Franz Schubert and His World

by Gibbs, Christopher H. , Solvik, Morten

  Example 4. Comparison of the C-major section of the second movement of Beethoven’s Eroica (mm. 69–71) and the C-major section of Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Andante con moto (mm. 129–31).

  Example 5. Sketch for a deleted passage in Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Andante con moto (mm. 79–82), quoting Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor.

  The initial echoes of the Eroica and the shared tonal areas might be viewed as either generic features of funeral marches or as coincidental, although in combination with the “farewell” motive from Se solen sjunker they are certainly suggestive of a conscious homage. At the end of the movement, moreover, Schubert becomes explicit (as can be seen in Examples 6a and 6b). Commentators have long remarked on the extraordinary way in which Beethoven concluded the funeral march of the Eroica. After the preceding storms, he softly reprises the opening material as a gradual disintegration. Maynard Solomon has observed that Beethoven used this strategy in other compositions as well, going back as far as the teenage Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II (1790), and argues that it reveals “Beethoven’s association of certain ideas with the concept of death.” For Solomon, the “extramusical meaning of the ‘disintegrating’ passage in the closing measures of the [Eroica’s] Funeral March movement is confirmed by the composer’s use of a similar passage in the cantata to accompany the word ‘Todt’ (dead).”98 Schubert not only copies Beethoven’s procedure of dismantling the opening theme but also, exactly at this point, as if teasing those who may have already perceived his encrypted message, tips his hand: he quotes the Eroica by transferring, almost note for note, the triplet flute and violin passage from Beethoven’s own concluding measures (mm. 236–38) to the piano accompaniment (mm. 208–10).99 This triplet passage might seem an unimportant flourish, and here the sketches are once again helpful because they show the quotation was there from the outset (mm. 233–35 in the sketch).100 The Beethoven quotation in the concluding measures leads to a pianissimo ending, with the falling octave motive as violin and cello twice intone a final “farewell, farewell” (see Example 6b).

  Example 6a. Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major (Eroica), Adagio assai, mm. 236–39.

  Example 6b. Schubert, Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Andante con moto, mm. 208–12.

  “Like a march of ghosts”: The Haunted Finale

  But the farewells are not in fact final. The trio’s most prominent Beethovenian procedure comes in the fourth movement when Schubert remarkably brings back the Andante’s cello theme, an overt cyclic device such as Beethoven employed in his Fifth and Ninth symphonies, among other pieces.101 Many recent critics have commented on the subtle cyclicism unifying the entire trio, but the threefold return of the cello theme in the last movement is not just obvious, it seems to be much of the point of the movement.102 As Fink already hinted at in his 1828 review, and as we saw earlier in the complaints of recent critics about the quality of Schubert’s finale, this movement has long come in for criticism on account of both its length and character. Brown argued that the first theme seems “all the more trivial against the sombre and passionate depths of the slow movement.”103 Leo Treitler calls the finale “one of those endless rondos of Schubert’s that seem to modulate through more keys than there are, this one going on in an endless patter of mindless energy.”104 Lawrence Kramer characterizes the thematic material as “unusually neutral and colorless, especially for Schubert … [it is] entertainment music on a bad night.”105 John M. Gingerich points to the second theme’s “perky banality” in contrast with the “dignified, stately, elegiac, introspective” Andante theme.106

  The carefree opening theme is stated by the piano in E-flat major and is then taken up by the strings; it alternates with a perpetual-motion repeated note second theme, l’istesso tempo in C minor (mm. 73ff). This material sets up a sonata form with Schubert employing a popular style associated with some of his domestic music. The uncanny return of the Andante cello theme beginning at measure 279 disturbs this conviviality. After a four-bar introduction, the entire eighteen-measure melody is presented by the cello in the minor, an extraordinarily long cyclic return in comparison with what Beethoven usually did before and with what most other composers would do afterward.

  I mentioned earlier that Schubert made three cuts to the final movement. The original version was the one played at his 26 March concert and survives in manuscript; it was published for the first time in 1975 in the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe.107 Since this uncut version was what Schubert originally composed and performed, it will be my concern here—and, like the sketches already discussed, it reveals further aspects of Schubert’s homage to Beethoven. Schubert brings the haunting cello theme back a second time at measure 477, again in its entirety, this time in B minor, a key that played an important function in the first movement. He decided to cut this passage, most critics now believe unfortunately. The excised section offers an impressive contrapuntal juxtaposition with the second theme, thus having the serious directly confront the convivial, a battle between death and life that furthers the psychological trajectory of the movement. Example 7 gives the initial part of this second return.

  The Andante theme—what I propose can now be considered the ghost of Beethoven—appears a third time to end the movement (mm. 795ff). In contrast to the previous two complete statements, its final presentation is abridged. The octave “farewells” are omitted and the music turns to the major, with the last phrase repeated five times. Treitler describes the effect: “By the simple device of opening the third phase of the theme, which until now had always looped back to the beginning, into the major mode (changing G flat to G natural), he emancipates the piece from the sense of entrapment with which the second movement had closed.”108 Kramer, commenting on the published version of the trio, also remarks on the different effect produced this time: the Andante theme “returns not once but twice: the first time as disruption, and the second, incredibly, as resolution and closure.”109 John Daverio, who was aware of my argument that the trio was a tombeau de Beethoven, wrote that the “coda’s overall affective progress from melancholy reflection to unbridled joy may well have had programmatic implications for Schubert.”110 Many critics, performers, and listeners have been struck by the optimistic and joyous conclusion of the trio, which in my view sees life win out over death. Following my reading of the haunting Andante theme as Beethoven’s ghost, I am tempted to say that here Schubert, at the last moment, exorcises the spirit that has kept intruding in the finale, no longer says farewell, and ecstatically goes his own way. The E-flat Piano Trio is an homage, but also an assertion of Schubert’s new position standing beside Beethoven.

  Example 7. Deleted section from Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Allegro moderato, mm. 477–88.

  Schubert’s trio was a private tombeau. He did not announce a Beethoven memorial concert on 26 March 1828, nor did he dedicate any memorial piece to him. One might indeed wonder about the lack of a dedication for the trio—“To nobody, save those who find pleasure in it,” as he told the publisher—and note that all of Schubert’s other significant instrumental compositions, as well as most of his less significant ones and most of his Lieder, carry a public dedication, either to a friend, performer, patron, or hero (Goethe and Beethoven).111 That Schubert deliberately withheld a dedication is therefore revealing and suggests there is a dedicatee, but one who must remain publicly unnamed—the music itself does that for those who can hear it. There were many memorial works published in the wake of Beethoven’s death with public dedications, some of which alluded to his music.112 Carl Czerny’s Marcia funebre sulla morte di Luigi van Beethoven, in C minor and with dotted rhythms, for example, begins with a clear allusion to the Eroica’s funeral march. In the E-flat Trio Schubert chose to make the musical echoes to Beethoven subtle, omitting the too obvious quotation of the Fifth Symphony. This private homage may have helped him work through his mourning for the composer he most revered, with whom he increasingly identified, and whom he s
oon followed in death.

  Though Schubert did not publicly declare his tombeau, he demonstrated his intention in ways that many listeners have heard over the years, even if unconsciously. For nearly two centuries many have heard a funeral march and echoes of the Eroica as well as of other works by Beethoven, yet the larger connections remained hidden. The first reason for this seems to have come from the determination of many to make Schubert clueless as to what he was doing; by ascribing any similarities with the Eroica entirely to his unconscious genius, such commentators are reenacting the cliché of his historical reception: that of a natural artist, unaware of his intentions, of why and how he creates, and of what the consequences of his actions might be for his immediate career or for his lasting image.113 The perception that Schubert tossed off songs on the backs of menus, was incapable of self-promotion, and unconcerned about the unfolding of his career has been further complicated by the rudimentary understanding of his working methods, compositional aesthetic, and the context of musical life in Vienna during the 1820s. If we acknowledge that Schubert planned both his music and career to a far larger extent than generally recognized, then the trio assumes much greater importance in his professional trajectory, and we can better understand why he placed it at the center of his concert and longed so for its publication.

  Another reason commentators have not fully realized the significance of Beethoven in the trio’s Andante is because they were distracted by incomplete knowledge about the Swedish folksong, which became an excuse simply not to look any further. Most discussions, popular and scholarly, mentioned the folksong (not available until 1978) and, often, funereal or elegiac associations, then moved on to other issues. That the sketches and original version of the trio also became available only in the 1970s further hampered serious study of the genesis of the work. In recent years it has become increasingly clear that Schubert enjoyed experimenting with sophisticated musical games (such as an extended palindrome in Rosamunde) and with programmatic associations that he intentionally worked into many compositions.114 Scholars have long known of the myriad connections between and among his vocal and instrumental music, but the search for more subtle allusions that might carry personal or hermeneutic import has received serious attention only in recent decades. What we have come to expect from Robert Schumann or Alban Berg seemed uncharacteristic for Schubert, but that view needs to be revised.

  “Take these last farewell kisses”: Another Homage to Beethoven

  I have concentrated on musical evidence and reception to support my claim that the trio is Schubert’s homage to Beethoven. The hermeneutic implications are enhanced when we go outside the work to its performance context and consider other pieces Schubert presented on his 26 March program, because the whole event was haunted by Beethoven’s death. There is uncertainty about the first movement of a “new string quartet” that opened the concert, which had to be either the D Minor or G Major. Deutsch supposed it to be the latter, saying only that “if the D Minor had been chosen it is certain that the movement played would have been the second, the variations on ‘Death and the Maiden’” (SDB, 752). Schubert scholar Christa Landon evidently had reason to believe it was the D Minor, but died in a plane crash before she could publish her findings.115 The hidden memorial aspect of the concert would support the argument that it was the D-Minor Quartet, known as “Death and the Maiden” because it is based on Schubert’s euphonious song (D531). Scholars have argued the entire quartet is permeated with the idea of death, culminating in a tarantella finale that alludes to Erlkönig.116

  Schubert wrote one work specifically for his concert: Auf dem Strom.117 As we saw earlier, Rellstab sent poems to Beethoven that were ultimately passed on to Schubert, who set ten of them in 1828. In an article from 1982, Rufus Hallmark argued that Auf dem Strom quotes the Eroica, in fact the same passage opening the funeral march that I hear echoed in the trio’s Andante.118 The use of the horn obligato, the instrument with such a prominent role in the Eroica, is also suggestive (see Example 8).119 Like the text of Se solen sjunker, Rellstab’s poem concerns leave-taking and farewells. The first stanza reads:

  Example 8. Comparison of Beethoven’s Eroica (mm. 1–4) and Schubert’s Auf dem Strom (mm. 50–54).

  Nimm die letzten Abschiedsküsse

  Take these last farewell kisses,

  Und die wehenden, die Grüsse

  And the wafted greetings

  Die ich noch ans Ufer sende,

  That I send to the shore,

  Eh’ Dein Fuss sich scheidend wende!

  Before your foot turns to leave!

  Schon wird von des Stromes Wogen

  Already the boat is pulled away

  Rasch der Nachen fortgezogen,

  By the waves’ rapid current,

  Doch den tränendunklen Blick

  But longing forever draws back

  Zieht die Sehnsucht stets zurück!

  My gaze, clouded with tears!120

  Schubert set the five-stanza poem in an ABABA form with the B sections alluding to the funeral march of the Eroica. Hallmark explores other connections to Beethoven, notably to An die ferne Geliebte.121 Commentators had noted the affective affinity to Beethoven long before concrete musical connections were suggested by Hallmark,122 and since then Larry Hamberlin has identified an allusion in the horn part at the beginning of the song (mm. 2–9) that echoes the bridge passage in the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (mm. 26–36).123 Hallmark argues that the musical and biographical evidence suggests “Schubert may have composed Auf dem Strom in memory of Beethoven. He wrote it for the concert on the anniversary of Beethoven’s death, selected a genre which he knew had won Beethoven’s hearty approval, chose an appropriate text by a writer whose poems had been intended for Beethoven to set, and paid homage to Beethoven by imitating and quoting his music.”124 Two works on Schubert’s concert program therefore allude to the Eroica, specifically—and fittingly—to the Marcia funebre, both are connected as well with songs whose texts deal with farewells, and both reference the Fifth Symphony: in Auf dem Strom with an allusion, in the trio with an all-too-obvious quotation that Schubert therefore discarded.125

  “Who shall stand beside him?”: Franz Schubert Lies Here

  Schubert lived eight more months after his concert. Grillparzer’s question as to who would emerge as Beethoven’s successor assumed unanticipated poignancy as he accelerated an already staggering pace of composition and furthered his ambitious “strivings after the highest in art.” In a creative achievement with few parallels in music history, Schubert produced some of his greatest works, including Schwanengesang, the Mass in E-flat, the Fantasy in F Minor for piano duet, the String Quintet in C Major, the last three piano sonatas, brief sacred and keyboard pieces, and Lieder. He may have returned as well to his opera project, Der Graf von Gleichen. Volcanic outbursts continued to interrupt beautiful slow movements. He wrote more funereal laments and commentators have pointed to many Beethovenian connections in these pieces.126 One of the most intriguing late works is relatively unfamiliar because it is incomplete: sketches for a Symphony in D Major (D936a), which may as well allude to Beethoven by referencing the trombone Equale that Schubert heard repeatedly at Beethoven’s funeral.127 Rita Steblin, after looking at a variety of evidence, has concluded that Schubert’s late works “seem to be filled with hidden messages and secret tributes, in particular to Beethoven.”128

  As his compositions were posthumously unearthed over the course of the nineteenth century, many came to believe that in them Schubert came to stand by Beethoven and surpassed what Beethoven himself achieved at the comparable age. (Schubert died at 31 years, 9 months, and 19 days, close to Beethoven’s age when he wrote his “Heiligenstadt Testament” and contemplated suicide.) Schubert not only stood figuratively next to Beethoven, but too soon lay literally buried nearby. Stories concerning his final days and the aftermath of his death frequently enlisted the figure of Beethoven, and biographers ever more often juxtaposed the two, causing
Beethoven to haunt Schubert’s posthumous reception in ways that increasingly defined his popular image.129

  At the time of Beethoven’s death, and extending through the summer after Schubert’s concert, Schubert lived with Schober in the center of Vienna. He moved in September to his brother Ferdinand’s apartment in the district of Wieden. An oft-repeated tale that comes from Beethoven’s assistant Karl Holz, the violinist who played at Schubert’s concert, has a piece by Beethoven as the last music the dying composer heard. According to Holz, Schubert requested that he arrange a private bedside performance of the String Quartet in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131: “Schubert was sent into such transports of delight and enthusiasm and was so overcome that [we] all feared for him…. The quartet was the last music he heard. The King of Harmony had sent the King of Song a friendly bidding to the crossing!”130

  Schubert died on the afternoon of 19 November and the funeral was held two days later at the Parish Church of St. Joseph in the Margareten district. Among the works sung was his Pax vobiscum (D551), fitted with new words by Schober. The body was then transferred the considerable distance to the Church of St. Gertrud in Währing for a second service and the coffin interred near Beethoven in the cemetery. Within a week there was talk about raising funds for a monument. Schubert’s friend Johann Baptist Jenger wrote to Josef Hüttenbrenner that Schober “believed it would be best if the Requiem cost as little as possible so that more money can be put toward the monument and purchase of the grave.”131 Jenger also wrote to Marie Pachler, a pianist Beethoven had admired and whom Schubert had visited in Graz in September 1827, about a subscription for the monument: “He has already been given a grave to himself, three graves away from Beethoven’s, in the new Währing cemetery” (SDB, 831). Jenger mentioned preparations for a performance of a Requiem by Anselm Hüttenbrenner to be sung at the Court Chapel of St. Augustin on 23 December at eleven in the morning. An announcement of it in newspapers included an appeal to “friends of music” for donations leading to a monument to be constructed “at the side of the immortal composer Beethoven” (SDB, 845–46; FSD, Nos. 666–68). The service was even noticed in the French press, which commented: “A subscription was opened to erect a monument to him next to Beethoven, whose friend he was” (SDB, 850). The evening of the Requiem Mass a Schubertiade was held at Spaun’s house at which Vogl sang some of Schubert’s last songs, including Der Doppelgänger and Die Taubenpost.132 Deutsch speculates that a long and personal memorial poem Bauernfeld wrote, published years later, was read that evening; it makes various oblique references to Beethoven, including lines that further suggest Schubert’s reluctance to form a personal relationship with the “master”: