Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/342

330 piano, or my own breast. If this often makes me sad, on the other hand it often elevates me all the more. Several songs have lately come into existence, and I hope very successful ones.' He is evidently more at home in the servants' hall than the drawing-room. 'The cook is a pleasant fellow; the ladies'-maid is thirty; the housemaid very pretty, and often pays me a visit; the nurse is somewhat ancient; the butler is my rival; the two grooms get on better with the horses than with us. The Count is a little rough; the Countess proud, but not without heart; the young ladies good children. I need not tell you, who know me so well, that with my natural frankness I am good friends with everybody.' The letter ends with an affectionate message to his parents.

The only songs which can be fixed to this autumn, and which are therefore doubtless those just referred to, besides the great 'Einsamkeit,' are the 'Blumenbrief' (Lief. 21, no. i), 'Blondel und Maria,' 'Das Marienbild' and 'Litaney,' 'Das Abendroth'—for a contralto, evidently composed for the Countess; 'Vom Mitleiden Mariä,' and three Sonnets from Petrarch (MS.). The Hungarian national songs left their mark in the '36 original dances,' or 'First Waltzes' (op. 9), some of which were written down in the course of the next year. The 'Divertissement à la hongroise,' and the Quartet in A minor (op. 29), in which the Hungarian influence is so strong, belong—the first apparently, the second certainly—to a much later period.

A third letter of this date, hitherto unprinted, with which the writer has been honoured by the granddaughter of Ferdinand Schubert, to whom it was addressed, is not without interest, and is here printed entire. The Requiem referred to was by Ferdinand, and had evidently been sent to his brother for revision. The letter throws a pleasant light on the strong link existing between Franz and his old home, and suggests that assistance more solid than 'linen' may often have reached him from his fond step-mother in his poverty in Vienna. In considering the pecuniary result of the engagement, it must be remembered that the florin was at that time only worth a franc, instead of two shillings. The month's pay therefore, instead of being £20, was really only about £8. Still, for Schubert that was a fortune.

The inscription 'Zelész, Nov. 1818' on the song 'Das Abendroth' shows that the return to Vienna was not till nearly the end of the year. He found the theatre more than ever in possession of Rossini. To the former operas, 'Elisabetta' was added in the autumn, and 'Otello' early in Jan. 1819. But one of the good traits in Schubert's character was his freedom from jealousy, and his determination to enjoy what was good, from whatever quarter it came, or however much it was against his own interest. A letter of his to Hüttenbrenner, written just after the production of 'Otello,' puts this in very good light. 'Otello is far better and more characteristic than Tancredi. Extraordinary genius it is impossible to deny him. Hie orchestration is often most original, and so is his melody; and except the usual Italian gallopades, and a few reminiscences of Tancredi, there is nothing to object to.' But he was not content to be excluded from the theatre by every one, and the letter goes on to abuse the 'canaille of Weigls and Treitschkes,' and 'other rubbish, enough to make your hair stand on end,' all which were keeping his operettas off the boards. Still, it is very good-natured abuse, and so little is he really disheartened, that he ends by begging Hüttenbrenner for a libretto; nay, he had actually just completed a little piece called 'Die Zwillingsbrüder' ('the Twins'), translated by Hofmann from the French—a Singspiel in one act, containing an overture and 10 numbers. He finished it on Jan. 19, 1819, and it came to performance before many months were over.

Of his daily life at this time we know nothing. We must suppose that he had regular duties with his pupils at the Esterhazys' town house.