We are spared the suicide which we might expect in the final song of the cycle. The wanderer comes upon an old man playing the grind-organ. He grinds out what music he can, but his little money-box remains ever empty. The wanderer feels the brotherhood between himself and the old man. ‘Play my songs on your grind-organ,’ he asks. People have suggested that this bit of verse must have come very close to Schubert’s heart; for he, too, had made what music he could, he too was alone in the world, and he too found his little money-box always empty.
Of the songs of this cycle at least a third rank with Schubert’s best. ‘The Lindentree,’ with its simple strophic melody, is almost a folk-song among the German people. Die Post is justly admired because of the way it blends a mild realism with high melodic and interpretative beauty. Der greise Kopf is especially interesting as pointing forward to the more complex and delineative style of several of Schubert’s later songs, with its melodic peculiarity of outline and the extreme importance given the accompaniment. In superficial texture it much resembles Die Stadt (‘The Town’) from his last song group.
‘The Signpost’ however, is more truly representative of Schubert’s genius. The movement of the song is symphonic, much like that of the ‘Dead Flowers’ in the Müllerlieder. Its steady pulse of rhythm avoids monotony by the most delicate of harmonic movement in the inner parts. As the tragedy deepens toward the end of the song the steady beat of the melody continues for whole measures on a single tone. And in half notes a bass and an alto voice move chromatically toward each other through the best part of an octave. The device would be a trick in the hands of a lesser genius; with Schubert it becomes poetic interpretation. This wonderful song is abundantly worth careful study; in particular, the harmonic freedom, combined with liquid smoothness of voice progression, reveals the romantic strain in the composer’s equipment and something of his peculiar contribution to the development of music’s expressive resources.
Of ‘The Inn’ we have already spoken. The deep and tragic sweetness of it grows on one, impressive as it is at first hearing. This particular mood of tragic sweetness is a pitfall for composers. With any but the genius it is sure to become maudlin. With Schubert it became heartrending.
Such a song as ‘Courage’ cannot be overpraised. The compressed energy of its movement is not that of animal life, but of moral effort. Human will-power is felt throughout it. The change from minor to major (Schubert to the bone) in the last lines makes the hearer’s blood surge to dizziness. It is one of the most difficult songs to sing. For its energy may so easily be taken for animal spirits. It is just the song to ‘run away’ with the singer. And when once the singer has lost mental control of it, it becomes pitiless toward him. The tonic arpeggio of the last line requires ultimate exactness of vocal control. And from beginning to end the least inaccuracy of intonation or accent will be evident to the audience like a black streak on a white shirt-front.
Nebensonnen (‘Satellites’) is of utmost simplicity. It is so unassuming that for a moment it seems all but trivial. Yet this is the tender modesty of great lyric expression. The song is a test of the singer’s taste. The least over-sentimentalization of it will make the judicious grieve. A thousand times better to make it too simple and too prosaic than too emotional.
The last song, ‘The Organ Grinder,’ is written over a monotonous ‘drone bass,’ imitative of a primitive grind-organ. The melody is apparently as crude as the instrument that is supposed to have played it. But somewhere in it one hears—one knows not how—the deep strain of pathos which is one of Schubert’s miracles.
The third cycle, ‘Swan Songs,’ is matter for amazement to every student of Schubert. For its composer, in the space of fifteen years since he first began writing in earnest, seems to have become a totally new man with a totally new musical technique. It is traditionally hard for a musician to change his technique once it is firmly ingrown. The greatest musicians only—Beethoven, Wagner, and a few others—have been able to do it. That Schubert could do it—in addition to the fact that he was thus willing further to endanger his chances of material success—proves the marvellous richness of his natural endowment. When one considers that these songs were written by a man who had just passed his thirtieth year one is ‘teased out of thought’ with the curiosity as to what he would have become in music had he lived. Some have answered—‘the greatest composer of all time.’ The speculation is fascinating, and it makes us love our Schubert the better.
The fourteen ‘Swan Songs’ are written to seven texts by Rellstab, one by J. G. Seydl, and six by Heine. The last fact makes us pause. Rarely has there been so rich a lyric poet as Heine, probably never one who could so inspire song writers. His first book of lyrics had been published only shortly before Schubert’s death, and the composer had set six of them before his final illness. Of these six, five are enduring masterpieces. If only Schubert’s genius could have been mated to Heine’s through the succeeding ten years!
The seven Rellstab songs include the universally known ‘Serenade,’ the beauty of which is too obvious and too familiar to need further comment. Another and greater song of the list is Aufenthalt. The speaker’s ‘abode’ is among the rugged cliffs, and he reflects that his sorrow is as unshakable as the eternal rocks. The furious sweep of the song’s movement is breathless. Beneath and above the triplets of the accompaniment is always a passionate and despairing melody. When the voice rests for a moment the piano, in marvellous imitation, takes up the strain. The climax, on the words ‘starrender Fels,’ is terrific. The final half-declaimed phrase is almost Greek in its severe nobility.