Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/367

SCHUBERT. at the Gesellschafts concert, and again on March 12, 1829. At Linz on Christmas Day there was a funeral ceremony with speeches and music. Articles in his honour appeared in the 'Wiener Zeitschrift' of Dec. 25 (by von Zedlitz), in the 'Theaterzeitung' of Vienna of the 20th and 27th (by Blahetka); in the Vienna 'Zeitschrift für Kunst' of June 9, 11, 13, 1829 (by Bauernfeld); in the Vienna 'Archiv für Geschichte' (by Mayrhofer); and memorial poems were published by Seidl, Schober, and others. On Jan. 30, 1829, a concert was given by the arrangement of Anna Fröhlich in the hall of the Musikverein; the programme included 'Miriam,' and consisted entirely of Schubert's music, excepting a set of Flute variations by Gabrielsky, and the first Finale in Don Juan; and the crowd was so great that the performance had to be repeated shortly afterwards. The proceeds of these concerts and the subscriptions of a few friends sufficed to erect the monument which now stands at the back of the grave. It was carried out by Anna Fröhlich, Grillparzer, and Jenger. The bust was by Franz Dialler, and the cost of the whole was 360 silver florins, 46 kr. The inscription is from the pen of Grillparzer:

The allusion to fairer hopes has been much criticised, but surely without reason. When we remember in how many departments of music Schubert's latest productions were his best, we are undoubtedly warranted in believing that he would have gone on progressing for many years, had it been the will of God to spare him.

In 1863, owing to the state of dilapidation at which the graves of both Beethoven and Schubert had arrived, the repair of the tombs, and the exhumation and reburial of both, were undertaken by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. The operation was begun on the 12th October and completed on the 13th. The opportunity was embraced of taking a cast and a photograph of Schubert's skull, and of measuring the principal bones of both skeletons. The lengths in Schubert's case were to those in Beethoven's as 27 to 29, which implies that as Beethoven was 5 ft. 5 in. high, he was only 5 ft. and ½ an inch.

[App. p.768 "add that Schubert was reburied on Sept. 23, 1888, in the central cemetery of Vienna."]

Various memorials have been set up to him in Vienna. The tablets on the houses in which he was born and died have been noticed. They were both carried out by the Männergesang Verein, and completed, the former Oct. 7, 1858, the latter in Nov. 1869. The same Society erected by subscription a monument to him in the Stadt-Park; a sitting figure in Carrara marble by Carl Kuntmann, with the inscription 'Franz Schubert, seinem Andenken der Wiener Männergesangverein, 1872.' It cost 42,000 florins, and was unveiled May 15, 1872.

Outside of Austria his death created at first but little sensation. Robert Schumann, then 18, is said to have been deeply affected, and to have burst into tears when the news reached him at Leipzig; Mendelssohn too, though unlike Schubert in temperament, circumstances and education, doubtless fully estimated his loss; and Rellstab, Anna Milder, and others in Berlin who knew him, must have mourned him deeply; but the world at large did not yet know enough of his works to understand either what it possessed or what it had lost in that modest reserved young musician of 31. But Death always brings a man, especially a young man, into notoriety, and increases public curiosity about his works: and so it was now; the stream of publication at once began, and is even yet flowing, neither the supply of works nor the eagerness to obtain them having ceased. The world has not yet recovered from its astonishment as, one after another, the stores accumulated in those dusky heaps of music paper (valued at 8s. 6d.) were made public, each so astonishingly fresh, copious, and different from the last. As songs, masses, part-songs, operas, chamber-music of all sorts and all dimensions—pianoforte-sonatas, impromptus and fantasias, duets, trios, quartets, quintet, octet, issued from the press or were heard in manuscript; as each season brought its new symphony, overture, entr'acte, or ballet-music, people began to be staggered by the amount. 'A deep shade of suspicion,' said a leading musical periodical in 1839, 'is beginning to be cast over the authenticity of posthumous compositions. All Paris has been in a state of amazement at the posthumous diligence of the song-writer, F. Schubert, who, while one would think that his ashes repose in peace in Vienna, is still making eternal new songs.' We know better now, but it must be confessed that the doubt was not so unnatural then.

Of the MS. music—an incredible quantity, of which no one then knew the amount or the particulars, partly because there was so much of it, partly because Schubert concealed, or rather forgot, a great deal of his work—a certain number of songs and pianoforte pieces were probably in the hands of publishers at the time of his death, but the great bulk was in the possession of Ferdinand, as his heir. A set of 4 songs (op. 105) was issued on the day of his funeral. Other songs ops. 101, 104, 106, 110–112, 116–118; and two PF. Duets, the Fantasia in F minor (op. 103) and the 'Grand Rondeau' (op. 107) followed up to April 1829. But the first important publication was the well-known 'Schwanengesang,' so entitled by Haslinger—a collection of 14 songs,