Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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1828'' SCHUBERT 16 315
The home pliblioations of 1828 are not so important
as those of former years. The first part
ofthe ' Winterreise ' (op. 89) was issued In January
by Haslinger ; March 14, three songs by Sir
W. Scott (opp. 85, 86) by Diabelli ; at Easter
(April 6) six songs (opp. 92 and 108), and one
set of 'Momens musicals,' by Leidesdorf; in
May, two songs (op. 93) by Kienreich ^ of Graz ;
in June or July (' Sommer '), four songs (op. 96)
by Diabelli ; Aug. 13, four Refrain-Lieder (op.
95), Weigl. Also the following, to which no
month can be fixed :—
' Andantino vari^ and
Eondeau brillant ' (op. 84), PF. four Imads. on
French motifs, forming a continuatio^ffit op.
63, Weigl ; three songs (op. 87), Pennauer
four impromptus (op. 90), and twelve Gratzer
Waltzer (op. 91) forPF. solo, Diabelli ; Gratzer
Galoppe, do. Haslinger ; four songs (op. 106)
lithographed without publisher's name.
There is nothing in the events already catalogued
to have prevented Schubert's taking an
excursion this summer. In either Styria or
Upper Austria he would have been welcomed
with open arms, and the journey might have
given him a stock of health sufficient to carry
him on for years. And he appears to have
entertained the idea of both.^ But the real
obstacle, as he constantly repeats, was his
poverty.'
'
It's all over with Graz for the
present, ' he says, with a touch of his old .fun,
'
for money and weather are both against me.
Herr Franz Lachner, at that time his constant
companion, told the writer that he had taken
half-a-dozen of the 'Winterreise' songs to
Haslinger and brought back half-a-dozen gulden
—each gulden being then worth a franc. Let
the lover of Schubert pause a moment, and
think of the ' Post ' or the Wirthshaus ' ' being
sold for tenpence ! of that unrivalled imagination
and genius producing those deathless strains
and being thus rewarded ! When this was the
case, when even a great work like the El> Trio,
after months and months of negotiation and
heavy postage, realises the truly microscopic
amount of 20 ' florins 60 kreutzers ' (as with
true Prussian businesslike minuteness Herr
Probst specifies it), of 17s. 6d. as our modem
currency has it—not even Schubert's fluency
and rapidity could do more than keep body
and soul together. It must have been hard
not to apply the words of MiiUer's Leyennann
'
to his own case
Barfdss auf dem Eise
Wankt er hin und her,
Utid sem HHner Teller
Bleibt Htm vmmer leer.
In fact so empty was his little tray that he
could not even afford the diligence-fare to Pesth,
where Laohner's ' Biirgschaft ' was to be brought
out, and where, as Schindler reminds him, he
would be safe to have a lucrative concert of his
1 whom Schubert parodies as
Jeoeer's and Traweger's letters, K.ff, pp. 416, 4^, 431, etc
' Oieiner ' i.e. gmrabler.
3 Letters, K.E. p. 4St (11. 124), etc.
own music, as profitable as that of March 26.
Escape from Vienna by that road was impossible
for him this year.
Schubert had for some time past been living
with Schober at the Blaue Igel ' ' (or Blue
Hedgehog), still a well-known tavern and resort
of musicians in the Tuchlauben ; but at the
end of August he left, and took up his quarters
with Ferdinand in a new house in the Neue
Wieden suburb, then known as No. 694 Firmian,
orLumpert,*orN'eugebauten, Gasse, now (1881)
No. 6 Kettenbriicken Gasse ; a long house with
three rows of nine windows in front ; a brown
sloping tiled roof; an entry in the middle to
a quadrangle behind ; a quiet, clean, inoffensive
place. Here, on the second floor, to the right
hand, lived Schubert for the last five weeks of
his life, and his death is commemorated by a
stonfl||teblet over the entry, placed there by
the Ma%iergesang Verein in Nov. 1869, and
containing these words In diesem Hause
:—'
starb am 19 November 1828 der Tondu' dj^H^
Franz Schubert '—(In this house died onj
19, 1828, the composer Franz Schubert),
nand had removed there, and Franz went it tn^^H
i
too. He made the move with the concurrence
of his doctor, von Binna, in the hope that as
it was nearer the country—it was just over the
river in the direction of the Belvedere—Schubert
would be able to reach fresh air and exercise
more easily than he could from the heart of
the city. The old attacks of giddiness and
blood to the head had of late been frequent,
and soon after taking up his new quarters he
became seriously unwell. However, this was
so far relieved that at the beginning of October
he made a short walking tour with Ferdinand
and two other friends to Ueber-Waltersdorf,
and thence to Haydn's old residence and grave
at Eisenstadt, some 26 miles from Vienna. It
took them three days, and during that time
he was very careful as to eating and drinking,
regained his old cheerfulness, and was often
very gay. Still he was far from well, and after
his return the bad symptoms revived, to the
great alarm of his friends. At length, on the
evening of Oct. 31, while at supper at the
Rothen Kreuz in the Himmelpfortgrund, an
eating-house much frequented by himself and
his friends, he took some fish on his plate, but
at the first mouthful threw down the knife and
fork, and exclaimed that it tasted like poison.
Fromthatmoment hardly anything but medicine
passed his lips ; but he still walked a good
deal. About this time Lachner returned from
Pesth in all the glory of the success of his
opera ; and though only in Vienna for a few
days, he called on his friend, and they had two
hours' conversation. Schubert was full of plans
for the future, especially for the completion of
'Graf von Gleichen,' which, as already mentioned,
he had sketched in the summer of 1827.
* K.B. p. 453 rwte.