The Middle-Classical Schubert Concluded)

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The Middle-Classical Schubert (Concluded)Author(s): Eric BlomSource: The Musical Times, Vol. 69, No. 1029 (Nov. 1, 1928), pp. 980-983Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/915474

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THE MUSICAL TIMES-NOVEMBER 1 1928HE MUSICAL TIMES-NOVEMBER 1 1928to use the E phrase which at first stands out in realise is that his art is fine in spite of its im-disconnected fashion, so far as the first verse is perfections, and it is fine because he re-estab-concerned. But such unbalance is borne in lished the common tongue of folk-music as themind and, when opportunity offers, a due basis of his art, and developed it according tothough not exact counterpart is found in the laws of real life and natural growth, rather thanlater construction of the song. Many such according to the rules of orthodox musicians.unbalances occurred in the building of the So he offers many good examples of song whichChristian cathedrals; and not all of them found invert the principles of the Renaissance: for ittheir balanced completion, for the Renaissance was not Schubert's spirit but his form whichspirit intervened with its square, domineering, was economical; it was not his form butand hopeless conception of life and beauty. his spirit which was lavish-sometimes soAgain, at the end of his song Schubert was extravagant that his form tumbled down withfaced with a fresh demand from his poet-a the weight that he put upon it.

to use the E phrase which at first stands out in realise is that his art is fine in spite of its im-disconnected fashion, so far as the first verse is perfections, and it is fine because he re-estab-concerned. But such unbalance is borne in lished the common tongue of folk-music as themind and, when opportunity offers, a due basis of his art, and developed it according tothough not exact counterpart is found in the laws of real life and natural growth, rather thanlater construction of the song. Many such according to the rules of orthodox musicians.unbalances occurred in the building of the So he offers many good examples of song whichChristian cathedrals; and not all of them found invert the principles of the Renaissance: for ittheir balanced completion, for the Renaissance was not Schubert's spirit but his form whichspirit intervened with its square, domineering, was economical; it was not his form butand hopeless conception of life and beauty. his spirit which was lavish-sometimes soAgain, at the end of his song Schubert was extravagant that his form tumbled down withfaced with a fresh demand from his poet-a the weight that he put upon it.

SCHUBERT'S BIRTHPLACE

question which carried the song into whatwere unexplored emotions and possibilities.For them he must find entirely new phrases,launched into the unknown as the builders ofGothic launched their towers and steeples. Itwould be easy to cavil at false details such asthe harmonic and melodic affirmation of thefinalwordswhich need the less emphatic cadenceof a question, and are set as if the question hadalready been answered. Schubert was noperfectmusician; but we are not here concernedwith his petty deficiences. All we need to

SCHUBERT'S BIRTHPLACE

question which carried the song into whatwere unexplored emotions and possibilities.For them he must find entirely new phrases,launched into the unknown as the builders ofGothic launched their towers and steeples. Itwould be easy to cavil at false details such asthe harmonic and melodic affirmation of thefinalwordswhich need the less emphatic cadenceof a question, and are set as if the question hadalready been answered. Schubert was noperfectmusician; but we are not here concernedwith his petty deficiences. All we need to

THE MIDDLE-CLASSICAL SCHUBERTBY ERIC BLOM(Concluded from October number, page 891)

The Vienna of the early 19th century was nota great artistic environment. Beethoven toweredout of it, if we survey it from Schubert's stand-point and therefore overlook him, in magnificentisolation. Sir Henry Hadow's assertion* thatthe three greatest artistic periodsare the Athensof Pericles, the England of Elizabeth, and theVienna of the last half of the 18th and the firstquarterof the 19th century, is incomprehensible,not only because one wonders where the ItalianRenascence and Paris under the last threeBourbons before the Revolution come in, butbecause one looks in vain for the great artistsoutside music who are presumably needed toconstitute a great Viennese era.As regards poetry-to return to Schubert'sown time-we have only to look at his songsto find how lamentably his surroundingsfailedto provide more than passable lyrics. Paintingwas the likeable but uninspired genre art ofwhich Schwind was the chief exponent. In thedrama Grillparzer stood alone, appointed aclassic by his own conscience and high-mindedaims. The other and greater classical playsthat were regularly performed came fromGermanyand abroad: Goethe, Schiller,Lessing,Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Calderon, Lopede Vega. The opera imported Cherubini,Spontini, and Rossini, the lighter Frenchwares, and, more cautiously, Mehul, Spohr, andWeber. For the rest the theatre was entirelyfrivolous. Kotzebue and Schubert's friendBauernfeld provided society comedy of somemerit, but the type of light theatrical entertain-ment that was truly characteristic of Viennahad only a local significance and no artisticvalue. It was the kind of popular play ofwhich Raimund and (after Schubert's time)Nestroy were the great representatives, a queermixture of romantic fairy-tale, farce, mildsatire, Singspiel, and sentimental comedy.

THE MIDDLE-CLASSICAL SCHUBERTBY ERIC BLOM(Concluded from October number, page 891)

The Vienna of the early 19th century was nota great artistic environment. Beethoven toweredout of it, if we survey it from Schubert's stand-point and therefore overlook him, in magnificentisolation. Sir Henry Hadow's assertion* thatthe three greatest artistic periodsare the Athensof Pericles, the England of Elizabeth, and theVienna of the last half of the 18th and the firstquarterof the 19th century, is incomprehensible,not only because one wonders where the ItalianRenascence and Paris under the last threeBourbons before the Revolution come in, butbecause one looks in vain for the great artistsoutside music who are presumably needed toconstitute a great Viennese era.As regards poetry-to return to Schubert'sown time-we have only to look at his songsto find how lamentably his surroundingsfailedto provide more than passable lyrics. Paintingwas the likeable but uninspired genre art ofwhich Schwind was the chief exponent. In thedrama Grillparzer stood alone, appointed aclassic by his own conscience and high-mindedaims. The other and greater classical playsthat were regularly performed came fromGermanyand abroad: Goethe, Schiller,Lessing,Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Calderon, Lopede Vega. The opera imported Cherubini,Spontini, and Rossini, the lighter Frenchwares, and, more cautiously, Mehul, Spohr, andWeber. For the rest the theatre was entirelyfrivolous. Kotzebue and Schubert's friendBauernfeld provided society comedy of somemerit, but the type of light theatrical entertain-ment that was truly characteristic of Viennahad only a local significance and no artisticvalue. It was the kind of popular play ofwhich Raimund and (after Schubert's time)Nestroy were the great representatives, a queermixture of romantic fairy-tale, farce, mildsatire, Singspiel, and sentimental comedy.

* Quotedby Karl Kobaldin his ' Franz Schubert.'Quotedby Karl Kobaldin his ' Franz Schubert.'

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THE MUSICAL TIMES-NOVEMBER1 1928Among the composers who provided songs forthese shows people with no greater names thanUmlauf, Wenzel Muller, and Joseph Drechslerwere the most successful.

Schubert himself, with 'Die Zauberharfe,'had no success in this style, though one feelsthat it should have suited him ideally with alittle more luck in the matter of libretti. Forin pieces such as these peopleof his own standingand outlook played a great part. The humblecitizens were here deemed worthy of becomingdramatic protagonists in the place of gods,princes, and heroes. The plays were maudlinand human, tinged with sadness and comedythat went far towards neither extreme, smugand naive-in short, they represented just thekind of life that was Schubert's own-mildlyromantic, moderately dissipated, kindly, short-sighted, warmly emotional without frenzy, fullof ideals that stopped short of heroic sacrifices.Above all, they were unencumbered by pre-occupations with taste.The citizen art-lover of Vienna in the early19th century certainly had no taste in the sensethat the cultured classes of Paris and Londonhad. Schubert himself had none in that sense.He followed the fashions affected by his fellowswithout discrimination. In the churchyardpoetry full of bones and decay, in the versifiedghost stories which are too ridiculous even tobe creepy, he wallowed with the best of them.The innumerable poems extolling the charms ofindividual Minnas and Emmas and Lauras, thepersonalities of which leave us cold, were as realto him as if each concerned his latest flame atthe time of writing. The early ballads with allthe trappings of recitative and diminishedseventhry were so many momentous dramas, somany miniature opere serie to him. He hadno sense of humour (though surely a love offun and even of horseplay) and no literaryjudgment. It is true that he wrote in this vein:

( Yes, you see, a good poem at once drawssomething sensible out of me; melodies comeflowing along so fast that one would jump forjoy. With a bad poem nothing will go aright;you plague yourself and only dry stuff comesforth.'

But this means nothing except that Schubertsimply did not know a good poem from a badone, or how else could he, before and after thisdeclaration, have turned out song after songindifferently to great and to paltry poetry ? Ofcourse, a good poem would often draw greatmusic from him. In the early 'Gretchen amSpinnrade' and 'Erlk6nig' he was urged to anincredibly sudden florescence of mature powerby the experience of encountering Goethe'swork among the vast poetical rubbish-heap inwhich he rummaged after fuel for his creativefire. But does this prove, what is disproved ina hundred instances elsewhere, that he had

taste ? Does it not rather show that hepossessed, in its default, an extraordinaryartistic instinct ?Since he brought his genius into the midst ofthis happy-go-lucky Viennese period, instinct

served Schubert a great deal better than tastewould have done. In the circumstances hewas fortunate in escaping the gift of a share ofthe latter commodity so disproportionate tothat of his environment as to become anembarrassment. The simpering poetry, theplodding folk-music, and the shirt-sleeveddomestic theatre with which he was surroundedwould have driven an artist of keener sensibilityinto inarticulate disdain. Thanks to his un-sophisticated, comfortable mentality he couldproduce great art of a kind without aestheticqualms. What he lacked in artistic fastidious-ness he more than replaced by an astonishinglyresponsive emotional nature, happily pairedwith immense technical facility. That thiskind of spontaneous outpouring, uncontrolledby mental vigilance, is responsible for a vastamount of indifferent music from his pen is amisfortune almost nullified by his astoundingproductivity. It is, one might say, a misfortunehe bears alone-that of having every scrap ofhis writing perpetuated in a complete editionsuch as a composermore awareof his permanentimportance would have circumvented by atimely process of selection and destruction.We need not share in the mischief, for if we arewise, we shall ourselves make the choice, andif we retained only one-tenth of Schubert'spublished work we should still have a richtreasure.

Perhaps we are, after all, better qualified toselect than Schubert himself would have been.One may well doubt whether he was a whollytrustworthy judge of his own work. Not onlydid he produce indifferent work complacently;he did great workonly half-consciously. Kobaldtells us in his well-documented book thatSchubert would often, on happening to heara work he had written some time before, showastonished delight at finding that he could havecomposed anything so fine. The view that hedid not finish the eighth Symphony because hefelt he could not maintain its quality is certainlyerroneous; he would have cheerfully writtena merely agreeable Scherzo and a poor Finale,and not even been clearly aware that they felloff. The case would not have been an isolatedone; existing examples of such inequalitywithin one work can be cited (the C minorPianoforte Sonata, for instance).

Schubert was never assertive about his art,as Beethoven was about his, nor proneto confideany self-satisfaction to others, as Mozart did inhis letters. This lack of confidence was a per-sonal trait, but it was also in part due, onceagain, to his environment. He could hardly beexpected to know that he was a great composer

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THE MUSICAL TIMES-NOVEMBER 1 1928

SCHUBERT'S GRAVE AT VIENNA. HIS BODY WAS BROUGHT HERE IN 1888

if those who surrounded him did not know it.Beyond his circle of friends he was scarcelynoticed by his fellow-citizens until nearly theend of his career. We cannot even be sure thathe ever met Beethoven, who certainly did notknow him intimately or seek his acquaintance,and who only on his deathbed became aware ofthe remarkable distinction of Schubert's songs.None of these were heard in public until 1821,when Vogl sang 'Erlkonig.' About 1819Bauemfeld wrote that Schubert composedbetween cares and worries, unknown, without

name, his talent appreciated only by a fewfriends. In 1820 ' Die Zauberharfe and theoperetta, ' Die Zwillingsbriider,' were treatedby the critics with greater or less benevolenceas the works of an obscure beginner, and thelatter had with the public only the kind ofsuccess that a musical comedy would havenowadays. It was ignored by musicians.' Rosamunde,' in 1823, was professionally cold-shouldered in much the same way, and withintwo years of Schubert'sdeath it was still possiblefor Eybler, who became Court Capellmeister n

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THE MUSICAL TIMES-NOVEMBER1 1928HE MUSICAL TIMES-NOVEMBER1 1928succession to Salieri, and for a post underwhomSchubert had applied to the Emperor, to frus-trate the appointment by saying that he hadnever heard a single work of the applicant's.Even at the very end of his career the criticswere still guarded and patronising. One ofthem pointed out maliciously after a concertthat Schubert's friends did not stint applause,while another ranked him with the smaller starswhich pale before the comet in the musicalfirmament, the comet being no other thanPaganini.It is fair to add that Schubert himself wasbowled over by Paganini's witchery. In hisappraisement of others he was no more surethan in his self-knowledge. In Weber's operashe liked, or deplored the absence of, only thequalities he wished to find there. ' Freischiitz 'attracted him for what it had of Lieblichkeit,' Euryanthe ' he disliked because it was lackingin Gemiitlichkeit. That is it, Gemiitlichkeit,hateaseful and homespun German cheeriness forwhich no other language has a precise word;for this above all he strove to find a new musicalexpression, and it is the greatest triumph ofhis personality to have found the ideal artisticutterance of this most characteristic aspect ofthe Viennese middle class. He is nowhere morewholly and lovably himself than in the be-slippered contentment of such a song as ' DerEinsame,' nowhere more at ease with his Musethan where he echoes the popular entertain-ments of the Sperl, the Tivoli, or the Prater,and is, in company with his fellow-citizens,noble and sentimental in waltz time. He hadless than any great composer a notion that hewas a classic. His art is humble, familiar,averse to riding the high horse. But if it ispedestrian, it was the first music to teach usthis-that one possessed of instinctive geniusneed not ostentatiously bestride Pegasus inorder to be a great poet.

IMITATION AND SUGGESTIONBY W. S. DREW

1.We shall probablyavoid some of the confusionsthat are often to be found in discussions aboutart if we attack the question of song-interpre-tation by consideringfirst what happens to thelistener. We may go and see a picture whichis hung in some gallery whenever we pleasewith a fair amount of confidence that it will

be, for all practical purposes, the same on eachoccasion. This kind of thing is not trueof a song, and the reason for it may beseen by considering what it is reasonable tosuppose is meant by the term. It is used in away that implies that a song is something that

succession to Salieri, and for a post underwhomSchubert had applied to the Emperor, to frus-trate the appointment by saying that he hadnever heard a single work of the applicant's.Even at the very end of his career the criticswere still guarded and patronising. One ofthem pointed out maliciously after a concertthat Schubert's friends did not stint applause,while another ranked him with the smaller starswhich pale before the comet in the musicalfirmament, the comet being no other thanPaganini.It is fair to add that Schubert himself wasbowled over by Paganini's witchery. In hisappraisement of others he was no more surethan in his self-knowledge. In Weber's operashe liked, or deplored the absence of, only thequalities he wished to find there. ' Freischiitz 'attracted him for what it had of Lieblichkeit,' Euryanthe ' he disliked because it was lackingin Gemiitlichkeit. That is it, Gemiitlichkeit,hateaseful and homespun German cheeriness forwhich no other language has a precise word;for this above all he strove to find a new musicalexpression, and it is the greatest triumph ofhis personality to have found the ideal artisticutterance of this most characteristic aspect ofthe Viennese middle class. He is nowhere morewholly and lovably himself than in the be-slippered contentment of such a song as ' DerEinsame,' nowhere more at ease with his Musethan where he echoes the popular entertain-ments of the Sperl, the Tivoli, or the Prater,and is, in company with his fellow-citizens,noble and sentimental in waltz time. He hadless than any great composer a notion that hewas a classic. His art is humble, familiar,averse to riding the high horse. But if it ispedestrian, it was the first music to teach usthis-that one possessed of instinctive geniusneed not ostentatiously bestride Pegasus inorder to be a great poet.

IMITATION AND SUGGESTIONBY W. S. DREW

1.We shall probablyavoid some of the confusionsthat are often to be found in discussions aboutart if we attack the question of song-interpre-tation by consideringfirst what happens to thelistener. We may go and see a picture whichis hung in some gallery whenever we pleasewith a fair amount of confidence that it will

be, for all practical purposes, the same on eachoccasion. This kind of thing is not trueof a song, and the reason for it may beseen by considering what it is reasonable tosuppose is meant by the term. It is used in away that implies that a song is something that

has a kind of independent existence like a pic-ture. But the ' song ' which we buy is no morethan a set of printed instructions from thecomposer how to produce a certain series ofsounds: it does not have a real existenceas a set of stimuli to the listener until some oneactually starts singing. Of the various inter-pretations that the listener may hear, which isreally the song ? The poor thing seems to bereduced to a kind of hypostatical conditionsimilar to that of the imaginary ideal player inthe golf world, so that if some one sang badlyhe might be said to be 'four down to Bogey.'The only person who is in a position to settlethe matter definitely is the composer himself.The composing really consists in the orderlyarrangement of his thoughts, and not in thewriting down of the conventional signs for suchthoughts on. paper, though this latter processmay be of assistance to him.So far as the listener is concerned, when hegoes to a concert to hear some new work thesong is what he hears from the singer. Thesinger's business is to produce the vocal equiva-lent of the ideas of the composer as nearly aspossible. His power to do so depends primarilyupon his ability to interpret to himself all thesigns which the composer has written, andafterwards upon his ability to turn these intothe auditory stimuli which will cause theimagination of the listener to work in certainspecific directions. The painter can paint hisown picture, the composer usually has to getsome one else to do this for him. If he is not asinger himself he can do no more than give hisinterpreter a set of instructions; if he is com-posing a symphony or opera he can never domore than that.But even now we have not gone quite farenough, for the song finally has its being in thebrain of the listener. Anatole France sums upthe matter in words that I have quoted else-where:' En vain la main de l'artiste sera inspiree

et savante, le son qu'elle rendra depend dela qualite de nos cordes intimes.'Thug a singer with a voice of a particularquality may, by the singing of a few words,arouse in a sensitive listener feelings andassociations of which the singer himself is quiteignorant. Vivid visual memories may bearoused in the minds of certain listeners by thesinging of a song such as ' Morgen,'of Strauss;and if the singeris himselfweak in the visualisingfaculty they may be memories and imaginingswhich not only do not occupy him as he singsbut also are almost impossible for him at anytime. Thus in singing, as in other arts, it is byno means only a matter of direct communicationof thought from the ' expresser' to the ' im-pressed'; so that the answer to the questionwhether the singer can arouse in an audiencethoughts which he has not experienced himself,

has a kind of independent existence like a pic-ture. But the ' song ' which we buy is no morethan a set of printed instructions from thecomposer how to produce a certain series ofsounds: it does not have a real existenceas a set of stimuli to the listener until some oneactually starts singing. Of the various inter-pretations that the listener may hear, which isreally the song ? The poor thing seems to bereduced to a kind of hypostatical conditionsimilar to that of the imaginary ideal player inthe golf world, so that if some one sang badlyhe might be said to be 'four down to Bogey.'The only person who is in a position to settlethe matter definitely is the composer himself.The composing really consists in the orderlyarrangement of his thoughts, and not in thewriting down of the conventional signs for suchthoughts on. paper, though this latter processmay be of assistance to him.So far as the listener is concerned, when hegoes to a concert to hear some new work thesong is what he hears from the singer. Thesinger's business is to produce the vocal equiva-lent of the ideas of the composer as nearly aspossible. His power to do so depends primarilyupon his ability to interpret to himself all thesigns which the composer has written, andafterwards upon his ability to turn these intothe auditory stimuli which will cause theimagination of the listener to work in certainspecific directions. The painter can paint hisown picture, the composer usually has to getsome one else to do this for him. If he is not asinger himself he can do no more than give hisinterpreter a set of instructions; if he is com-posing a symphony or opera he can never domore than that.But even now we have not gone quite farenough, for the song finally has its being in thebrain of the listener. Anatole France sums upthe matter in words that I have quoted else-where:' En vain la main de l'artiste sera inspiree

et savante, le son qu'elle rendra depend dela qualite de nos cordes intimes.'Thug a singer with a voice of a particularquality may, by the singing of a few words,arouse in a sensitive listener feelings andassociations of which the singer himself is quiteignorant. Vivid visual memories may bearoused in the minds of certain listeners by thesinging of a song such as ' Morgen,'of Strauss;and if the singeris himselfweak in the visualisingfaculty they may be memories and imaginingswhich not only do not occupy him as he singsbut also are almost impossible for him at anytime. Thus in singing, as in other arts, it is byno means only a matter of direct communicationof thought from the ' expresser' to the ' im-pressed'; so that the answer to the questionwhether the singer can arouse in an audiencethoughts which he has not experienced himself,

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The Middle-Classical Schubert Concluded)