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.

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.

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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."