Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/343

SCHUBERT. but there is nothing to say so. We gather that he joined Mayrhofer in his lodgings, 420 in the Wipplingerstrasse, early in the year. It was not a prepossessing apartment. 'The lane was gloomy; both room and furniture were the worse for wear; the ceiling drooped; the light was shut out by a big building opposite a worn-out piano, and a shabby bookcase.' The only relief is the name of the landlady—Sans-souci, a Frenchwoman. No wonder that Mayrhofer's poems—he was ten years Schubert's senior—were of a gloomy cast.

The two friends were on the most intimate terms, and addressed each other by nicknames. What Mayrhofer's appellation may have been we do not know, but Schubert, now and later, was called 'the Tyrant,' for his treatment of Hüttenbrenner; also 'Bertl,' 'Schwammerl,' and, best of all, 'Kanevas' because when a stranger came into their circle his first question always was, 'Kann er was?' 'Can he do anything?' Their humour took all sorts of shapes, and odd stories are told of their sham fights, their howls, their rough jokes and repartees. Mayrhofer was a Government employé, and went to his office early, leaving his fellow-lodger behind. Schubert began work directly he awoke, and even slept in his spectacles to save trouble; he got at once to his writing, sometimes in bed, but usually at his desk. It was so still, when Hiller called on him eight years later. 'Do you write much?' said the boy, looking at the manuscript on the standing desk—they evidently knew little in North Germany of Schubert's fertility. 'I compose every morning, was the reply; and when one piece is done, I begin another.' And yet this was the musicien le plus poète que jamais—it might have been the answer of a mere Czerny! Add to this a trait, communicated to the writer by Schubert's friend, Franz Lachner, of Munich, that when he had completed a piece, and heard it sung or played, he locked it up in a drawer, and often never thought about it again.

This close work went on till dinner-time—two o'clock—after which, as a rule, he was free for the day, and spent the remainder either in a country walk with friends, or in visits—as to Sofie Miiller, and Mad. Lacsny Buchwieser, whom we shall encounter further on; or at Schober's rooms, or some coffee-house—in his later days it was Bogner's Café in the Singerstrasse, where the droll cry of a waiter was a never-ending pleasure to him. But no hour or place was proof against the sudden attack of inspiration when anything happened to excite it. An instance occurs at this very time, Nov. 1819, in an overture for 4 hands in F (op. 34), which he has inscribed as 'written in Joseph Hüttenbrenner's room at the City Hospital in the inside of three hours; and dinner missed in consequence.' If the weather was fine he would stay in the country till late, regardless of any engagement that he might have made in town.

The only compositions that can be fixed to the spring of 1819 are 5 songs dated February, and one dated March; a very fine quintet for equal voices, to the 'Sehnsucht' song in 'Wilhelm Meister'—a song which he had already set for a single voice in 1816, and was to set twice more in the course of his life (thus rivalling Beethoven, who also set the same words four times); an equally fine quartet for men's voices, 'Ruhe, schönstes Glück der Erde,' dated April; and four sacred songs by Novalis, dated May. [App. p.786 "also a fine overture in E minor published in Series II. of the complete edition."]

The earnings of the previous summer allowed him to make an expedition this year on his own account. Mayrhofer remained in Vienna, and Vogl and Schubert appear to have gone together to Upper Austria. Steyr was the first point in the journey, a town beautifully situated on the Enns, not far south of Linz. They reached it early in July; it was Vogl's native place, and he had the pleasure of introducing his friend to the chief amateurs of the town, Paumgartner, Koller, Dornfeld, Schellmann—substantial citizens of the town, with wives and daughters, 'Pepi Koller,' 'Frizi Dornfeld,' 'the eight Schellmann girls,' etc., who all welcomed the musician with real Austrian hospitality, heard his songs with enthusiasm, and themselves helped to make music with him. His friend Albert Stadler was there also with his sister Kathi. How thoroughly Schubert enjoyed himself in this congenial bourgeois society, and in such lovely country—he mentions its beauties each time he writes—we have ample proof in two letters. Among other drolleries the Erl King was sung with the parts distributed amongst Vogl, Schubert, and Pepi Koller. Perhaps too Schubert gave them his favourite version of it on a comb. Vogl's birthday (Aug. 10) was celebrated by a cantata in C, containing a terzet, 2 soprano and 2 tenor solos, and a finale in canon, pointed by allusions to his various operatic triumphs, words by Stadler, and music by Schubert. After this the two friends strolled on to Linz, the home of the Spauns, and of Kenner and Ottenwald, whose verses Franz had set in his earlier days; and thence perhaps to Salzburg, returning to Steyr about the end of the month. Nor did the joviality of these good Austrians interfere with composition. Besides the impromptu cantata just mentioned, the well-known PF. quintet (op. 114), in which the air of 'Die Forelle' is used as the theme of the Andantino, was written at Steyr, possibly as a commission from the good Paumgartner, and was performed by the Paumgartner party. Schubert achieved in it the same feat which is somewhere ascribed to Mozart, of writing out the separate parts without first making a score, and no doubt played the pianoforte part by heart. The date of their departure, Sept. 14, is marked by an entry in the album of Miss Stadler, when Schubert delivered himself of the following highly correct sentiment:—'Enjoy the present so wisely, that