Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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1822- SCHUBEET -1823 299
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briskly as before. The Variations dedicated to
Beethoven (op. 10) were first to appear, on
April 19. They were followed by op. 8 (four
songs) on May 9, and op. 11 (three part-songs)
on June 12. Then came a long gap till Dec. 1 3,
on which day opp. 12, 13, and 14, all songs,
appeared at once. We have not space to name
them. But with such accumulated treasures
to draw upon, it is unnecessary to say that they
are all of the first class. The pecuniary result
of the publications of 1821 had been good ;
2000 gulden were realised, and of the '£rl
King ' alone more than 800 copies had been
sold ; and if Schubert had been provident
enough to keep his works in his own possession
he would soon have been out of the reach of
want. ThiSj however, he did not do. Pressed
by the want of money, in an incautious moment
he sold the first twelve of his works ' to Diabelli
for 800 silver gulden (£80), and entered into
some injudicious arrangement with the same
firm for future publications. His old and kind
friend Count Dietrichstein about this time
offered him a post as organist to the Court
Chapel,^ but he refused it, and he was probably
right, though in so doing he greatly distressed
his methodical old father. His habits, like
Beethoven's, made it absurd for him to undertake
any duties requiring strict attendance.
The Vienna Theatre being closed to ' Alfonso
and Estrella,' Schubert turned his thoughts in
the direction of Dresden, where his admirer
Anna Milder was living, and where Weber was
Director of the Opera ; and we find him in a
letter of Feb. 28, 1823 (published in 1881
for the first time) ^ asking his old patron Herr
von Mosel for a letter of recommendation to
Weber. He is confined to the house by illness,
There
and apologises for not being able to call.
are no traces of reply to this application, but it
probably led to nothing, for, as we shall see,
the score of the opera was still in his hands in
October. He was evidently now set upon opera.
In the letter just mentioned he implores von
Mosel to entrust him with a libretto ' suitable
for his littleness ' ; and though he seems never
to have obtained this, he went on with the
best he could get, and 1823 saw the birth of no
less than three dramatic pieces. The first was
a one -act play with dialogue, adapted from
the French by Castelli, and called 'Die Versohworenen,
' or The Conspirators. ' ' The play
was published in the Dramatic Garland— an annual
collection of dramas—for 1823. Schubert
must have seen it soon after publication, and
by April had finished the composition of it.
The autograph, in the British Museum, has at
1 So say the books ; but the works pubHahed on conunisaion were
opp. 1-7, containing twenty songs.
2 [The evidence for this tr&nsaotion is veiy obscure, and the story
may have l)ecome confused with a proposed application in 1825.
See below, p. 305a.]
3 In the Seuus Freie Preste of Vienna, Nov. 19. 1881. The letter,
though formal in style, is curiously free in some of its expressions.
It mentions tho overture to the 1st
'
Act of Alfonso und Estrella.
What can this be? The overture known under that name (op. 69) is
dated 'Dec. 1823," and is said to have been written for' Bosamunde.'
the end the words 'Aprill 1823. F. Schubert,
Ende der Oper.' It contains an overture and
eleven numbers, and appears from Bauernfeld's
testimony to have been composed with a view
to representation at the Court theatre. The
libretto is a very poor one, with but few dramatic
points, and confines the composer mainly
to the Chorus. The licensers changed its title
to the less suspicious one of Der hausliche
'
Krieg' or 'The Domestic Struggle,' and it was
duly sent in to the management, but it returned
in twelve months without examination. It did
not come to performance at all during Schubert's
lifetime, nor till 1861. In that year it was
given, under Herbeck's direction, by the Musikverein,
Vienna, on March 1 and 22 ; and on
the stage at Frankfort on August 29 ; since
then at the Court theatre, Vienna, at Munich,
Salzburg, and other German towns ; in Paris,
Feb.. 3, 1868, as La Croisade des ' Dames,'
and at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, March 2,
1872, as 'The Conspirators." In less than two
months after throwing off this lively Singspiel,
Schubert had embarked in something far more
serious, a regular three-act opera of the ' heroicoromantic
' pattern—also with spoken dialogue
—the scene laid in Spain, with Moors, knights,
a king, a king's daughter, and all the usual
furniture of these dreary compilations. The
libretto of ' Fierrabras,' by Josef Kupelwieser
enough of itself to justify all Wagner's charges *
against the opera books of the old school—was
commissioned by Barbaja for the Court theatre.
The book was passed by the Censure on July 21 ;
but Schubert had by that time advanced far in
his labours, and had in fact completed more
than half of the piece. He began it, as his own
date tells us, on May 25. Act 1, filling 304
pages of large oblong paper, ^ was completely
scored by the 31st of the month ; Act 2, in five
days more, by June 5 ; and the whole three
acts, fully 1000 pages, and containing an overture
and twenty-three numbers, were entirely
out of hand by Oct. 2. And all for nothing !
Schubert was not even kept long in suspense,
for early in the following year he learnt that
the work had been dismissed. The ground for
its rejection was the badness of the libretto ;
but knowing Barbaja's character, and seeing
that Kupelwieser was secretary to a rival house
(the Josefstadt), it is difiicult not to suspect
that the commission had been given by the wily
Italian, merely to facilitate the progress of some
piece of business between the two establishments.
It is, as Liszt has remarked, extraordinary
that Schubert, who was brought up from his
youth on the finest poetry, should have unhesitatingly
accepted the absurd and impracticable
librettos which he did, and which have kept in
oblivion so much of his splendid music. His
devotion to his friends, and his irrepressible
4 Hansllck, Coticerttaat, p. 160.
5 The autograph was shown to Sullivan and the writer by that
energetic Schubert apostle, Herr Johann Herbeck, in 1868.