Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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286 1816 SCHUBERT 1816
a marvellous round of incessant work. The
drudgery of the school, however, had become so
insupportable that Schubert seized the opportunity
of the opening of a government school of
music, at Laibach, near Trieste, to apply for the
post of director, with a salary of 500 Vienna
florins—£21 a year. The testimonials which he
sent in in April from Salieri, and from Joseph
Spendou, Chief Superintendent of Schools, were
so cold in tone as to imply that however much
they valued Schubert, they believed his qualifications
not to be those of the head of a large
establishment.' At any rate he failed, and the
post was given, on the recommendation of
Salieri, to a certain Jacob Sohaufl. Schubert
found compensation, however, in the friendship
of Franz von Schober, a young man of good
birth and some small means, who had met with
his songs at the house of the Spauns at Linz,
and had ever since longed to make his personal
acquaintance. Coming to Vienna to enter the
University, apparently soon after the Laibach
rebuff, he called on Schubert, found him in his
father's house, overwhelmed with his school
duties, and with apparently no time for music.
There, however, were the piles of manuscript
operas, masses, symphonies, songs, heaped up
around the young schoolmaster-composer, and
Schober saw at once that some step must be
taken to put an end to this cruel anomaly,
and give Schubert time to devote himself wholly
to the Art of which he was so full. Schober
proposed that his new friend should live with
him ; Franz's father — possibly not oversatisfied
with his son's performances as a teacher
of the alphabet to infants^—consented to the
plan, and the two young men (Schober was
some four months Franz's junior) went off to
keep house together at Sohober's lodgings in
the Landkrongasse. A trace of this change is
found on two MS. songs in the Musik Verein at
Vienna, ' Leiden der Trennung ' and ' Lebens-
Ued,' inscribed 'In Herr v. Schober's lodging,'
and dated Nov. 1816. Schubert began to give
a few lessons, but soon threw them up,' and
the household must have been maintained at
Sohober's expense, since there was obviously as
yet no sale for Schubert's compositions. He
had good friends, as Beethoven had had at the
same age, though not so high in rank^Hofrath
von Kiesewetter, Matthaus von Collin, Graf
Moritz Dietrichstein, Hofrath Hammer von
Purgstall, Pyrker, afterwards Patriarch of
Venice and Archbishop of Erlau, Frau Caroline
Pichler—all ready and anxious to help him had
they had the opportunity. But Schubert never
gave them the opportunity. He was a true
Viennese, born in the lowest ranks, without
either the art or the taste for imposing ' ' on
the aristocracy (Beethoven's * favourite phrase)
that Beethoven had ; loving the society of his
1 K-.ir. p. lOT (1. 109).
3 Bauernfeld, W.Z.K.
2 There ia ground for this suppoBitlon.
* Jmponiren. Thayer, ii. 313.
own class, shrinking from praise or notice of
any kind, and with an absolute detestation of
teaching or any other stated duties.
But to know him was to love and value him.
Three little events, which slightly diversify the
course of this year, are of moment as showing
the position which Schubert took amongst his
acquaintances. The first was the 50 th anniversary
of Salieri's arrival in Vienna, which he
had entered as a boy on June 16, 1766. [See
Saliebi, p. 212.] On Sunday, June 16, 1816,
the old Italian was invested with the Imperial
gold medal and chain of honour, in the presence
of the whole body of Com-t-musicians ; and in
the evening a concert took place at his own house,
in which, surrounded by his pupils, Weigl,
Assmayer, Anna Frbhlioh, Schubert, and many
others,^ both male and female, he snuffed up
the incense of his worshippers, and listened to
compositions in his honour by his scholars past
and present. Among these were pieces sent by
Hummel and Mosoheles, and a short cantata,
both words and music by Schubert."
Eight days afterwards, on July 24, there was
another festivity in honour of the birthday of
a certain Herr Heinrioh Watteroth,^ a distinguished
official person, for which Schubert had
been employed to write a cantata on the subject
of Prometheus, words by PhilippDriixler, another
official person. The cantata has disappeared ;
but from a description of it by Leopold Sonnleithner,
communicated to Zellner's Blatter '
fiir
Theater,'eto. (No. 19),andreprinted*separately,
it seems to have been written for two solo voices,
soprano (Gaa), and bass (Prometheus), chorus,
and orchestra, and to have contained a duet in
recitative, two choruses for mixed and one for
male voices (the disciples of Prometheus). This
last is described as having been in the form of
a slow march, with original and interesting treatment.
The performance took place in the garden
of Watteroth's house in the Erdberg suburb of
Vienna. As all the persons concerned in the
festivity were people of some consideration, and
as the music was very well received, it may have
been an important introduction for the young
composer. A oongi-atulatory poem by von
Schlechta, addressed to Schubert, appeared a day
or two later in the FhecUerzeitung. Schubert
had already, in the previous year, set a song
of Schlechta's—
' Auf einem Kirchhof '—and he
promptly acknowledged the compliment by
adopting one of more moment from Schlechta's
s There was a Liszt among Salieri's pupils at this time, but
hardly the future Abbd, who was then but five years old. Franz
Liszt and Schubert met once—in the curious collection of variations
on Diabelli's waltz, to which fifty Austrian composers contributed.
Beethoven's contribution being the thirty-three variations, op. 120,
LiBzt'BvariationsisNo.24,andSchubert'sNo. 38. Liszt wasthroughout
an indefatigable champion for Schubert.
8 Theautograph of this little curiosity was sold in Paris, by auction.
May 14, IMl. The words are given by Krelsale, p. 82 (i.'83l, but are
not worth quoting. They do not possess the individuality of thought
which makes Schubert's later verses so interesting, in spite of the
crudity of their expression.
^ His birthday was July 12, but the performance was put off on
account of the weather.
8 I am indebted for this reprint to my ever-kind friend Mr. C. y.
Pnhl, of the Gesellsohaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna.