HE first two great figures of the nineteenth century were those of Carl Maria von Weber, whose work will be considered later, and the great song writer, Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). This remarkable man was born of poor parents in Vienna, or near it, his father being a schoolmaster, earning the proverbially meager stipend of the profession in Germany at that time, amounting to no more than $100 or $200 a year. The family was musical, and the Sundays were devoted to quartette playing and other forms of music. The boy Franz early showed a fine ear. He was soon put to the study of the violin and the piano—while still a mere child being furnished with a small violin, upon which he went through the motions of his father's part. He had a fine voice, and this attracted the attention of the director of the choir in the great Cathedral of St. Stephen's, as it had in Haydn's case, and he was presently enrolled as chorister and a member of what was called the "Convict," a school connected with the church, where the boys had schooling as well as musical instruction. Early he began to write, among his first works being certain pieces for the piano and violin, composed when he was a little more than eleven. In the "Convict" school there was an orchestra where they practiced symphonies and overtures of Haydn, Mozart, Kotzeluch, Cherubini, Méhul, Krommer, and occasionally Beethoven. Here his playing immediately put him on a level with the older boys. One of them turned around one day to see who it was playing so cleverly, and found it "a little boy in spectacles," named Franz Schubert. The two boys became intimate, and one day the little fellow, blushing deeply, admitted to the older one that he had composed much, and would do so still more if he could get the music paper. Spaun saw the state of affairs, and took care thereafter that the music paper should be forthcoming. In time Franz became first violin, and when the conductor was absent, took his place. The orchestral music delighted him greatly, and of the Mozart adagio, in the G minor symphony, he said that "you could hear the angels singing." Among other works which particularly delighted him were the overtures to the "Magic Flute" and "Figaro." The particular object of his reverence was Beethoven, who was then at the height of his fame, but he never met the great master more than once or twice. Once when a few boyish songs had been sung to words by Klopstock, Schubert asked his friend whether he could ever do anything after Beethoven. His friend answered, perhaps he could do a great deal. To which the boy responded: "Perhaps; I sometimes have dreams of that sort; but who can do anything after Beethoven?" The boy made but small reputation for scholarship in the school, after the thirst for composition had taken possession of him, which it did when he had been there but one year. One of his earliest compositions was a fantasia for four hands, having about thirteen movements of different character, occupying about thirty-two pages of fine writing. His brother remarks that not one ends in the key in which it began. He seems to have had a passion for uncanny subjects, for the next work of his is a "Lament of Hagar," of thirteen movements in different keys, unconnected. After this again, a "Corpse Fantasia" to words of Schiller. This has seventeen movements, and is positively erratic in its changes of key. It is full of reminiscences of Haydn's "Creation" and other works. The musical stimulation of this boy was meager indeed. Not until he was thirteen years of age did he hear an opera; and not until he was fifteen a really first-class work, Spontini's "Vestal," in 1812. Three years later he probably heard Gluck's "Iphigenie en Tauride," a work which in his estimation eclipsed them all. During the same year there were the sixth and seventh symphonies, the choral fantasia and portions of the mass in C, and the overture to "Coriolanus," of Beethoven. He was a great admirer of Mozart, and in his diary, under date of June 13, 1816, he speaks of a quintette: "Gently, as if out of a distance, did the magic tones of Mozart's music strike my ears. With what inconceivable alternate force and tenderness did Schlesinger's magic playing impress it deep into my heart! Such lovely impressions remain on my soul, there to work for good, past all power of time and circumstance. In the darkness of this life they reveal a bright, beautiful prospect, inspiring confidence and hope. Oh Mozart, Mozart, what countless consolatory images of a bright, better world hast thou stamped on our souls!"
Presently Schubert entered his father's school, in order to avoid the rigorous conscription, and remained a teacher of the elementary branches for three years. His first important composition was a mass, which was produced honorably October 16, 1814, and many good judges pronounced it equal to any similar work of the kind, excepting possibly Beethoven's mass in C. By 1815 the rage of composition had fully taken possession of the soul of Schubert, and thenceforth poured out from this receptacle of inspiration a steady succession of works of all dimensions and characters, very few of which were performed in his lifetime. Among these works in the year 1815, there are 137 songs, of which only sixty-seven are printed as yet. And in August alone twenty-nine, of which eight are dated the 15th, and seven the 19th. Among these 137 songs some are of such enormous length that this feature alone would have prevented their publication. Of those published, "Die Burgschaft" fills twenty-two pages of the Litolff edition. It was the length of these compositions which caused Beethoven's exclamation upon his death bed: "Such long poems, many of them containing ten others." And this mass of music was produced in the interim of school drudgery. Among these songs of his boyhood years are "Gretchen am Spinnrade," "Der Erl König," "Hedge Roses," "Restless Love," the "Schaefer's Klaglied," the "Ossian" songs, and many others, all falling within the production of this year. It is said that when the "Erl King" was tried in the evening, the listeners at the convict thought it of questionable success. The music of the boy at the words "My father, my father" seemed to be inexcusable, for overwhelmed with fright, he sings a half a tone sharp of the accompaniment.
At length, after about three years, Schubert's services as a schoolmaster becoming less and less valuable, an opening was made for him by Schober, who proposed that Schubert should live with him. He was now free to devote himself to composition, and so thoroughly did he do this that in the year following, 1816, he experienced the novelty of having composed for money, a cantata of his having not only been performed upon the occasion of Salieri's fiftieth anniversary of life in Vienna, but money was sent him for it, 100 florins, Vienna money, about $20 American. He was already composing operas, and in 1816 there was one, "Die Burgschaft," in three acts. In the same year there were two symphonies, the fourth in C minor, called "The Tragic," and the fifth for small orchestra. The songs of this year, however, were of more value. Among them were the "Wanderer's Night Song," the "Fisher," the "Wanderer" and many others now known wherever melody and dramatic quality are appreciated.
The rapidity with which he composed songs was incredible. October, 1815, he finds the poems of Rosegarten, and between the 15th and 19th sets seven of them. "Everything that he touched," says Schumann, "turned into music." At a later date, calling upon one of his friends, he found certain poems by Wilhelm Müller, and carried them off with him. A few days later, his friend desiring the book, called on Schubert for it, and found that he had already set a number of them to music. They were the songs of the "Schöne Müllerin." A year or so after, returning from a day in the country, they stopped at a tavern, where he found a friend with a volume of Shakespeare open before him. Schubert took up the volume, turned a few pages, became interested in one of the pieces, took up some waste paper, and scribbling the lines proceeded to write a melody. This was the so-called "Shakespeare Serenade," "Hark, Hark, the Lark." The "Serenade," in D minor, is said to have been conceived in a similarly impromptu manner. In 1816 the great tenor, Vogl, made Schubert's acquaintance, having been brought by one of Schubert's admirers. At first the songs did not make much impression upon him; later they grew upon him, and he introduced them among the best circles of the Vienna aristocracy. Vogl appreciated the value of these songs. "Nothing," said he, "so shows the want of a good school of singing as Schubert's songs. Otherwise, what an enormous and universal effect must have been produced throughout the world, wherever the German language is understood, by these truly divine inspirations, these utterances of musical clairvoyance. How many would have comprehended for the first time the meaning of such terms as speech and poetry in music; words in harmony, ideas clothed in music, and would have learned that the finest poems of our greatest poets may be enhanced and even transcended when translated into musical language. Numberless examples might be named, but I will only mention the 'Erl King,' 'Gretchen,' 'Schwager Kronos,' 'The Mignon's and Harper's Songs,' 'Schiller's Pilgrim,' the 'Burgschaft' and the 'Sehnsucht.'"
We are told that within the next two or three years Schubert made a number of friends, and the circle of his admirers was considerably extended. The same remarkable productivity continued. In the summer of 1818 he went to the country seat of Count Esterhazy, where he remained several months. This was in Hungary, and the Hungarian pieces are supposed to date from his residence there. It was not until 1819 that the first song of Schubert was sung in public. This was the "Shepherd's Lament," of which the Leipsic correspondent of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung says: "The touching and feeling composition of this talented young man was sung by Herr Jaeger in a similar spirit." The following year, among other compositions, was the oratorio of "Lazarus," which was composed in three parts—first, the sickness and death, then the burial and elegy, and, finally, the resurrection. The last part, unfortunately, if ever written, has been lost. He made attempts at operatic composition, producing a vast amount of beautiful music, but always to indifferent librettos, so that none of his music was publicly performed. It was not until 1827 and 1828 that his continual practice in orchestral writing resulted in the production of real master works. In this year the unfinished symphony in B minor was produced, in which the two movements that we have are among the most beautiful and poetic that the treasury of orchestral music possesses. The other was the great symphony in C, which was first performed in Leipsic ten years after Schubert's death, through the intervention of Schumann. During all these years since leaving his father's school, Schubert had been living in a very modest manner, with an income which must have been very small and irregular. He was very industrious, usually rising soon after five in the morning, and, after a light breakfast of coffee and rolls, writing steadily about seven hours. The amount of work which he got through in this way was something incredible. Whole acts of operas were composed and beautifully written out in score within a few days. Upon the same morning from three to six songs might be written, if the poems chanced to attract him. He scarcely ever altered or erased, and rarely curtailed. All his music has the character of improvisation. The melody, harmony, the thematic treatment, and the accompaniment with the instrumental coloring, all seem to have occurred to him at the same time. It is only a question of writing it down. Very little of his music was performed during his lifetime—of the songs, first and last, many of them in private circles, and the last two or three years of his life, perhaps twenty or twenty-five in public. A few of his smaller orchestral numbers were played by amateur players, where he may have heard them himself, but his larger works he never heard. All that schooling of ear which Beethoven had, as an orchestral director in youth, Schubert lacked. His studies in counterpoint had never been pursued beyond the rudiments, and the last engagement he made before his death was for lessons with Sechter, the contrapuntal authority in Vienna at that time.
In spontaneity of genius Schubert resembles Mozart more than any other master who ever lived. His early education and training were different from those of Mozart, and musical ideas take different form with him. While Mozart was distinctly a melodist, counterpoint and fugue were at his fingers' ends, and his thematic treatment had all the freedom which comes from a thorough training in the use of musical material. Schubert had not this kind of training. He never wrote a good fugue, and his counterpoint was indifferent; but on the other hand he had several qualities which Mozart had not, and in particular a very curious and interesting mental phenomenon, which we might call psychical resonance or clairvoyance. Whatever poem or story he read immediately called up musical images in his mind. Under the excitement of the sentiment of a poem, or of dramatic incidents narrated, strange harmonies spontaneously suggested themselves, and melodies exquisitely appropriate to the sentiment he desired to convey. He was a musical painter, whose colors were not imitated from something without himself, but were inspired from within.
Schubert was a great admirer of Beethoven, and upon one occasion called upon him with a set of works which he had dedicated to the great master. Beethoven had been prepared for the visit by some admirer of Schubert's, and received him very kindly, but when he began to compliment the works the bashful Schubert rushed out of doors. Upon another occasion during his last illness Beethoven desired something to read, and a selection of about sixty of Schubert's songs, partly in print and partly in manuscript, were put in his hands. His astonishment was extreme, especially when he heard that there existed about 500 of the same kind. He pored over them for days, and asked to see Schubert's operas and piano pieces, but the illness returned, and it was too late. He said "Truly Schubert has the divine fire in him." Schubert was one of the torch bearers at Beethoven's funeral. In March 1828, he gave an evening concert of his own works in the hall of the Musikverein. The hall was crowded, the concert very successful, and the receipts more than $150, which was a very large sum for Schubert in those days. For several months before his death Schubert's health was delicate. Poverty and hard work, a certain want of encouragement and ease had done their office for him. He died November 19, 1828. He left no will. His personal property was sold at auction, the whole amounting to about $12. Among the assets was a lot of old music valued at ten florins. It is uncertain whether this included the unpublished manuscript or not. In personal appearance Schubert was somewhat insignificant. He was about five feet one inch high, his figure stout and clumsy, with a round back and shoulders, perhaps due to incessant writing, fleshy arms, thick, short fingers. His cheeks were full, his eyebrows bushy and his nose insignificant. His hair was black, and remarkably thick and vigorous, and his eyes were so bright that even through the spectacles, which he constantly wore, they at once attracted attention. His glasses were inseparable from his face. In the convict he was the "little boy in spectacles." He habitually slept in them. He was very simple in his tastes, timid and never really at ease but in the society of his intimates and people of his own station. His attitude toward the aristocracy was entirely different from the domineering, self-assertive pose of Beethoven, but he was very amiable, and dearly beloved.
