Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

356 1838— SCHUMANN -1840
work, for the Vienneae public was still as ever
the most responsive in the world, and one to
justify sanguine hopes. Schumann effected his
move with the assistance of Professor Joseph
Fischhof, his colleague in the paper ; settling
himself in October 1 8 3 8 in the Schbnlaterngasse,
No. 679. Oswald Lorenz edited the Zeitschrift
as Schumann's deputy, and for a time it was
still to be issued in Leipzig. Schumann hoped
to be able to bring it out in Vienna by January
1839, and made eveiy effort to obtain the
prompt permission of the authorities, as well
as the support of influential persons for himself
and his journal. But the consent of the
censor's office and the police were long withheld
; and he was required to secure the cooperation
of an Austrian publisher, in itself a
great difficulty. It is hard to believe that in
the great city of Vienna no strictly musical
newspaper then existed, and that a small
catalogue, iiieAllgemeiTie musiJcalische Anzeiger,
published weekly by Tobias Haslinger, and
almost exclusively devoted to the business
interests of his firm, was the only publication
which could pretend to the name. But the
publishers were either too indolent or too timid
to attempt any new enterpiise, and sought to
throw impediments in Schumann's way.
His courage and hopefulness were soon much
reduced. The superficially kind welcome he
met everywhere could not conceal the petty
strife of coteries, the party spirit and gossip of
a society which might have been provincial.
The public, though keenly alive to music, was
devoid of all critical taste.
'
He could not get
on with these people, ' he writes to Zuccalmaglio
as early as Oct. 19, 1838 ; their utter insipidity
was at times too much for him, and while he
had hoped that on its appearance in Vienna
the Zeitschrift would have received a fresh
impulse, and become a medium of intercourse
between North and South, he was forced as
early as December to say
'
: The paper is
evidently falling off, though it must be published
here ; this vexes me much.' Stemdale
Bennett, who was residing in Leipzig during
1837-38, and who, Schumann hoped, would
settle with him in Vienna, was obliged to
relinquish his intention ; and in Vienna itself
he sought in vain for an artist after his own
heart, one who ' should not merely play tolerably
well on one or two instruments, but who
should be a whole man, and understand
Shakespeare and Jean Paul.' At the same
time he did not abandon the scheme of making
a wide and influential circle of activity for
himself ; he was unwilling to return to Leipzig,
and when in March 1839 he made up his mind
to do so, after trying in vain to carry on the
journal in Vienna, it was with the intention of
remaining there but a short time. He indulged
in a dream of going to England never to return !
What the anticipations could have been that
led him to cherish such an idea we know not ;
perhaps his friendship for Bennett may have
led to it ; but, in point of fact, he never set
foot on English ground.
As far, therefore, as making a home for
himself went, his half-year's stay in Vienna was
But without doubt Schumann
without result.
received impulses and incitements towards
further progress as a, musician through his
acquaintance with Vienna life. A work which
is to be referred directly to this influence is
the ' Faschingsschwank aus Wien ' (op. 26,
pijblished by Spina in 1841). In the first
movement, which seems to depict various
scenes of a masquerade, there springs up quite
unnoticed the melody of the ' Marseillaise '
(p.
7, bar 40, etc. ; Pauer's edition, vol. iiL p. 596,
1. 1), at that time strictly forbidden in Vienna.
Schumann, who had been much worried by the
government officials on account of his newspaper,
took this opportunity of playing off a
good-tempered joke upon them.
It was very natural that, with his enthusiastic <
admiration for Schubert, he should take pains
to follow out the traces of that master, who
had now been dead just ten years. He visited
the Wahring cemetery, where Schubert is
buried, divided by a few intervening graves
from Beethoven. On the tomb of the latter a
steel pen was lying ; this Schumann took possession
of, and being always fond of symbolical
associations and mystic connections, used on
very special occasions. With it he wi'ote his
Symphony in Bb (op. 38), and the notice of
Schubert's C major Symphony, which is found
in the Zeitschrift for 1840.^ And here we
encounter one of the chief benefits which
Schumann received from his stay in Vienna.
He visited Franz Schubert's brother Ferdinand,
who showed him the artistic remains of his too
early lost brother, and among them the score
of the major Symphony. This he had composed
in March 1828, but never lived to hear
it performed entire, and no one had since cared
to -take any trouble about it. Schumann
arranged for the score to be sent to Leipzig,
and there on March 21, 1839, it was performed
for the first time under Mendelssohn's direction.
Its success was very striking, and was of great
influence on the more thorough and widespread
appreciation of Schubert's genius. Schumann
retained pleasant memories of Vienna throughout
his life, in spite of the little notice he
attracted on this occasion, and the meagre
success of a concert consisting of his own works,
which he gave with his wife on a subsequent
visit in the winter of 1846. In the summer
of 1847 he even wished to apply for a vacant
post on the board of direction at the Conservatorium,
but when the year 1848 came, he was
extremely glad that the plan had come to
nothing.
1 See also the OetcmvmeUe achriftem, i]i, 195.