Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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280 1797— SCHUBERT -1807
'This clock delighted me not a little, when
one day at dinner for the first time I heard it
play some of your waltzes. I felt so strange
at the moment that I really did not know
where I was ;
it was not only that it pleased
me, it went regularly through my heart and
soul with a fearful pang and longing, which at
last turned into settled melancholy.' This
may be fanciful, but it is the language of
passionate affection, which evidently animated
Ferdinand's whole intercourse with his great
brother. Franz's reply (July 16-18, 1824) is
quite in the same strain. (The above article
is indebted to Wurzbach's Biographisches
Lexicon.) g.
SCHUBERT, 1 Feanz Pbtek, the one great
composer native to Vienna, was born Jan. 31,
1797, in the district called Lichtenthal, at the
house which is now numbered 54 of the Nussdorfer
Strasse,^ on the right, going out from
Vienna. There is now a grey marble tablet
over the door, with the words ' Franz Sehuberts
Geburtshaus ' in the centre ; on the left side a
lyre crowned with a star, and on the right a
chaplet of leaves containing the words, 31
'
Janner 1797.' He came of a country stock,
originally belonging to Zukmantel in Austrian
Silesia. His father, Franz, the son of a peasant
at Neudorf in Moravia, was born about 1764,
studied in Vienna, and in 1784 became assistant
to his brother, who kept a school in the
Leopoldstadt. His ability and integrity raised
him in 1786 to be parish schoolmaster .in the
parish of the Twelve holy ' helpers ' in the
Lichtenthal, a post which he kept till 1817 or
1818, when he was appointed to the parish
school in the adjoining district of the Bossau,
and there he remained till his death, July 9,
1830. He married early, while still helping
his brother, probably in 1783, Elisabeth Vltz,
or Fitz, a Silesian, who was in service in Vienna,
and was, like Beethoven'smother, a cook. Their
first child, Ignaz, was born in 1784. Then
came a long gap, possibly fiUed by children
who died in infancy—of whom they lost nine
in all ; then, Oct. 19, 1794, another boy,
Ferdinand; then in 1796, Karl, then Franz,
and lastly, a daughter, Theresia, Sept. 17,
1801, who died August 7, 1878. The hardworked
mother of these fourteen children lived
till 1812. Soon after her death her husband
was married again, to Anna Klayenbbk, a,
' The following abbrevlatlonB are used in f^e notes to this
article :—
S.ff. =Krel88le von Hellbom's biography. The first reference to
the German edition ; the second, in brackets, to Coleridge's translation.
/fe»-d.=Perdlnand Schubert, In his biographical sketch in Schumann's
JlTeufl Zeitsehrift ftir MluOc, X. p. 129, etc.
A,M,Z.=AllgeTneine AfuaiktUiiche Zettimg.
Jf.Z.M.=Jfeue Zeittchrift f&r JIutiJc
W.Z.K. = Wiener ZdUchrift fWr K%mgt, etc.
2 The Nussdorfer Strasse runs north and south. At the time of
Schubert's birth it was called Auf dem Hlmmelpfortgrund,' and
'
the house was Ko. 72. The Hinimelpfortgasse (* the street of the gate
of heaven '
) was a short street running out of it westwards towards
'
the fortifications—the same which is now the SSulengasse.' The
present Schubertgasse did not then exist beyond the opening into
the main street. I find all this on a large map of the date in the
British Museum.
Viennese, and had a second family of five
children, of whom three grew up, viz. Josefa
(-1-1861), Andreas, an accountant in one of
the public offices, and Anton, a Benedictine
priest,
'
Father Hermann ' ^—the last two
living in 1881.
Ignaz and Ferdinand followed their father's
calling, and inherited with it the integrity, frugality,
and modesty, which had gained him
such respect. Of the former we do not hear
hiuoh ; the one letter by him that is preserved
(Oct. 12, 1818), shows him very free-thinking,
very tired of schoolmastering, very much attached
to his home and his brother.* He remained
at the Rossau school till his death in
1844. Ferdinand, on the other hand, rose to be
director of the chief normal school of St. Anna
in Vienna, and played a considerable part in the
life of his celebrated brother, by whom he was
fondly loved, to whom he was deeply attached,
and whose eyes it was given to him to close in
death.
Little Franz was no doubt well grounded by
his father, and to that early training probably
owed the methodical habit which stuck to him
more or less closely through life, of dating his
pieces, a practice which makes the investigation
of them doubly interesting.* As schoolmasters
the father and his two eldest sons were all more
or less musical. Ignaz and Ferdinand had
learned the violin with other rudiments from
the father, and Franz was also taught it by
him in his tra'n, and the ' clavier ' (i.e. probably'
the pianoforte—for Beethoven's op. 31 was
published before Schubert had passed his sixth
year) by Ignaz, who was twelve years his senior.
But his high vocation quickly revealed itself
he soon outstripped these simple teachers, and
was put under Michael Holzer, the choirmaster
of the parish, for both violin and piano, as well
as for singing, the organ, and thorough-bass.
On this good man, who long outlived him, he
made a deep impression.
'
When I wished to
teach him anything fre^h,' he would say, 'he
always knew it already. I have often listened
to him in astonishment.' * Holzer would give
him subjects to extemporise upon, and then his
joy would know no bounds, and he would cry
'
The lad has got harmony at his fingers' ends.'
Such astonishment was natural enough, but It
would have been far better if he had taught
him counterpoint. Ignaz too—and an elder
brother is not always a lenient judge of his
8 Author of a sermon on the 1400th anniversary of the birth of
St. Benedict (Vienna, 1880), in which he la styled ' CapituLuprieater
des Stlftes Schotten; Curat und Fredlger an der &tlftspforre
Besltzer des gold. Vei'dlenstkreuzes m, d. Krone.'
• AT.ff.p, 146(1. 149).
6 ms usual practice was to write the title of the piece, the date,
and his name, Pn Schubert Mpia ' ' Imcmu proprid), at the head of
the 'first page, on beginning to compose. In his earlier years he
added the full date of completion at the end, even when it was the
same day. See Noa. 1. 2, and 5 of the '6 Lieder' (MUller)—all three
belonging to 1813, as given in Nottebohm's Catalofftie.-p. 243. Some,
times he has dated each movement, as in the String Quartet in Bb
(op. 168), described under 1814. With 1816, however, this minute
dating in great measure ceases, and as a rule we find the year or at
most the month stated.
" JI.Z.M. 1 K.B. p. 5 (1. 5).