Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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1824- SCHUBEET -1825 303
party. He withdrew after breakfast, taking
the book with him, and in the evening, leas
than ten hours afterwards, it was tried through
from the score at the piano. The next evening
it was sung again, this time from separate parts,
which Schubert had written out during the day.
The piece is composed for quartet, with solos
for Mme. Esterhazy, Marie, Sohonstein, and the
Count, and contains 209 bars. A MS. letter of
Ferdinand's,' dated July 3, full of that strong
half-reverential affection which was Ferdinand's
habitual attitude towards his gifted brother,
and of curious details, mentions having sent him
Bach's fugues (never-cloying food of great composers),
and an opera-book, Der kurze '
Mantel.'
Strange fascination of the stage, which thus, in
despite of so many failures, could keep him
still enthralled
The country air of the Hungarian mountains,
and no doubt the sound and healthy living and
early hours of the ch3,teau, restored Schubert's
health completely, and in a letter of Sept. 21
to Schober he says that for five months he had
been well. But he felt his isolation and the
want of congenial Vienna society keenly ; speaks
with regret of having been 'enticed' into a
second visit to Hungary, and complains of not
having a single person near to whom he could
say a sensible word. How different from the
exuberant happiness of the visits to Steyr and
St. Pblten, when every one he met was a demonstrative
admirer, and every evening brought a
fresh triumph !
Now, if ever, was the date of his tender feeling
for his pupil Caroline Esterhazy, which his
biographers have probably much exaggerated.
She was seventeen at the time, and Bauemfeld
represents her as the object of an ideal devotion,
which soothed, comforted, and inspirited Schubert
to the end of his life. Ideal it can only
have been, considering the etiquette of the time,
and the wide distance between the stations of
the two ; and the only occasion on which
Schubert is ever alleged to have approached
anything like a revelation of his feelings, is
that told by Kreissle—on what authority he
does not say, and it is hard to conceive—when
on her jokingly reproaching him for not having
dedicated anything to her, he replied, 'Why
should I ? everything I ever did is dedicated
to you.' True, the fine Fantasia in F minor,
published in the March following his death as
op. 1 03, is dedicated to her by Franz ' Schubert,'
a step which the publishers would hardly have
ventured upon unless the MS. — probably handed
to them before his death—hsid been so inscribed
by himself. But it is difficult to reconcile the
complaints of isolation and neglect already
quoted from his letter to Schober with the existence
of a passion which must have been fed
every time he met his pupil or sat down to the
1 For vhioh I again gladl7 acltnovledge the kindne^ of Frl.
Caxoline GdeleT-Srhnbezt. Schubeit'a gxandnlece.
piano with her. We must be content to leave
each reader to decide the question for himself.
Vocal composition he laid aside almost entirely
in 1824. The only songs which we can
ascertain to belong to it are four—the fine
though gloomy ones called 'Auflbsung,' and
'
Abendstern, ' both by Mayrhofer ;
another
evening song ' Im Abendroth ' by Lappe, all
three in March ; and the bass song, ' Lied eines
Kriegers,' with which he closed the last day of
the year.^ Of part-songs there are two, both
for men's voices ; one a 'Salve regina,' written
in April, before leaving town ; and the other,
the ' Gondelfahrer,' or Gondolier, a very fine
and picturesque composition, of which Lablache
is said to have been so fond that he encored it
on first hearing, and himself sang in the encore
(Spaun).—A Sonata for PF. and Arpeggione,
in A minor, dated Nov. 1824, was probably
one of his first compositions after returning to
town.'
The publications of 1824 embrace opp. 25
to 28 inclusive, all issued by Saner & Leidesdorf.
Op. 25 is the 'Schbne Miillerin,' 20
songs in five numbers, published March 25 ;
op. 26 is the vocal music in 'Rosamunde,'*
the romance and three choruses ; op. 27, three
fine ' heroic marches, ' for PF. four hands ; op.
28, 'Der Gondelfahrer,' for four men's voices
and PF., August 12.
1825 was a happy year to our hero—happy
and productive. He was back again in his dear
Vienna, and exchanged the isolation of ZseWsz
for the old familiar life, with his congenial
friends Vogl, Schwind, Jenger, Mayrhofer, etc.
(Schober was in Prussia, and Kupelwieser still
at Rome), in whose applause and sympathy and
genial conviviality he rapidly forgot the disappointments
and depression that had troubled
him in the autumn. Sofie MiiUer, one of the
great actresses of that day, evidently a very
accomplished, cultivated woman, was then in
Vienna, and during February and March her
house was the resort of Schubert, Jenger, and
Vogl, who sang or listened to her singing of
his best and newest Lieder,—she herself sang
the Junge Nonne ' ' at sight on March 3—and
lived a pleasant and thoroughly artistic life.^
Others, which she mentions as new, and which
indeed had their birth at this time are Der
'
Einsame, ' and ' Ihr Grab. ' The new ' songs from
the Pirate,' which she heard on March 1, may
have been some from the Lady ' of the Lake,
or 'Noma's song,' or even 'Anna Lyle,' usually
placed two years later. Schubert published
some important works early in this year—the
Overture in F for four hands (op. 34) ; also
the Sonata in B|> (op. 30), and the Variations
in Ab (op. 35), both for four hands ; and the
3 The antograph, bo dated, helonga to Hr. O. J, Hargltt, LondoiL
3 Gotthard, Iffn. Autograph In MuBikverein.
* Besides the Tocal muBlc the overture was pnbliehed about 1828,
and the Entr'actes and Ballet music in 1868.
A See her interesting Journal, in her Leben wtd nachgelauene
Papiere herausg, von Johonn Orafen Majl&th [Vienna, 18&).