|
Vienna, Europe’s third largest city, from Schubert’s viewpoint
In Schubert’s lifetime, the total population of Vienna including the
suburbs was about 250,000 to 300,000 people, among whom were many
Bohemians, Slovaks, Hungarians, Silesians and Serbs. The many different
ethnic minorities living in the imperial capital in many cases preserved
their own customs and their own folk music. It has been estimated that
around 9,000 artists lived in Vienna
at that time: painters, musicians and actors, many of whom held posts at
leading institutions, both private and public, such as theatres, academies,
churches or the chapel at the Imperial Palace
– the Hofburg. Schubert’s attitude towards the city of his birth was
liable to vary but was on the whole positive. There are many instances in
his correspondence where he writes with feeling about his impressions and
opinions of Vienna:
‘Yes,
beloved Vienna,
you enclose within your narrow compass all that is most dear, most
cherished; and nothing but the blessed sight of you again will put an end
to this longing.’ Schubert to Ferdinand Schubert, 24 August 1818.
‘I am still in good health, thank goodness, and should be well contented
here if I had you, Schober and Kupelwieser with me; but as it is I
sometimes feel, in spite of that particular attractive star, a wretched
yearning for Vienna.’ Schubert to Schwind, August 1824
‘I realise now that I was too contented in Grätz, and I can’t quite
settle down in Vienna.
It’s big enough, to be sure, but devoid of warmth and candour, of
genuine ideas and reasonable discourse, and in particular intelligent
actions. One doesn’t know if one’s right in the head, there’s so
much muddled talking here, and rarely, if at all, does one attain to any
inner happiness. I daresay that I am largely at fault for this, for I do
warm to things so slowly.’ Schubert to Marie and Karl Pachler, 27
September 1827.
The living conditions of the Schubert family
Between 1783 and 1801, a child was born into the Schubert household nearly
every year and hence the composer’s mother, like many wives of the
period, was almost always pregnant. However, only five of the 15 children
she bore survived beyond the first weeks and years. These were Ignaz,
Ferdinand, Karl, Franz and Theresia. Franz Schubert was born on 31
January 1797, when the parents were living with their four children in a
cramped lodging consisting of one room with a kitchen. It was probably in
the kitchen that he was delivered as it was definitely the warmest and
otherwise most convenient place for childbirth.
The number of births and the high rate of child mortality in the Schubert
household were by no means unusual for the period and were no doubt due in
part to the poor living conditions. The apartment house in which Schubert
was born accommodated 15 other families in addition to his own. Each
family rented one living room, a kitchen and a storage room in the attic;
no trade was practised in the building. These modest circumstances were
shared by the owner of the building, who lived there too, although he also
had the use of a cellar.
Franz Schubert’s father had rented a second apartment which he used as a
school and for both lodgings he paid the highest rent in the tenement
house. At first his school had very little business but by the time of the
composer’s birth it had a daily attendance of nearly 180 pupils. These
were divided, irrespective of age and ability, into two shifts, with
lessons being conducted in one large room. Schubert’s father was by his
own account quite satisfied with his lodging, describing it as ‘comfortable’,
but soon the schoolrooms proved too small and he moved his family into
more spacious accommodation four years after the birth of his son Franz.
Although there was doubtless greater discipline among tenants then than is
the case today, the tenement must still have been a noisy place since so
many children were there. Not only that, but people would also sing and
play music together in their rooms, as the Schubert family did with its
string quartet. And the Schuberts’ apartment was certainly not the only
one in the building to be furnished with a piano – although we can
assume it was a petite ‘square piano’.
The stout ‘Schwammerl’
Already in the Biedermeier period, persons with full figures had to endure
the teasing of their more slender contemporaries. This was certainly the
case with the distinguished violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who was so
important to Beethoven and Schubert among other composers. There is a
delicate cardboard caricature of him that survives from 1810, on which his
belly can be pulled in or out by means of a thread. Schuppanzigh
had to endure the following ditty printed on the caricature: ‘Der Mensch
entgeht nie der Kritik, Bald ist man schmahl, und bald zu dick; Doch
diesen hier kann man schieben, nach belieben.’ (‘A
man can never escape criticism - soon one is thin, and soon too fat. But
this one here can be adjusted at will.’)
Schubert – whose nickname was Schwammerl, meaning ‘little mushroom’
or ‘little sponge’ – is also known to have been stout. Bauernfeld
might have claimed that Schwind (*1804) as a youth was fatter than
Schubert ever was, but this seems hard to believe in the light of a letter
Bauernfeld himself sent to Schubert, which reads:
‘How are you, fattest of friends? I imagine your belly will have grown
in girth; God preserve it and let it prosper!’ (13 September 1825)
Nevertheless, a full figure at this time indicated not only prosperity and
but also robust health, particularly after a long period of convalescence,
as can be seen in a letter from Leopold Kupelwieser. Writing from Naples
to Hanny Lufz in Vienna
on 4
May 1825,
he reported: ‘The state of my health is now very good; everyone says I
am getting fatter and look healthy.’ Furthermore, Schwind enthused as
follows about his sweetheart Nettl (Anna Hönig) of St Pölten: ‘I
thought her very good looking and totally plump […]’ (4
November 1823) and Louis von Hartmann writes of
his brothers as follows on 19
May 1825:
‘Fritz and Franz are also very
well; Franz in particular is supposed to be filling out tremendously,
according to the reports of all acquaintances coming here from Vienna.’
And finally Mina Witteczek in 1828 invited the ‘two well-fed figures’
of Schober and Schubert to attend a soirée at her house. ‘The
aforenamed,’ she added, ‘are to take part in a
musical-declamatory-terpsichorean evening entertainment, glorifying it
according to their spiritual and bodily powers.’
On the efficacy of syphilis treatments
‘Sanguine persons are cured of
syphilis most easily, choleric and phlegmatic persons less easily, and
most difficult of all to cure are melancholic persons; whether a long or a
short period is required to effect a cure depends on the reaction of the
organism to the mercury and on all potencies having a bearing thereupon.
Hence thin people, also, are cured of syphilis more easily than fat, and
active people more swiftly than lethargic. [...] Moreover, the internal
use of mercury is suitable for patients who are not [...] corpulent and
phlegmatic, have a tendency towards dropsy, cachectics of all kinds, those
addicted to drink [...]. An increased disposition to mercurialism may be
observed in people with a weak constitution and in those who eat or drink
to excess [...] So that the chosen therapy is not interrupted by suddenly
occurring salivation or by other occurrences, it is important to know
whether the patient has ever taken mercury, what preparations, over a long
or short period, in large or small doses, whether to the point of
salivation, etc.’
Joseph von Vering (Schubert’s last doctor), Syphilis Therapy, 1826
‘On the danger of taking up residence too soon in newly built houses.’
A few weeks before his death Schubert moved to new lodgings to be with his
brother Ferdinand and his family in an apartment building (called ‘Stadt
Ronsberg’) in the suburb of Wieden. The move, which has been the subject
of much speculation, was probably prompted by the recommendation of his
doctor - in spite of the fact that the new habitation can hardly have been
more sanitary than his former rooms with Schober in the Inner City. While
it is true that Ferdinand Schubert’s family did not suffer any serious
detriment to their health, many biographers have considered the
composer’s last address to be unsanitary. The building had only been
constructed in 1827 on land not previously used for building. It has been
suggested that moving into a newly built house might have placed further
strain on his already weakened condition and possibly even have favoured
the ultimate cause of his death - thought to be ‘typhus abdominalis’ (known
then as ‘nervous fever’). It was common knowledge that the dampness of
new residential buildings could be dangerous:
‘The haste to occupy buildings
which have been built in six months can be highly detrimental to the
health […] and lethal for many people. Our forefathers, when building
their houses, made use of wooden beams that had been cut several years
beforehand, and stone that had been quarried some time previously. We
[…] build houses with green timber and damp stone which we then cover
with ceilings and walls of plaster, with oil paintings and varnish, and
waste no time in occupying them, though they are a source of sundry
illnesses and often certain death. Green timber, which moreover is more
susceptible to rot […], sweats very strongly in the first year and
thereby imparts to the air a dampness which brings with it a great many
indispositions, e.g. aches in the limbs, gout, and all illnesses that stem
from obstructed evaporation. The same is true of stones which have just
been quarried. Nothing, however, is more detrimental than oil or varnish
fumes. These cause headaches, oppression of the chest, wasting diseases,
and death. Repeated and uncontested experience instructs us how
disadvantageous it is to occupy a newly constructed house too soon.’
Excerpt from an expert report by Abbé Jacquin quoted in the Dresdner
Abend-Zeitung, 1825
The arduousness of travel in Schubert’s time
Accounts of drastic travelling conditions abound in the period around
1800, not only in letters, where indeed one often enough omitted to
mention them since they were so mundane. In the theatre we find an
authentic carriage accident - from 1798 - dramatically rendered in the
original opening scene of Kotzebue’s libretto Des Teufels Lustschloss
(1801). On stage the crash would certainly have been more graphic than the
simple report which, in the French original (by Joseph-Marie Loaisel de Tréogate),
the servant gives the landlady and which serves as an exposition of the
plot. Commenting on the incident, Kotzebue noted it was nothing out of the
ordinary for him; while he was travelling with his family near Leipzig,
their coach was ‘thrown over’ which was ‘not at all unusual on the
ghastly country roads of Saxony’.
A similar mishap befell Joseph von Spaun. The account he gave to Franz von
Schober on 27 September 1821
is startling for its phlegmatic tone.
‘My journey was on the whole very
pleasant, and the company good. […] A little outside Melk we ourselves
almost became a victim of our driver’s wilfulness, for he drove us
through the river in such a manner that only the heads of our horses were
to be seen, and we sat almost up to our waists in water. Our fair lady
companion was near to death during this journey. The consequences of our
watery voyage, namely the lasting dampness and damage to our luggage, put
us rather out of sorts for a few hours, but once dry we were doubly happy.
When we reached the Enns the bridge had been swept away, and the river
surged by us so forcefully that only after some hesitation did we entrust
ourselves and our baggage to a ship, which, after a truly frightful
journey watched by a large crowd of onlookers from Linz and Enns, brought
us safely to the other bank […]. In Enns, a new carriage was hired
[…].’
The letter: sole means of communication with absent friends
Among Schubert’s acquaintances one reads frequently of letters that have
not arrived, are keenly awaited or urgently solicited. There are, for
instance, increasingly distraught letters from Johanna Luz in Vienna to
her fiancée Leopold Kupelwieser, who was travelling in Italy and was hard
to contact via post. For two months or so at the end of 1824 Luz did not
know if her intended was even still alive. And indeed Kupelwieser had been
tardy with his correspondence because he was seriously ill.
Even at home, in the German-speaking lands, postal delivery could be a
slow process: it could take two weeks for a letter to reach its
destination, and hence up to four weeks might be needed to receive an
answer to a question. As a rule, it was the recipient who paid the postage
costs; and since the recipient had to agree to accept the mail, it was
considered improper to accost people with trivial communications or
superfluous enclosures. It was rare that post was sent ‘franked’ –
postage paid.
The most original protest about overdue post comes from Schubert himself.
On 16 March 1822
he castigated his closest friend Joseph von Spaun as follows:
Most dissolute of Spauns!
How little you write and how badly, for when one does not dispatch what
one promises to – I call that writing badly. Ottenwalt’s lullaby,
Schober’s poem to Ottenwalt etc. etc. what has become of these things??
Schober has received your letter and Max’s and was particularly pleased
about the latter. Max wishes to tell you most earnestly that if you have
any manuscripts of mine, as we strongly suspect, you are to send them to
us forthwith, since we want to make a proper collection of all my things.
– It is quite vexing, dear Spaun, how I and all of us miss you; The
Crown and the Atzenbrugg Bank suffer particularly. – May the enclosed
poem by H. v. Collin with music by me remind you of your true deadly sins.
The tone throughout is highly tragic, and it is written for your voice, so
that you are overcome with remorse – as is our fervent wish. Please me,
if you please, by hearing the above pleas.
Yours
Schubert
[Then
follows this verse, composed as aria and recitative]
Und nimmer schreibst du bleibest uns verloren
ein starr Verstummter, nun für ew’ge Zeit […]
Für jeden bist du schriftkarg nicht gessessen,
für manchen kamen Briefe angeflogen
und nach der Elle hast du sie gemessen,
doch uns, Barbar, hast du dein Herz entzogen!
Polite and familiar forms of address in Schubert’s circle
In the Biedermeier period and indeed long afterwards it was conventional,
in German as in many other European languages, for the polite form of
address to be used even among good friends – children would even address
their parents as ‘Sie’ rather than as ‘Du’. If the ‘Sie’ form
is used in the surviving correspondence, then, this does not indicate any
desire to create or maintain distance, but is the most natural form of
address. There were, after all, more elaborate ways of showing respect,
such as the third person form used by domestic servants. And it was only
domestics whom one automatically addressed by their Christian name.
Otherwise, Christian names were used only among close friends to show real
intimacy, as can be seen in the letters. Bauernfeld writes: ‘Eduard
sounds tender, fantastic, bizarre. […] Incidentally I signed using my
Christian name, not without reason.’
The 18 year old Moritz von Schwind initially addresses the 26 year old
Franz von Schober as ‘Sie’ in the surviving letters, but some time
later he is able to switch to ‘Du’. When Schwind plays the go-between
for Schober and his fiancée, a 17 year old girl he is well acquainted
with, he writes her an extremely stilted letter in which he calls her
‘Sie’. He reports to Schober on 4 November 1823:
‘My meeting with Kenner
went well. […] indeed he even suggested we call each other ‘Du’.
Franz von Bruchmann remained on ‘Sie’ terms with his close friend Senn
for years. It can be assumed that Schubert and Schwind ultimately used
‘Du’ with Bruchmann. ‘Bruchmann drank brotherhood with us all, which
was followed by a general carousal and finally a fearsome glass
bombardment’ (Schwind, 9 November 1823). However, with Schober (then in
Breslau) Bruchmann did not use ‘Du’, which is probably because of the
former’s problematic relationship with Bruchmann’s sister, which was
only reluctantly tolerated by his family, with the result that Bruchmann
fell between two stools. The only person to whom Bruchmann sent ‘Du’
letters to is Leopold Kupelwieser. He in turn employs a charming mishmash
of ‘Sie’ and ‘Du’ in letters to his fiancée Hanny Luz - at least
at the beginning of his journey to Italy late in 1823. Later on he
definitively adopts the familiar ‘Du’, no doubt with the approval of
Hanny’s parents. Another charming mix of ‘Sie’ and ‘Du’ can be
found in an invitation, composed in rhyming verse, which Schober and
Schwind sent to Bauernfeld in 1825, with Schober insistent on ‘Sie’
and Schwind saying ‘Du’ to his former schoolmate.
The question of polite and familiar forms of address is specifically
mentioned in a letter by Joseph Huber - a not always well-loved figure in
Schubert’s circle - who delivers his own judgement on the matter in a
letter of 3 February 1819
from Grafenegg to his fiancée Rosalie Kranzbichler in St Pölten:
‘Also, I don’t really understand
why you object to letting your parents read the letters I have sent from
here since our time together in St. Poelten, for they contain nothing
offensive, and since I believe your father is not one of those ordinary,
very limited persons who can take exception to a little word, but surely
finds it natural for 2 people who love each other to use ‘Du’ with
each other instead of ‘Sie’. Only petty people who cling to the stale
formality of etiquette or snobbish niceties can object to this, but not
the natural free-thinking man. And on top of this, of course, it is hardly
new to him any more that we say ‘Du’ to each other, because I have let
him read several of your letters […].’
For
Schubert’s part, he remained on ‘Sie’ terms with Joseph Hüttenbrenner,
Leopold Sonnleithner, Johann Gabriel Seidl and the Pachlers of Graz, but
otherwise he preferred to use ‘Du’ in his letters to friends.
Naturally he did not dare use the ‘Du’ form with Schwind’s beloved
Netty (Anna Hönig) because that would have violated the etiquette of the
time.
The condition of public buildings and poor hygiene
Citizens who ventured into the theatres or concert halls in Schubert’s
day had to be fit and healthy. The staircases were very narrow; foyers and
lifts either did not exist or were reserved for the Court. The wooden
seats and benches in the theatres and concert halls of the Biedermeier
period were anything but comfortable. Candle lighting meant that theatres
were often unbearably hot with an acute lack of oxygen. There were no
intervals, and no thought was given to providing refreshments and chilled
drinks or even public conveniences that would meet the hygienic standards
of today. Indeed, a newspaper article on the urgent necessity of
furnishing Vienna with ‘odourless cesspits’ testifies to the fact that
the unpleasant and also extremely unsanitary lavatories in municipal
buildings were not up to the general technological standards of the time.
In June 1823, the city of Vienna with its suburbs possessed a total of 14
public lavatories, designed in accordance with the Carl Levasseur system,
and precious few other facilities for this purpose. When one reflects that
the Imperial Theatre at Kärntnertor was at this time considering
introducing ‘odourless privies’, and that people also, in Europe
generally, were experimenting with gas lighting on the streets and in
large buildings – with leaky gas mains! – one can imagine fairly well
what conditions were like in municipal buildings in the period.
Vienna’s concert halls in Schubert’s
time
Whereas Leipzig, for example, since the erection of the Gewandhaus in 1781
possessed a hall that was specifically designed for concerts, Vienna had a
range of halls that were suitable – and were indeed used – for such
performances, but it had no purpose-built concert hall. Monumental
performances of large-scale oratorios (with perhaps 200 performers and an
audience of over a thousand) were held in the Winter Riding School at the
Hofburg, liturgical music was performed in churches of all sizes, and
concerts drawing large audiences took place in the imperial theatres. For
all secular-music concerts given by medium or small-sized ensembles,
however, one resorted to halls in redoubts or in the Adelspalais, the
assembly hall of the University or of the Lower Austrian Parliament
building, as well as rooms in the ‘Kunstgebäude’ on Rotenturmstraße
and in hotels. In Schubert’s lifetime, the Musikverein only had the use
of small provisional music rooms at Gundelhof and Tuchlauben. Even the
‘old’ Musikverein building, which stood right next to rooms rented
once by Schubert and Schober, did not have an adequate and acoustically
acceptable concert room until 1830 when a new building housing a concert
hall was constructed that could seat some 300 visitors.
The typical concert of the late 18th and 19th
centuries
From the late 18th century to the middle of the following
century, the typical concert programme was a colourful hodgepodge of music
of different styles performed by different types of ensembles, organisers
fearing that otherwise audiences might get bored. This was true of
concerts given by travelling virtuosi, who generally were assisted by
local musicians and sometimes even joined on the bill by dance
divertissements, declamation or ‘tableaux vivants’; and it was equally
true of the ‘entertainment concerts’ in which Schubert’s music was
first heard. It is curious to see the dominant position accorded to the
virtuoso, even in concerts that were held in theatres because of the great
demand for tickets and because of the large forces taking part – for
example, a big orchestra that in many cases was assembled only to play
single symphony movements, and choirs that might sing perhaps only one
short choral work, this being interspersed by songs sung to piano
accompaniment or brief turns by mouth-organ or glass harmonica players.
Often the concert would close with the musicians congregating to provide
the accompaniment in a rendition of an opera number that was popular at
the time.
A ‘Schubertiad’ (in German, ‘Schubertiade’) had a more private
character, as did the ‘musical exercises’ hosted by Ignaz Sonnleithner
and a range of other, similar musical gatherings in the houses of noble or
bourgeois families.
The ‘concerts spirituels’ founded in 1819 by Franz Gebauer in an
attempt to present demanding ‘classical’ programmes of large-scale
works – symphonies and masses – were matched on a smaller scale by the
evening recitals of (almost) purely quartet or chamber music such as those
which Ignaz Schuppanzigh initiated.
The ‘evening entertainments’ organised by the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde similarly comprised a pot pourri of single movements
from chamber works, songs, opera excerpts, and vocal ensemble music.
Concerts consisting of the works of only one composer were very rare
indeed; even in the ‘private concerts’ it was certainly not the rule.
The term ‘song recital’
The phenomenon of the song recital was certainly already in existence in
the 18th century, notably of course in Schubert’s time, when
singers like Vogl would deliver 20 to 30 songs in one performance. The
term ‘song recital’ (Liederabend), however, did not emerge until the
second half of the 19th century, and even then it was no
guarantee that a concert so described would indeed contain only song.
Often, such evening recitals presented a mixed programme of songs
interspersed with solo numbers for piano. And here, there was another
phenomenon that we today might find strange: the piano soloist was not the
accompanist, but another pianist, and only he enjoyed the same standing as
the singer. The accompanist, on the other hand, was a workaday musician
whose name might not even be mentioned on the programme bill - and if so,
then usually in small print. Until the 1890s ‘song recitals’ without
piano solo interludes were the exception.
The Society of Friends of Music
A newspaper article from 1823 reports that in Vienna there are often
‘private musical circles, to which one goes with invitation cards,
without needing to be acquainted with the host giving the music, and where
no notice at all is taken of the persons who are present, who are invited
merely so that they might enjoy the fine productions that are offered
[...].’ The author of the article notes that he had discovered
‘Capellmeister Schubert, a modest young man’ at such a salon and
praises his Goethe settings at some length.
Among these regular ‘evening entertainments’ the concerts of what was
called the ‘Small Society’ of Friends of Music of the Austrian
Imperial State represent a special case. The Society was founded in 1812,
giving an inaugural performance of a Handel oratorio for vast forces, but
it was not until 1818 that it initiated regular cycles of concerts in
which chamber music, songs and also excerpts from popular operas were
performed. Schubert compositions started to appear at these events only in
1821 - although in 1818 an ‘invitation to private evening concerts’
declares the intention of giving ‘a worthy performance of the
masterworks of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Onslow, Spohr, Schubert, etc.”
It was not long, then, before Schubert was admitted to the illustrious
ranks of ‘classical masters’. Promising though this was, it did not
lead to very much. In March 1818 a record of the Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde reveals that Schubert formally submitted an ‘application in
which he asks to be granted the position at the piano in Singstücken as a
practising member and, as Salieri’s pupil, to provide compositions to be
performed by himself.’ He received the following response: ‘as Mr
Schubert is no dilettante, the Society regrets it is unable to admit him
as a member.’ Many years later, in 1827, Schubert was admitted as a
‘Representative’ of the Gesellschaft, as a hand-written entry in the
register testifies.
Critical comments about music-making at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
What impression concerts organised by the Gesellschaft made on outside
observers can be seen clearly in the accounts written by Ignaz Franz
Castelli in his ‘Diary from Vienna’.
Castelli obviously considered the society to be a still not fully-fledged
assembly of dilettantes. After a ‘Gesellschafts-Concert’ in March 1824
which he found mediocre, he wrote:
‘The hall was full, for the
supporting members had received entrance tickets free of charge. The
pieces were well played, without their being excellent, either in regard
to their composition, or to their performance. The society as a whole
ambles along its path, and it is a frightful pity that this splendid
institution does not act more energetically and compel public support by
means of superlative performances.’
Castelli
is positively sarcastic in October 1824 when he describes what he believes
to be the ulterior motive to attendance at Musikverein concerts:
‘The first number of any concert is
a quartet or quintet for stringed instruments, in every case one by a
classical author. This number may well be only the foreword to an
interesting book; it is certainly taken as such by most of the listeners,
who think it quite superfluous and prattle their way through it. In
general, listeners and performers stand in an inverted relationship to one
another in these concerts. The more the performers endeavour to proffer
something fine, the less favour they are shown; and only what is light and
loose meets with approval. Also, one sees so many young gentlemen there,
whose only reason for attending is to ogle, and so many young ladies, who
return the ogling, and so many Mamas, who not only tolerate this, but
gladly welcome it, so that the music is treated as secondary by most
listeners, while for the performers this divine music is what is most
important.’
The term ‘Schubertiade’ for a particular kind of concert
As familiar as the term ‘Schubertiade’ is today, what might be less
widely known is the fact that the term was coined by Schubert’s friends
and was used by Schubert himself. At first it denoted gatherings of
friends in Vienna salons of the 1820s where Schubert himself performed,
mostly accompanying songs from the piano, or as a partner in a piano duo
or in chamber music ensembles. It is likely that the guests at these soirées
not only performed and enjoyed music, but also took part in discussions.
Surviving sources, however, tell us most about the music-making and the
games and the dancing that followed.
Although Schubertiads were frequent events, they were held regularly every
week only for a stretch of a few years. As a rule, Schubert would be
invited to a friend’s house that could accommodate ampler gatherings.
Alternatively he would play at private functions at the residences of
well-situated acquaintances. There he would play works of his own as well
as music by other composers, generally contemporaneous or of the recent
past (e.g. the ‘Vienna classics’). The first description of a soirée
in the style of a Schubertiad – although this term is not used - dates
from 30 January 1821
and is to be found in a letter which Joseph Huber, who briefly shared
rooms with Schubert, sent from Vienna to his betrothed, Rosalie
Kranzbichler, in St Pölten:
‘Last Friday I enjoyed myself
greatly. His mother being in St Poelten, Franz [von Schober] invited
Schubert and 14 of his good acquaintances for the evening. There, Schubert
himself played and sang many of his superb songs, which lasted until 10 in
the evening. Thereafter we drank punch, which one of the company provided,
and since it was very good and in plentiful supply, our party became even
gayer than it was before, and it was not until 3 in the morning that it
broke up. You can imagine how pleasant the enjoyment of many brilliant men
is for me, after so many years’ deprivation, the enjoyment being
increased as I think back on my student years.’
The
use of ‘Schubertiade’ as an official designation for a public concert
took some time to establish itself. It is recorded in 1868 in Stuttgart
and in 1887 in Vienna.
In 1901 the choirmaster of the Wiener Schubertbund (Adolf Kirchl) revived
the term for one of his concerts, and since then it has been in regular
use as a title for concerts of Schubert’s music or for events in honour
of the composer.
Reports of ‘Schubertiads’ in letters and journals 1821-1828
4 November 1821
From Franz von Schober in Vienna to Joseph von Spaun in Linz:
‘There were a couple of Schubertiads hosted by the Bishop & one by
Baron[ess] Mink, of whom I am rather fond; on this occasion one princess,
2 countess[es] & 3 baronesses were present, who were all right royally
charmed.’ (about their stay in St Pölten)
24
November 1823
From Moritz von Schwind in Vienna
to Franz von Schober:
‘Dear Schober! Yesterday evening we were at your mother’s. […] A
short Schubertiad was followed by a meal and then a little dancing till midnight.’
2
December 1823
From Franz von Bruchmann in Vienna
to Leopold Kupelwieser in Triest:
‘On 11 Nov. we held a Schubertiad at our home, at which Vogel did the
singing. In attendance were: Mone, Dobblhof, Kraisl, Mayrhofer, Schwind,
Rieder, Dietrich, Eichholzer, Hönig, Schubert, Vogel and I; girls:
Lindner, Piron, Julie, and my sisters. V– was very obliging and sang
gloriously, we others at table were jovial and merry and our first Moselle
health was downed in your honour.’
14 February 1825
From Moritz von Schwind in Vienna to Franz von Schober in Breslau:
‘It’s every week at Enderes’ home! Schubertiad – this means Vogl
sings. The company is Wititschek Esch Schlechta Groß Riepl, a selection
of the same faces, Mayerhofer and Gahi come fairly often. The new
variations for 4 hands are quite extraordinary.’
28 May 1826
From Anton von Spaun in Vienna
to his wife Henriette in Linz:
‘I haven’t seen Schubert, Vogl etc. at all, but a Schubertiad has
already been arranged.’ Then on 31 May he writes of a ‘Schubertiad at
Enderes’ house, to which over 20 persons are invited.’
15 December 1826
Franz von Hartmann, Vienna (journal):
‘Then I go to Spaun, where there is a big big Schubertiad. Upon entering
I am greeted unceremoniously by Fritz and very impudently by Haas. A great
society is assembled. Mr and Mrs Arneth, Wittitscheck, Kurzrock &
Pompe, the mother-in-law of the Court and State Chancellery Secretary
Witticzek, Doctor Watteroth’s widow, Betty Wanderer, the painter
Kupelwieser & his wife, Grillparzer, Schober, Schwind, Mayerhofer
& his landlord Huber, the tall Huber […], Dörffel, Bauernfeld, Gahi
(who played magnificently with Schubert à 4 mains) Vogel, who sang almost
30 superb songs, Baron Schlechta, & other secretaries to the Court
were there. I was almost moved to tears - since I was in an especially
agitated mood today - by the Trio of the 5th March, which
always reminds me of my dear, good mother. When the music-making is over,
there is a fine repast followed by dancing. But I am in not at all in the
mood for courting. I dance twice with Betty & once each with the wives
of Witticzek, Kurzrock, & Pompe. At 12 ½, after cordially taking
leave of the Spauns & Enderes, we accompany Betty home, & go on to
The Anchor, where we still find Schober, Schubert, Schwind, Dörffel,
Bauernfeld. Merry. Home. To bed at 1 o’clock.’
12
January 1827
Franz von Hartmann, Vienna
(journal):
‘To Angerer, where we want to see Frau v. Barivani. But she [...] comes
home, and Walcher sings us lovely Schubert songs (Drang in die Ferne by
Leithner & Auf dem Wasser zu singen by Stollberg). [...] I hurry to
Spaun, where Schubertiad. The dear couple Witticzeck and W’s
mother-in-law are already there, and tall Huber. One by one come Gahi,
Schober, Schubert, Enderes, Walcher (who must leave before the music
starts), Moriz Pflügl (who was in Paris) Lachner, a certain […] Rieder,
Perfetta; finally Vogel & his wife, Bauernfeld, Schwind, Groß. A
superb sonata for 4 h[ands] was played; wonderful variations, & many
fine songs, including an utterly new one (what Richard the Lionheart sings
in Ivanhoe) & among the old ones Nacht & Träume, & Erlkönig.
A very beautiful one: Die Abendröthe by Lappe was sung twice by Vogel,
who was in an especially good mood. Then we took a delicious light meal
& made various toasts.’
(Hartmann’s brother Fritz, after mentioning the musical offerings,
speaks of ‘gymnastic exercises’ that the guests attempted.)
30
January 1828
Franz von Hartmann, Vienna
(journal):
‘[Coffee house] Bog[ner] then h[ome]. Then Pepi Spaun & Ottenwalt
take us to Court Sec[retary] Wittitschek, where first a Schubertiad, then
supper, then ball, then drinking. Everything is very merry. [...] Not till
2 o’clock
did we retire, blissfully happy.’
The German opera movement and the Rossini craze in the 1820s
From 1776 onwards, Emperor Joseph II sought to nurture a specifically
German-language opera tradition to complement the German-language theatre
he had established at the Hofburg Theatre, and from this point a great
effort was made to encourage composers of the ‘Fatherland’ to write
German operas. The theatres of the suburbs, primarily the Schikaneder
Theatre in Wieden but also the Josephstadt and Leopoldstadt theatres,
enjoyed popular success thanks to their musical farces and
‘heroical-comical’ operas, whereas the Court Opera at the Kärntnertor-Theater
evidently found it hard to arouse and sustain public interest. Very few
national productions enjoyed any great popularity; among those that did
were Peter von Winter’s Das unterbrochene Opferfest (1796) and
Joseph Weigl’s Schweizerfamilie (1809), which was a runaway
success across half of Europe.
By contrast, Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio, as productions of
suburban theatres, were at first not really considered to be fully valid
operas. Moreover, at this time almost the entire international repertoire
from France and Italy, including Mozart’s and Salieri’s Da Ponte
operas, were adapted to the Singspiel format and given in German with
spoken dialogue; as a result, audiences did not really learn to
distinguish whether the works they were hearing were in the original, or a
revised version.
After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Rossini’s operas arrived in the
city, having created a furore in Italy and Paris,
and the laboriously nurtured German opera movement found itself confronted
by an unpredictable rival for public favour. Now audiences wanted to hear
little else than bel canto, sung by visiting Italian stars from
Naples, Milan
and Venice.
It is known that Schubert and Schwind also appreciated the extraordinary
quality of the Italian singers Madame Fodor and Luigi Lablache, hired by
the impresario Domenico Barbaia (for some years leaseholder of the Kärntnertor-Theater),
although their prime interest was always in talented German singers,
namely Anna Milder-Hauptmann, Anna Schechner, Amalie Hähnel and of course
Johann Vogl and Baron Schönstein.
A great deal was expected of Schubert and his ilk by the propagandists of
German national opera, above all by Ignaz von Mosel, to whom Schubert
dedicated his volume of Goethe settings, op. 3. They were supposed to help
establish, in Vienna, the ‘great’ (and through-composed) German
national opera, the ‘great heroic opera’ and the ‘heroic-romantic’
opera. Carl Maria von Weber of Dresden had been enlisted to this cause. As
it turned out, Weber’s Freischütz, popular in Vienna,
was followed in 1823 by a flop: the highly ambitious but unfortunate Euryanthe,
after which German opera in Vienna never really recovered until Wagner’s
triumphal entry.
Standard theatre productions and special festival events
In Schubert’s day, and indeed still in the early 20th century,
it was usual in the theatre to use ‘type scenery’ a great deal – a
throne room, a town, a forest, a seashore, a rocky landscape and so forth
– and now and again the existing stock would be augmented by new scenery
for a new production, if this was absolutely necessary and if what was
required could not be put together from what was already available.
One-off festival productions for special occasions consequently did not
represent any great burden to stage. More or less the sole investment was
in rehearsal time, and outlay was limited to a modicum for music, costumes
and painted sofits. All material things were moreover fashioned in such a
way that they could be used again. This was especially true of the music,
which was often cobbled together from existing overtures, marches, ballets,
and pieces linking two acts, the so-called entr’actes. A further
practical benefit of such scores was that they hardly needed to be
rehearsed with the orchestra, and even odd-jobbing musicians could easily
get to grips with them.
Of course, theatre managers could not serve up rehashed productions
perpetually; from time to time they had to mount something new. And then
the programme bills, which were distributed around the city and delivered
to the most frequented places by specially hired ‘bill carriers’,
would specifically mention the fact that the scenery for such and such
production had been newly painted and the music specially composed.
The ever-present censorship in the Austrian
Imperial State under Metternich
The Carlsbad Decrees introduced after the murder of August von Kotzebue in
1819 considerably tightened the censorship regulations that governed all
publicly disseminated writing. Censors could adjudge a work to be one of
following:
1. Admittitur.
2. Transeat.
3. Erga schedam conced.
4. Damnatur.
These ratings are on a sliding scale from ‘permitted without objection’
to ‘absolutely forbidden’. Writers and composers who set texts to
music thus had to make sure their works received no worse pronouncement
than ‘Transeat’ - tolerated. Most of them complied – an explicit
violation would have been senseless and would have made public
dissemination absolutely impossible. And yet it was possible here and
there to get round the regulations. Ignaz Franz Castelli, for example,
asked the publisher of the Dresdner Abend-Zeitung newspaper to
declare that some of his (Castelli’s) reports about cultural life in Vienna
were part of a collection of private letters; this was the only way to get
them dispatched. In comic despair he writes of the censor forbidding him
to use the exclamation ‘O God’ and suggesting that he use ‘O Heavens’
instead.
Foreign periodicals that were sent to subscribers in Vienna were also
censored, even though the copies were bound. In them, reports about Vienna
are very often absent, apparently having been systematically removed and
confiscated before the periodicals reached the subscribers. The censorship
bodies would incidentally also employ writers, who earned a meagre living
by collaborating in a practice from which they themselves suffered.
|