Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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1 SOS- SCHUBERT —1810 2S1
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junior—bears similar testimony. I was much
astonished,' says he, 'when after a few months
he told me that he had no more need of any
help from me, but would go on by himself ; and
indeed I soon had to acknowledge that he had
far surpassed me, beyond hope of competition.'
Before he became eleven he was first soprano
in the Lichtenthal choir, noted for the beauty
of his voice and the appropriateness of his
expression. He played the violin solos when
they occurred in the service, and at home composed
little songs, and pieces for strings or for
PF. For a child so gifted, of people in the
position of the Schuberts, the next step was
naturally the Imperial Convict, or school ^ for
educating the choristers for the Court-chapel
and to the Convict accordingly Franz was sent
in Oct. 1808, when eleven yearsand eight months
old. H e went up with a batch of other boy s, who,
while waiting, made themselves merry over his
grey suit, calling him a miller, and otherwise
cracking jokes. But the laugh soon ceased when
the 'miller' came under theexaminers; the Courtcapellmeisters
Salieri and Eybler, and Korner
the singing-master. He sang the trial-pieces in
such a style that he was at once received, and
henceforth the grey frock was exchanged for the
gold-laced uniform of theimperial choristers. The
music in the Convict had been a good deal dropt
in consequence of the war, but after the signing
of the treaty of peace, Oct. 14, 1809, it regained
its old footing, and then Franz soon took liisright
place in the music-.school. There was an orchestra
formed from the boys, which practised daily
symphonies and overtures of Haydn, Mozart,
Krommer, Kozeluch, M^hul, Cherubini, etc.,
and occasionally Beethoven. Here his home
practice put him on a level with older boys
than himself. The leader of the band, behind
whom he sat, several years his senior, turned
round the first day to see who it was that was
playing so cleverly, and found it to be ' a small
boy in spectacles named Franz Schubert. ^ ' The
big fellow's name was Spaun, and he soon
became intimate with his little neighbour.
Franz was extremely sensitive, and one day
admitted to his . friend, very confused and
blushing deeply, that he had already composed
much ; that indeed he could not help it, and
should do it every day if he could afford to get
music-paper. Spaun saw the state of matters,
and took care that music-paper should be
forthcoming ; for which and other kindnesses
his name will be long remembered. Franz in
time became first violin, and when Ruzicka,
the regular conductor, was absent, he took his
place. The orchestral music must have been
a great delight to him, but we only hear that
he preferred Kozeluch to Krommer, and thai
> Tn the PlaristeiigasBe in the Josephstadt. See a very full and
interesting account of this Hchool in Hanslick's excellent Iwok,
eetchichu du ConeertvKatns in Witn (Vienna, 1869), p. 141.
s From a sketch by von KScbel, entitled SaOiruf an Joaeph von
Bpaun, Vienna (ptivately printed), 1866. I owe the Bight of this to
my excellent friend Mr. Pohl.
his particular favourites were some adagios of
Haydn's, Mozart's G minor Symphony, in which
he said You ' could hear the angels singing,' and
the overtures to ' Figaro and the ' ' Zauberflote.
It is also evident from his earliest symphonies
that the overture to ' Prometheus ' had made its
mark on his mind. On Sundays and holidays
he went home, and then the great delight of
the family was to play quartets, his own or
those of other writers, in which the father took
the violoncello, Ferdinand and Ignaz the first
and second violins, and Franz the viola, as
Mozart did before him, and Mendelssohn after
him. The father would now and then make a
mistake ; on the first occasion Franz took no
notice, but if it recurred he would say with a
smile, in a timid way, Herr ' Vater, something
must be wrong there.'
The instruction in the Convict was by no
means only musical. There was a Curator, a
Director (Rev. Innocenz Lang), a Sub-director,
an Inspector, a staff of preachers and catechists ;
and there were teachers of mathematics, history,
and geography, poetry, writing, drawing, French,
and Italian.^ In fact it was a school, apart
from its music department, Franz of course
took his part in all this instruction, and for the
first year is said to have acquitted himself with
credit, but his reputation in the school fell off
as it increased in the musical department. The
extraordinary thirst for composition, which is
so remarkable throughout his life, began to
assert itself at this time, and appears to have
been limited only by his power of obtaining
paper ; and it not unnaturally interfered with
his general lessons. His first pianoforte piece
of any dimensions, and apparently his earliest
existing composition, was a four-hand fantasia,
containing more than a dozen movements, all
of different characters, and occupying thirtytwo
pages of very small writing. It is dated
April 8-May 1, 1810, and was followed by two
smaller ones.* His bi'other remarks that not
one of the three ends in the key in which it
began. The next is a long vocal piece for voice
'
and PF. , called Hagars Klage ' — Hagar's
lament over her dying son—dated March 30,
1811, also containing twelve movements, with
curious unconneotedchangesof key ; andanother,
of even grimmer character, attributed to the
same year, is called ' Leichenfantasie,' or Corpsefantasia,
to the words of Schiller's gruesome
juvenile poem of the same name. This has
seventeen movements, and is quite as erratic in
its changes of key and disregard of the comfass
of the voiceas the preceding.' The reminiscences
of Haydn's ' Creation, ' Mozart's opera airs, and
Beethoven's Andantes, are frequent in both. A
fourth is Der Vatermbrder '—the Parricide
'
3 Bee the list of names in K.B. p. IS (i. 13).
4 Ferd, p. 133. Reissmann (p. 7) gives the inscriptions— 'Den 8.
Aprill angefangen. Den 1. Hay voUbracht, 1610.'
fi The autographs of both are in possession of Herr Nichoiss
Dnmba of Vienna.