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.
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.
Now in Schubert all the elements of intensity, power, and poetical depth in song are found united as never before in such perfection or on such a scale. The breadth and vigor of dramatic treatment, the profound and subtle harmonic changes, the accumulation of effect by the rhythm and sometimes by the independent melodic themes of the accompaniment, are all to be found in his songs; and at the same time the perfect spontaneity and the indescribable poetical fragrance of the Volkslied are fully preserved. Utterances that spring from the depth of the human soul are clothed in the highest forms of art without losing their naiveté. We must thus rank Schubert among the most consummate masters of expression the world has ever seen. His songs represent the high-water mark of human achievement in one direction, as Beethoven's symphonies represent it in another. All subsequent composers, beginning with Mendelssohn and Schumann, have been pupils of Schubert in song-writing, but no one has yet equalled the master. Mendelssohn's songs, while perfect in form and bewitching for grace, are far inferior to Schubert's in intensity of passion. On the other hand Schumann has written some songs—such as "Frühlingsnacht," "Ich grolle nicht," the "Frauenliebe" cycle, and others—which for concentrated fire, as well as for original and magnificent harmonies—almost surpass those of Schubert; but in wealth of imagination, in spontaneity and variety, he remains distinctly inferior to his master.
In thus carrying the Lied to the highest point of development it has yet reached, Schubert became one of the chief sources of inspiration for modern music in all its departments. The influence of his conception of the Lied is to be seen in all his most highly developed and characteristic writing for piano, for orchestra, and for chorus. In his earlier symphonies, quartets, and sonatas he was strongly influenced by his study of Mozart, and his own individuality is by no means so distinctly asserted as in his songs. If the sonata form of expression were as easily caught as the simple song form, this need not have been the case. After Schubert had mastered the sonata form so that it became for him as easy a vehicle of spontaneous expression as the Lied, his sonatas and symphonies became strongly characteristic and replete with originality. This is exemplified in his eighth and tenth symphonies, in his piano sonatas, Op. 42 and Op. 78, and in his later chamber music. In such compositions he simply worked within the forms perfected by Beethoven and did nothing to extend them. But his musical individuality, saturated with the Lied, impressed upon these noble works features that have influenced all later instrumental music, imparting to it a more romantic character. As Mr. Paine observes, "we are constantly surprised by the sudden and abrupt modulations, rhythmical effects of melody and accompaniment which we call Schubert's that give variety and life to his movements. The Unfinished Symphony in B minor is perhaps the most noteworthy in these respects; it is the epitome of his genius, and well typifies his own unfinished but perfect life."
In similar wise, in his smaller works for piano—his impromptus, "moments musicals," dances, marches, variations, etc.—we see the marked influence of the Lied. The impromptu in G major, Op. 90, for example, is a "song without words." In piano music not only Mendelssohn and Schumann, but also Chopin, drew copious inspiration from Schubert, who thus stands as one of the principal founders of the modern imaginative and romantic schools.