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.
SCHUBERT'S TOMB IN VIENNA.—From a photograph.