borne to his last resting-place in the Währinger cemetery. On the way back Schubert and his friends passed through the Himmelpfortgrund, close to the old home, and, entering a tavern, called for wine. Schubert, having filled his glass, raised it aloft: 'I drink,' said he, 'to the memory of Beethoven.' Then once more filling the glass, he drained it to the first of the three friends then present, who was destined to follow the master to his grave.

Little did Schubert dream that he was emptying his glass to his own memory! Nor in the eyes of his friends would there seem to have been anything in his appearance at that moment which could be taken as foreshadowing the early closing of that eager, active life. Gazing at him then, as he sat drinking his grim toast, the picture presented to his companions was that of a short, stout, thick-set man of about thirty, with a head of thick, black hair, disposed in crisp curls, bushy eyebrows, and a pair of bright black eyes which beamed through his spectacles. The face was round with full cheeks, the complexion pasty, the nose short and insignificant, the lips full and protruding, the jaw broad and strong; the hands, like the rest of the body, were plump, and the fingers thick and short. There was nothing striking about his general expression; but when the conversation turned upon music, and especially if Beethoven were the topic of discussion, his eyes would brighten at once, and the whole face light up with animation.

As he sat in the dingy parlour of the little tavern, beaming upon his friends, whilst the minds of all three were rapt by the solemn event which they had just witnessed, the proximity of death within that circle was not contemplated. Yet the story of his life shows us that the period which had elapsed between the date of his presenting his Variations to Beethoven and that of his first visit to the composer on his death-bed had been full of anxieties and bitter disappointments; and there is no doubt that the continuous struggle for existence, coupled with the strain of unceasing work, had only too surely undermined a constitution which could never have been robust.

One of Schubert's greatest longings was to write for the stage. The longing was evident almost at the first, and it grew with his strength and the consciousness of his powers as a composer. As the finger of fame beckoned him forward it had directed his steps to the theatre as the goal of his aspirations, and it was upon the attainment of this object that he lavished all the later powers of his genius—only, alas! to reap the bitter fruit of disappointment. One after another of his operas was rejected, even, as in the case of 'Fierabras,' when at the very point of production—the reasons assigned in each case being either the unsuitableness of the libretto or the difficulties presented by the music, and the door which he hoped to enter was closed against him during his lifetime. The score of 'Fierabras' comprised no fewer than one thousand pages, and the mournful state into which he was thrown by its rejection may be gathered by an extract from a letter penned just after the fate of the opera had been sealed. He refers to himself as 'the most unfortunate, most miserable being on earth,' and proceeds: 'Think of a man whose health can never be restored, and who from sheer despair makes matters worse instead of better. Think, I say, of a man whose brightest hopes have come to nothing, to whom love and friendship are but torture, and whose enthusiasm for the beautiful is fast vanishing, and ask yourself if such a man is not truly unhappy.

'My peace is gone, my heart is sore,
Gone for ever and evermore.

This is my daily cry; for every night I go to sleep hoping never again to wake, and every morning only brings back the torment of the day before.... I have composed two operas for nothing.'

Thus sadly he wrote in the hour of bitterness, but happily for Schubert, and still more fortunately for us, there were brighter days yet in store for him, and the enthusiasm for the beautiful, which he speaks of as 'fast vanishing,' returned in all its accustomed force. No disappointment, however great, seemed to have the power to check the flow of production—that is the one great point which we notice about Schubert's life; we find him at one moment despairing, but at the next his troubles appear to be forgotten, and he is immersed in the writing of another song, another symphony, or another sonata, as the case may be; but it is always work, work in the face of every obstacle that fortune can throw in his way. 'His life is all summed up in his music.' 'Music and music alone was to him all in all. It was not his principal mode of expression, it was his only one; it swallowed up every other. His afternoon walks, his evening amusements, were all so many preparations for the creations of the following morning.'[28] And so it continued until the end. The very last year of his busy life, far from exhibiting any diminution of his powers, is marked by the production of some of his very finest works.

It was not until the end of October, 1828, that the signs of serious illness made themselves apparent in attacks of giddiness, accompanied by a marked loss of strength. Schubert was at this time living with his brother Ferdinand at the latter's house in the Neue Wieden suburb—the house is now known as No. 6, Kettenbrücken Gasse—having removed thither on the advice of his doctor for the sake of the fresh air and the adjacent country. Although he rallied somewhat during the first week of November, and was able to resume his walks and discuss his plans for the future, the weakness increased, and on the 11th he wrote to his friend Schober what was destined to be his last letter:

'Dear Schober,