Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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308 1826— SCHUBERT -1827
of principal capellmeister ; but the application,
like every other of the same kind made by him,
was a failure, and the place was given to Joseph
Weigl by the Imperial decree of Jan. 27, 1827.
Another opportunity of acquiring a fixed income
was opened to him duringthe same autumn,
by the removal of Karl August Krebs from the
conductorship of the Court theatre to Hamburg.
Vogl interested Duport, the administrator of
the theatre, in his friend, and the appointment
was made to depend on Schubert's success in composing
some scenes for the stage. Madame
Soheohner, for whom the principal part was
intended, a young debutante who was making
her first appearance in Vienna, objected at the
pianoforte rehearsals to some passages in her
air, but could not induce the composer to alter
them. The same thing happened at the first
orchestral rehearsal, when it also became evident
that the accompaniments were too noisy for the
voice. Still Schubert was immovable. At the
full-band rehearsal Schechner fairly broke down,
and refused to sing any more. Duport then
stepped forward, and formally requested Schubert
to alter the music before the next meeting. This
he refused to do ; but taking the same course as
Beethoven had done on a similar occasion, said
loudly, ' I will alter nothing,' took up his score
and left the house. After this the question of
the conductorship was at an end. Schubert's behaviour
in this matterhas beenstrongly censured,
but we do not see much in it. Such questions
will always depend on the temperament of the
composer. Hadit been either Mozart or Mendelssohn
we cannot doubt that all would have gone
smoothly ; the prima donna would not only not
have been ruflled, but would have felt herself
complimented, and the music would have been
so altered as to meet every one's wish, and yet
sound as well as before. On the other hand,
had it been Beethoven or Schumann we may be
equally sure that not a note would have been
changed, and that everything would have ended
in confusion. With all Schubert's good-nature,
when his music was concerned he was of the
same mind as Beethoven and Schumann. There
are other instances of the same stubbornness,
which will be noticed later.
Some set-off to these disappointments was
afforded by the ready way in which his Gasteiu
Symphony w^ received by the Musikverein,
and the sympathetic resolution and prompt
donation which accompanied its acceptance,
although no attempt to perform or even rehearse
it can now be traced. The beautiful Naohthelle,'
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already referred to, which he composed
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in September, was rehearsed during the early
winter months, and performed by the Society
on Jan. 25, 1827.
Some little gratification also henot improbably
derived from the letters which during this year
he began to receive from publishers in the north.
Probst of Leipzig— one of Beethoven's publishers.
predecessor of the present firm of Senff—was
the first to write. His letter is dated August
26, and is followed by one from Breitkopf &
Hartel of Sept. 7. True, neither are very
encouraging. Probst speaks of his music as too
often 'peculiar and odd,' and 'not intelligible
or satisfactory to the public ; '
and begs him to
write so as to be easily understood ; while
Breitkopf stipulates that the only remuneration
at first shall be some copies of the works. Still,
even with this poor present result, the fact was
obvious that he had begun to attract attention
outside of Austria.
As to Schubert's life in the early part of
1827 we have little to guide us beyond the
scanty inferences to be drawn from the dated
compositions. The first of these of any moment
are eight Variations (the eighth very much
extended) on a theme in Herold's opera Marie,'
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for PF. four hands (op. 82). 'Marie' was
produced on the Vienna boards Jan. 18, 1827 ;
and Schubert's Variations are dated ' February,
and are dedicated to one of his friends in Upper
Austria, Prof. Cajetan Neuhans of Linz. The
next and still more important work is the first
half of the ' Winterreise,' twelve songs ('Gute
Nacht ' to Einsamkeit ' '), marked as begun in
Feb. 1827. Franz Lachner remembers that
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half a dozen ' of them were written in one
morning, and that Haalinger gave a gulden
(that is a franc) apiece for them. The poems
which form the basis of this work are by Wilhelm
Mtiller, the poet of the 'Schiine Miillerin, ' which
the Winterreise closely approaches in popularity,
and which it would probably equal if the maiden
of the Winter-walk were as definite a creation
as the miller's daughter is. They are twentyfour
in all, and appear under their now
immortal name in the second volume of the
work of which vol. i. contained the Schone
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Miillerin,' and which has the quaint title
already quoted (p. 300o).' The second volume
was published at Dessau in 1824, and did not
at once attract Schubert's notice. When it did,
he made short work of it. Another important
composition of this month (dated Feb. 28) is
the Schlachtlied (battle - song) of Elopstook,
set for two choirs of male voices, sometimes
answering, sometimes in eight real parts, of
immense force and vigour, and marked by that
dogged adherence to rhythm so characteristic
of Schubert.
He can scarcely have finished with this before
the news that Beethoven was in danger spread
through Vienna. The great musician got back
to his rooms in the Schwarzspanierhaus from
his fatal expedition to Gneixendorf in the first
week of December, became very ill, and during
January was tapped for the dropsy three times.
Then Malfatti was called in, and there was a
slight improvement. During thishe was allowed
to read, and it was then that Sohindler, a zealous
1 The order of the songs is much changed in the music.