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Musical Courier 1928-04-12: Vol 96 Iss 15, 1928
58 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 10. See the scan on archive.org.
1SCHUBERT IN FRANCE
2By Clarence Lucas
3(Copyrighted, 1928 by The Musical Courier Company)
5Schubert has never been whole-heartedly accepted by the French. The musicians of France acknowledge his wonderful genius, but his music is not known to the man in the street at all, and even the cultured French public does not know his compositions as it knows the violin concerto of Mendelssohn and many of the piano works of Schumann.
7The programs of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire for the past century are instructive for those who wish to study the standing of Schubert in France in comparison with his contemporary composers of what was once called the Romantic School.
9Weber's overtures to Oberon and Der Freischutz first appeared on these programs in 1828. The Concertstücke for piano and orchestra was played in 1835 with Liszt at the piano.
11During the years 1842 to 1848 Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave overture, first, second, and third symphonies, and the violin concerto were played at these concerts. The Midsummer Night's Dream music was heard in 1851, the Hymn of Praise in 1861, and the G minor piano concerto in 1865.
13Schumann's B flat symphony was played in 1867, the Manfred overture in 1869, the D minor symphony and the piano concerto in 1874, and the E flat symphony in 1876.
15Schubert, however, who died twenty years before Mendelssohn, and twenty-eight years before Schumann, had to wait till 1883 for the first performance of his Unfinished symphony, and till 1897 for his symphony in C.
17His famous song, The Erlking, was introduced to the French by the once popular Nourrit, in 1835, it is true. But the larger works of Schubert are still practically unknown in Paris, which is to say, France.
19Mendelssohn's Wedding March, and his Spring Song for piano, are familiar to the entire French nation. No work of Schubert, large or small, is even fairly well known.
21Schumann's Carnival, Etudes Symphoniques, Papillons, Scenes of Childhood, Fantasy in C major, and other shorter pieces, are continually found on the programs of piano recitalists.
23Two or three times a season Liszt's version of Schubert's Wanderer-Fantasy is played, and now and then the same transcriber's arrangements of the Vienna Valses, Hark, Hark, the Lark, The Trout, The Erlking, are heard. The Military March, the Moment Musicale, and the Impromptu in B flat, complete the list of Schubert pieces which pianists occasionally play.
25Wilhelmj's violin transcription of the Ave Maria, and two or more versions of the Serenade, complete the programs of the violinists.
27As a contributor to the programs of the vocalists, Schubert must still take a very humble place beside Schumann. And the singers who sing the Schubert songs in Paris are mostly foreign artists.
29The Concert Guide of Paris for the month of January gives the name of Schumann fifty-nine times, and the name of Schubert thirty-eight times. Most of the works of Schuman are large piano compositions or orchestral symphonies and overtures. Nearly all the Schubert compositions are songs with piano accompaniment.
31It can truly be said that Schubert has never been whole-heartedly accepted by the French. Beethoven during the same period had sixty performances in Paris, and Wagner fifty-six.
33Schubert's Genius for Happiness
34(Continued from page 9)
36at her parents' wish, she married another, which grieved me sorely. I love her still—and since then I have met no one that I loved so well. It was not to be."
38Recently seventeen songs which Schubert wrote for this Therese Grob and which have been in the possession of her family for nearly a century have been brought to light. But there is nothing in the Schubert annals to show that the affair made him morose, or that it disturbed the fundamental cheeriness of his nature in the least. His friend Bauernfeld remarks: "Schubert has just the right mixture of idealism and realism; to him the world is fair." And Moritz von Schwind, after Schubert's death said: "Schubert is dead and with him all the gaiety and beauty we had." Then there is the testimony of Kathi Fröhlich, the youngest of the well-known Viennese quartet of sisters who were among Schubert's intimate associates. She was herself well-known through her ideal, lifelong friendship with Grillparzer, who called her his "eternal fiancée," and who in a beautiful poem describes her while listening to Schubert's music, thus:
40Still sass sie da, die Lieblichste von Allen,
41Aufhorchend, ohne Tadel, ohne Lob;
42Wie von den flieh'nden Tönen nachgezogen . . .
44Of Schubert this Kathi Fröhlich writes: "His was a beautiful soul; envy and malice were unknown to him. On the contrary, how delighted he was when any good music of others was performed! Then he laid his hands together, pressed them to his lips and sat quite entranced. The innocence and guilelessness of his spirit were beyond all description."
46All this speaks of a happy existence. Yet these friends and companions must have seen with their own eyes the much talked of "misery" of Schubert. Apparently, dazzled by the effulgence of his genius, they seem not to have noticed it. To quote Huttenbrenner again, who describes these times: "We all were young and gay and enjoyed ourselves in dear Vienna, the dear old Kaiserstadt, as much as we could, each lending a hand to help the other."
48I hope that the real Schubert biography will soon be written—in which the harmonious equipoise of the man and the artist—the singleness of his life and work—shall be portrayed. There must be a correct apprehension of the circumstances, the time and the place, for without a complete knowledge of his surroundings, his life and character cannot be adequately represented.
50Then we shall see Schubert as he was, and the apparent discrepancy between his life and his music will disappear. The indescribable "Frohsinn," the joyousness, naïveté and sweetness of his music, the deep inwardness and also something of the sadness and demoniac in his music would then be brought into higher relief.
52To Schubert's music we fly in sadness and happiness as to a Paradise regained. Surely then it is not a matter of indifference that the man to whom we owe a perpetual spring of consolation and delight should be shown to be as worthy of our love as of our admiration.
54FACSIMILE OF A SCHUBERT MANUSCRIPT
55The Musical Courier is indebted to the courtesy of the firm of V. A. Heck, of Vienna, dealers in rare autographs, for this page facsimile of a Schubert manuscript, as well as for the details here given concerning it, which are taken for the most part from Heck's illustrated catalogue (No. 39). The manuscript is that of a portion of Schubert's song, Stimme der Liebe, dated April 29, 1816, and a portion of his song, Gott im Frühlinge. Of this song the final bars are here seen, while the beginning of it is on the reverse side of the manuscript page. The final bars of the accompaniment, and of the words, of Stimme der Liebe are omitted, while the melody is to be found above the bit of Gott im Frühlinge which occupies the last three music lines. Schubert had already set Stimme der Liebe a year earlier—May, 1815—the earlier setting being entirely different from the one here shown. This manuscript illustrates plainly how Schubert dashed off his compositions, and there is no reason to suppose that he put any more effort into the creation of his greatest masterpieces.
57( THE SCHUBERT ARTICLES WILL BE CONTINUED IN NEXT WEEK'S ISSUE )
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