Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

288 1816 SOHUBEBT 1816
the same. To read a poem, and at onoe to fasten
upon it and transcribe it in music seems to have
been his natural course ; and having done one
he went at once to the next. A volume of
Hblty, or Claudius, or Kosegarten came into
his hands ;
he tore from it in a moment what
struck him, and was not content with one song,
but must have three, four, or five. Thus, in
the summer of 1815, he evidently meets with
Kosegarten's poems, and, in July, sets twenty
of them. In March 1816 he sets five songs
by Salis ; in May, six by Holty ; in Nov. four
by Claudius, three by Mayrhofer, and so on.
To read these lists gives one a kind of visible
image of the almost fierce eagerness with which
he attacked his poetry, and of the inspiration
with which the music rushed from his heart
and through his pen— 'everything that he
touched,' says Schumann, ' turning into music'
Thus, at a later date, calling accidentally on
Eandhartinger, and his friend being summoned
from the room, Schubert, to amuse himself in the
interval, took up a little volume which lay on
the table. It interested him ; and as his friend
did not return he carried it off with him. Anxious
for his book, Eandhartinger called next morning
at Schubert's lodgings, and found that he had
already set several pieces in it to music. The
volume was Wilhelm Muller's poems ; the songs
were part of the Schone ' Miillerin.' A year or
two after this, in July 1826—it is his old friend
Doppler who tells the story—returning from a
Sunday stroll with some friends through the
village of Wiihring, he saw a friend sitting at a
table in the beer-garden of one of the taverns.
The friend, when they joined him, had a volume
of Shakespeare on the table. Schubert seized
it, and began to read ; but before he had turned
over many pages pointed to Hark, ' hark, the
lark,' and exclaimed, Such ' a lovely melody has
come into my head, if I had but some music
paper.' Some one drew a few staves on the
back of a bill of fare, and there, amid the hubbub
of the beer-garden, that beautiful song, so perfectly
fitting the words, so skilful and so happy
in its accompaniment, came intoperfeotexistence.
Two others from the same poet not improbably
followed in the evening.'
It seems that the Quartet afternoons at the
house of Schubert the elder had gradually extended
themselves into performances of Haydn's
Symphonies, arranged as quartets arid played
with doubled parts, players of ability and
name joined, and a few hearers were admitted.
After a time, the modest room became inconveniently
crowded, and then the little society
migrated to the house of a tradesman named
Frisohling (Dorotheengasse 1105), wind instruments
were added, and the smaller works of
Pleyel, Haydn, and Mozart were attacked.
In the winter of 1815 another move became
1
The drinking-Bong from 'Antony and Cleopatra' (marked
'Wahrinff, July 26'), and the lovely 'Sylvia' ('July 1826'). The
anecdote Is in Kreissle.
necessary, to the house of Otto Hatwig, one
of the violins of the Burgtbeater, at the Schottenthor,
and in the spring of 1818, to his new
residence in the Gundelhof, and later still at
Pettenkofer's house in the Bauernmarkt. The
band now contained some good professional
players, and could venture even on Beethoven's
iirst two symphonies, and the overtures of Cherubini,
Spontini, Boieldieu, Weigl, etc. Schubert
belonged to it all through, playing the viola, and
it was probably with the view to their performance
by the society that he wrote the two
symphonies of 1816 (Nos. 4 and 5), two overtures
in the winter of 1817, an(l his sixth
Symphony in the spring of 1818.
Sohober and Mayrhofer were Schubert's first
friends outside the immediate circle of his youthful
associates. He was now to acquire a third,
destined to be of more active service than either
of the others. This was Vogl. He was twenty
years Franz's senior, and at the time of their
meeting was a famous singer at the Vienna
Opera, admired more for his intellectual gifts
than for the technical perfection of his singing,
and really great in such parts as Orestes in
'Iphigenie,' Almaviva in 'Figaro,' Creon in
' Medea,' and Telasko in the
' Vestalin.' About
the year 1816—the date is not precisely given
—Vogl was induced by Schober to come to their
lodgings, and see the young fellow of whom
Schober was always raving, but who had no
access to any of the circles which Vogl adorned
and beautified by his presence. The room as
usual was strewed with music. Schubert was
confused and awkward ; Vogl, the great actor
and man of the world, gay, and at his ease.
The first song he took up — probably the first
music of Schubert's he had ever seen—was
Schubart's 'Augenlied.' He hummed itthrough,
and thought it melodious, but slight—which it
' is. Ganymed ' and the ' Schafers Klage ' made
a deeper impression ; others followed and he
left with the somewhat patronising but true remark,
There ' is stuif in you ; but you squander
your fine thoughts instead of making the most
of them.' But the impression remained, he
talked of Schubert with astonishment, soon
returned, and the acquaintance grew and ripened
till they became almost inseparable, and until
in their performances of Schubert's songs, ' the
two seemed, ' in Schubert's own words, ' for the
moment to be one.' In those days songs were
rarely if ever sung in concert-rooms ; but Vogl
had the entrSe to all the great musical houses
of Vienna, and before long his performances of
the 'Erl King,'the 'Wanderer,' 'Ganymed,' 'Der
Kampf,' etc., with the composer's accompaniment,
were well known. What Vogl's opinion
of him ultimately became, may be learnt from
a passage in his diary :—
' Nothing shows so
plainly the want of a good school of singing as
Schubert's songs. Otherwise, what an enormous
and universal effect must have been produced