Page images
PDF
EPUB

to be hopeless, made him restless and unhappy.

Schubert had many warm friends, with whom he spent some of his happiest hours. Without them he might often have been without shelter or food. To the famous Vogl he owed the singing of "The Erlking" which brought him a publisher and an increasing fame in Vienna. To Von Schober he owed even more than to Vogl. All his friends loved Schubert, and did much to help him in his career. I cannot help feeling that Sir George Grove has been somewhat unjust to Schubert's friends, and given a false impression of their service. Grove is somewhat inclined to insist that these friends should have done all for Schubert, and he left wholly free to produce his beautiful music. It is the old grumble of Carlyle about Burns. But Schubert's friends could not do all. Seyeral times when his pockets were well filled he showed a thoughtless prodigality. There was also a trace of obstinacy about Schubert which made him refuse to make alterations in his work which would have brought him more success with pub

[ocr errors][merged small]

lishers and managers. He might have refused to cater to a false public taste, and still been a little more tractable to advice. This independence, however, was in reality devotion to the commanding power of his own genius-a genius as original and individual as it was beautiful. Richard Wagner amid his discouragements said, "I write for the thousands who come after me.' Schubert never said anything so self-conscious as that. In his large simplicity of soul it is not probable that he thought much of the future, or of the immortality of fame which was to be his; but he found his own path, untrod before him, and no attraction of present popularity changed his course.

[ocr errors]

Had it not been for his sojourns in Hungary with the Esterhazys, Schubert's life would have been somewhat monotonous. Then several journeys into the Tyrol with his friends were worth much to him, in giving him refreshment by communion with the beauty and quiet charm of nature, or stimulus to his imagination from a sight of nature in her grander aspects. The character of Schubert bears investi

Pione Sorte

FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE MS. OF "THE ERLKING" Randhartinger said the original was given to him by Schubert, and he in turn presented it to Madame Clara Schumann,

who considered it one of her rarest treasures.

gation exceedingly well. He bore his disappointments with a commendable degree of fortitude, and though in his diary he occasionally gave expression to sadness, joy and hope and freshness of zest in life came to him again by intercourse with his chosen friends, or in the delight of writing his music. Though his circumstances were so narrow, Schubert's nature was a large one, and his sense of perspective so true that he bore the good fortune of others without malice. Indeed, he seemed utterly free from those petty jealousies which belittle and disfigure the lives of so many great musicians. Glorious harmonies were all the time dwelling in Schubert's soul, and he was kept busy giving them expression. He had little thought for the smaller things. He therefore rarely showed traces of that morbid sensibility, that abnormal sensitiveness, which has been the curse in the temperament of so many men of genius. Even the music which he set to poems the most pathetic, the deepest in their soundings of grief or pain, was never morbid.

In spite of Schubert's keenness of feeling, the depth and earnestness of his character, his wide sympathies, the grasp and vigor of his imagination, and his love of truth, he showed a restricted range of spirituality. At least, if he had any decided tendency towards a deep religious experience, he did not reveal it in his diary, his letters, or in his talks with his friends. Schumann rescued a little poem which Schubert wrote in 1820. It is but a vague statement of belief, and yet by it one can see that Schubert fortunately escaped that materialism which was so common in the Germany of his time, and which was so benumbing and paralyzing. It is a poem in some respects like Tennyson's "Higher Pantheism," but how much farther Tennyson goes! What limitless reach to his spiritual vision! 1

Schubert's greatest fault was his fondness for wine. But only occasionally did he forget his dignity, and the amount of work he did in his brief life is the most

It seems to me that Schubert could never have written such characteristic music as he set to Pyrker's song "Die Allmacht" without having a deep sense of the majesty and pervading influence of God."

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

THE TOMB OF FRANZ SCHUBERT, WÄHRING
CHURCHYARD, VIENNA

The portrait bust is considered a poor. stiff representation of the composer's face. The inscription was written by Grillparzer; the translation is:

Music (Tone-art) buried here a rich treasure
But still more beautiful hopes.
FRANZ SCHUBERT LIES HERE

Born on the 31st of January, 1797.
Died on the 19th of November, 1828.
31 years old.

At Schubert's funeral the beautiful words of his friend Von Schober were sung to Schubert's own melody "Pax Vobiscum."

unanswerable argument in his favor. But Schubert had the faculty of composing in surroundings which would be thought to be a check upon freedom of expression. In a noisy beer-shop one day he picked up a volume of Shakespeare and was heard to say that a most beautiful melody had come into his head, and had he but musicpaper he would write it down. A friend hastily drew some staves across the back of a bill of fare, and then and there was written "Hark, Hark, the Lark!"

The pathos of Schubert's life finds its climax in his early death. He had done

immortal work-work which must have soon won a wide recognition. Ten years only after his death Schumann sent the manuscript of the great "Symphony in C" to Mendelssohn, who produced it at Leipsic amid universal enthusiasm. Schubert might have shared in that triumph. He might have been witness of other victories of his glorious music, and then not been an old man by any means. It is certain that had he lived longer he would have enjoyed many substantial rewards of his unceasing effort. A larger experience of life would have given Schubert more tact, more business shrewdness; increasing fame would have made him perhaps more self-assertive. Thirtyone years of life only! Why, Schubert had not had time to win worldly success! He did have one happiness to make up for the failure of his operas and for the lukewarm reception of some of his other works the concert arranged by his friends at which only his own music was rendered. It was very successful, and for once Schubert's pockets were well filled. But just as life seemed opening out before him in fairer aspects his health gave The The end was swift and sad. way. second concert which had been planned took place, but Schubert was absent. All that was mortal of him was in a narrow grave in the Währing churchyard, very near Beethoven, as had been his wish. The money from the concert was used to build the monument which now graces the spot.

Nor

It would be quite impossible in this fragmentary article to even attempt to give any critical explanation of the reasons why Schubert's work takes such a high position, why he stands among the masters. The subject is too wide. would summaries, definitions in the form of epigram, be of much value. Indeed, they might be misleading without reference to the history of music, to the development of the symphony, the song, etc. In Schubert's work there is not only surpassing charm, lyrical beauty, wealth of idea and of melody, great dramatic truth and range, but life, movement, freedom. There is nothing forced or artificial about it.

never

He sings as the bird sings, from an irresistible impulse. The bird sings because it ought, but because it must. And when it has nothing to sing

it is silent. Schubert's inspiration is as natural and spontaneous. His compositions belong to every department of music: operas, masses, piano pieces, chamber music, symphonies, songs. There are, of course, degrees of beauty and differences of value in all this music, but everything possesses that peculiar Schubertian quality which is as exquisite as it is indefinable. Schubert's individuality, his unlikeness to any other musician, is one of his supreme distinctions. In the symphony Schubert is very great, and in it he showed constant growth and development. If at such an early age he was capable of producing a work of such surpassing beauty, with orchestral treatment so delicate, so imaginative, so appropriate and rich and noble, as the Symphony in C," where would he have ended had he lived to the age of Beethoven?

66

It is the very wealth of his thought, the onward, compelling sweep of his inspiration, which sometimes proves an embarrassment. Like Keats in poetry, his exuberance of expression, his prodigality, his lack of conciseness and concentration, mar the effect of some of his orches tral work.

But it must be remembered that though Schubert did not pay that attention to the fine adjudgment of details which is so characteristic of Haydn and Mozart, "character and ideas," rather than form, were his deliberate concern. In this respect he marks the musical tendency of this century as compared with that of the last, and, like all great men, he is the pioneer and leader.

In one department of music Schubert showed a perfect command of form, perfect adjudgment of details, perfect unity of idea and its progressive and artistic development. As the sonnet form was good for Keats, putting a necessary restraint upon

his imagination, caging within "sober limits" bursts of delight or sorrow, grandeur or charm of imagery, the song good for a prodigal and discursive genius like that of Schu

So was

bert.

The song demands precisely that compactness of thought, that unity, which is so highly impressive. Even in the different cycles of songs, like the immortal "Müllerlieder," the "Winterreise," with its sad and melancholy grandeur, which Schubert chose to set to music-a form,

by the way, original with him—his natural tendency to expand did not find encouragement. Each song in the cycle is a perfect, exquisite gem, and yet a certain continuity of thought or of aspiration or of scene binds all together into one beautiful whole.

Schubert's mastery of form in the song shows that, had he lived longer, he would have developed an equal mastery in the symphony and the sonata; proves, indeed, the truth of what an old writer in "The Fortnightly Review" said years ago: "He had the root of the matter in him to write symphonies as complete in technical structure as those of Mozart and the fugues of Bach, and as perfect in emotional unity as those of Beethoven."

In the field of the song Schubert has no rival, not even Schumann or Franz. However artistically Schumann, Franz, Brahms, and others have developed the song, they but carried out the principles which Schubert was the first to discover and unfold.

No one can fully appreciate the value of Schubert's service without reference to the history of the song-its growth from the simplest, most primitive expression of hunian emotion, to the more varied work of bards and minnesingers, troubadours and minstrels, on through the strophic. Volkslieder, thence by degrees to the higher art-form whose infinite capacity Schubert was the first to recogníze. Before Schubert, the song, in spite of its beauty, was, with very few exceptions, limited in range; the accompaniments were for the most part of the simplest description or were not an integral part of the whole, while the general structure was lacking in dramatic fitness, in harmony with the demands of the words. Schubert appropriated that which was best in the national song, elaborated it, idealized it, made it over into a fairer, sweeter, larger form.

Entering with the strength and passion of a true poet into the meaning of the poetry he chose to set, feeling with the mood of the poet, thrilled by the same emotion, he reproduced it with vivid and striking power in his music-the vocal parts being intensified by peculiarly rich and highly developed accompaniments. We are again confronted by the difficulty of definition. But one secret of Schubert's power in the

song is that he seems to have a musical expression for every kind and variety of emotion of which the human heart is capable. Beautiful melodies, frequent and unexpected modulations, even occasional discords, form his means of expression. He so entered into the spirit of the poems of Goethe and other poets that he seized at once, by divine intuition, the most characteristic and fitting music for them. With glorious freedom and insight he followed the changes in the thought or the action of the poetry. Then, too, nature's aspects and changes find glorious expression. Schubert's songs are among the finest examples of what is called descriptive music. His tone-painting, his coloring, is both wonderful and varied. There are magnificent contrasts, not only between the different songs, but often between the individual parts of the same song.

[ocr errors]

In the music to over six hundred poems it is obvious that there are degrees of power and of beauty. Schubert often chose poor poems as subjects, chiefly because they were written by his friends, and one reason why his operas did not succeed better was because of the comparatively trivial character of his words. But when a truly great poem was chosen, then Schubert's genius shone magnificently. In a ballad like "The Erlking he rose to a grand height; but after the first enthusiasm of youth was past, the supernatural or the legendary, the romantic, that which is concerned with the remote and shadowy past rather than the experiences of the present, and which forms the subject of the ballad rather than the song, did not have the same attraction for Schubert as for Karl Loewe. Loewe, by the imaginative grasp and dramatic strength of his ballads, is the chief representative of that branch of musical art. For instance, contrast Loewe's treatment of "Edward" and "The Fisherman" with Schubert's, and see how Schubert suffers by the comparison. Schubert's genius was essentially lyrical. Humanity, with its longing, its stress of soul, its suffering, its pathetic joys, was to him the most vivid and compelling. His music is the most distinctive and beautiful which expresses this personal feeling in all its varied phases and its depth of tenderness.

[graphic]

THE MISSES GLYNNE (MRS. GLADSTONE AND HER SISTER, LADY LYTTELTON) From the Painting by Kennah at Hawarden Castle. Photographed for The Outlook by Mr. Watmough Webster, of Chester.

« PreviousContinue »