Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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'
328 SCHUBERT
only, as in the Eosamunde B minor Entr'acte,
or the Finale of the tenth Symphony, does he
compel his hearers with an irresistible power ;
and yet how different is this compulsion from
the strong, fierce, merciless coercion, with which
Beethoven forces you along, and hows and bends
you to his will, in the Finale of the eighth or
still more that of the seventh Symphony.
We have mentioned the gradual manner in
which Schubert reached his own style in instrumental
music (see p. 325). In this, except
perhaps as to quantity, there is nothing singular,
or radically different from the early career of
other composers. Beethoven began on the lines
of Mozart, and Mendelssohn on those of Weber,
and gradually found their own independent
style. But the thing in which Schubert stands
alone is that while he was thus arriving by
degrees at individuality in Sonatas, Quartets,
and Symphonies, he was pouring forth songs
by the dozen, many of which were of the
greatest possible novelty, originality, and
mastery, while all of them have that peculiar
cachet which is immediately recognisable as his.
The chronological list of his works shows that
such masterpieces as the Gretchen am Spinnrade,
' the ' Erl King, ' the Ossian Songs, ' Gret-
'
chen im
'
'
Dom, ' Der Taucher, ' Die Biirgschaft,
were written before he was nineteen, and were
contemporary with his very early efforts in
the orchestra and chamber music ; and that
by 1822—in the October of which he wrote
the two movements of his eighth Symphony,
which we have named as his first absolutely
original instrumental music—he had produced
in addition such ballads as 'Eitter Toggenburg'
(1816), and 'Einsarakeif (1818); such
classical songs as Memnon ' ' (1817), Antigone
'
und(Bdip'(1817), 'Iphigenia' (1817), 'Ganymed'
(1817), 'Fahrt zum Hades' (1817),
'Prometheus' (1819), 'Gruppe aus dem Tartarus'
(1817); Goethe's 'Wilhelm Meister'
songs, An Schwager Kronos' ' (1816), 'Grenzen
der Menschheit ' (1821), Suleika's two songs
(1821), 'Geheimes' (1821); as well as the
'Wanderer' (1816), ' Sei mir gegrusst' (1821),
'
Waldesnaoht ' (1820), ' Greisengesang ' (1822),
and many more of his very greatest and most
immortal songs. '
And this is very confirmatory of the view already
taken in this article (p. 289a) of Schubert's
relation to music. The reservoir of music was
within him from his earliest years, and songs
being so much more direct a channel than the
more complicated and artificial courses and
conditions of the symphony or the sonata,
music came to the surface in them so much the
more quickly. Had the orchestra or the piano
been as direct a mode of utterance as the voice,
and the forms of symphony or sonata as Simple
as that of the song, there seems no reason why
he should not have written instrumental music
as characteristic as his eighth Symphony, his
Sonata in A minor, and his Quartet in the
same key, eight years earlier than he did ;
for
the songs of that early date prove that he had
then all the original power, imagination, and
feeling, that he ever ha!d. That it should have
been given to a, comparative boy to produce
strains which seem to breathe the emotion and
experience of a long life is only part of the
^wonder which will also surround Schubert's
songs. After 1822, when his youth was gone,
and health had begun to fail, and life had
become a terrible reality, his thoughts turned
inwards, and he wrote the two gr£at cycles of
the Miillerlieder ' ' (1823) and the ' Winterreise
(1827) ; the Walter Scott and Shakespeare
songs ; the splendid single songs of Im Walde
'
and 'AufderBruck,' 'Todtengrabers Heimweh,'
'
Der Zwerg ' Die junge Nonne ' ' ; the Barcarolle,
Du ' bist die Euh,' and the lovely Dass
'
sie hier gewesen'; the 'Schiffers Scheidelied,'
those which were collected into the so-called
'
Schwanengesang,' and many more.
It is very diflicult to draw a comparison
between the songs of this later period and those
of the earlier one, but the difference must strike
every one, and it resides mainly perhaps in the
subjects themselves. Subjects of romance—of
ancient times and remote scenes, and strange
adventures, and desperate emotion—are natural
to the imagination of youth. But in maturer
life the iliind is calmer, and dwells more
strongly on personal subjects. And this is the
case with Schubert. After 1822 the classical
songs and ballads are rare, and the themes
which he chooses belong chiefly to modern life
and individual feeling, such as the 'Miillerlieder'
and the 'Winterreise,' and others in the
list just given. Walter Scott's and Shakespeare's
form an exception, but it is an exception which
explains itself. We no longer have the exuberant
dramatic force of the 'Erl King,' 'Ganymed,'
the 'Gruppe aus dem Tartarus,' 'Cronnan,' or
' Kolma's Klage ' ; but we have instead the condensation
and personal point of ' Pause,' ' Die
Post,' 'Das Wirthshaus,' 'Die Kebensonnen,'
the 'Doppelganger,' and the 'Junge Nonne.'
And there is more maturity in the treatment.
His modulations are fewer. His accompaniments
are always interesting and suggestive,
but they gain in force and variety and quality
of ideas in the later songs.
In considering the songs themselves somewhat
more closely, their most obvious characteristics
are :—Their number ; their length ; the variety
of the words ;
their expression, and their other
musical and poetical peculiarities.
1. Their number. The published songs, that
is to say the compositions for one and two
voices, excluding Oflertories and songs in operas,
amount to 603.
2. Their length. This varies very much.
The shortest, like 'Klage um Aly Bey,' 'Der
Goldschmiedsgesell,' and 'Die Spinnerin' (op.