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360 strangers who met him in this entourage were as much captivated as his friends. J. A. Berg of Stockholm, who was in Vienna in 1827, as a young man of 24, and met him at the Bogners, speaks of him with the clinging affection which such personal charm inspires.

He was a born bourgeois, never really at his ease except among his equals and chosen associates. When with them he was genial and compliant. At the dances of his friends he would extemporise the most lovely waltzes for hours together, or accompany song after song. He was even boisterous—playing the Erl King on a comb, fencing, howling, and making many practical jokes. But in good society he was shy and silent, his face grave; a word of praise distressed him, he would repel the admiration when it came, and escape into the next room, or out of the house, at the first possible moment. In consequence he was overlooked, and of his important friends few knew, or showed that they knew, what a treasure they had within their reach. A great player like Bocklet, after performing the B♭ Trio, could kneel to kiss the composer's hand in rapture, and with broken voice stammer forth his homage, but there is no trace of such tribute from the upper classes. What a contrast to Beethoven's position among his aristocratic friends—their devotion and patience, his contemptuous behaviour, the amount of pressing necessary to make him play, his scorn of emotion, and love of applause after he had finished! [See vol. i. p. 168b.] The same contrast is visible in the dedications of the music of the two—Beethoven's chiefly to crowned heads and nobility, Schubert's in large proportion to his friends. It is also evident in the music itself, as we shall endeavour presently to bring out.

He played, as he sang, 'like a composer,' that is, with less of technique than of knowledge and expression. Of the virtuoso he had absolutely nothing. He improvised in the intervals of throwing on his clothes, or at other times when the music within was too strong to be resisted, but as an exhibition or performance never, and there is no record of his playing any music but his own. He occasionally accompanied his songs at concerts (always keeping very strict time), but we never hear of his having extemporised or played a piece in public in Vienna. Notwithstanding the shortness of his fingers, which sometimes got tired, he could play most of his own pieces, and with such force and beauty as to compel a musician who was listening to one of his latest Sonatas to exclaim, 'I admire your playing more than your music,' an exclamation susceptible of two interpretations, of which Schubert is said to have taken the unfavourable one. But accompaniment was his forte, and of this we have already spoken [see pp. 342b, 347a etc.]. Duet-playing was a favourite recreation with him. Schober, Gahy, and others, were his companions in this, and Gahy has left on record his admiration of the clean rapid playing, the bold conception and perfect grasp of expression, and the clever droll remarks that would drop from him during the piece.

His life as a rule was regular, even monotonous. He composed or studied habitually for six or seven hours every morning. This was one of the methodical habits which he had learned from his good old father; others were the old-fashioned punctilious style of addressing strangers, which struck Hiller with such consternation, and the dating of his music. He was ready to write directly he tumbled out of bed, and remained steadily at work till two. 'When I have done one piece I begin the next' was his explanation to a visitor in 1827; and one of these mornings produced six of the songs in the 'Winterreise'! At two he dined—when there was money enough for dinner—either at the Gasthaus, where in those days it cost a 'Zwanziger' (8½d.), or with a friend or patron; and the afternoon was spent in making music, as at Mad. Lacsny Buchwieser's [ p. 347a ], or in walking in the environs of Vienna. If the weather was fine the walk was often prolonged till late, regardless of engagements in town; but if this was not the case, he was at the coffee-house by five, smoking his pipe and ready to joke with any of his set; then came an hour's music, as at Sofie Müller's [ p. 341b ]; then the theatre, and supper at the Gasthaus again, and the coffeehouse, sometimes till far into the morning. In those days no Viennese, certainly no young bachelor, dined at home; so that the repeated visits to the Gasthaus need not shock the sensibilities of any English lover of Schubert. [See p. 345.] Nor let any one be led away with the notion that he was a sot, as some seem prone to believe. How could a sot—how could any one who even lived freely, and woke with a heavy head or a disordered stomach—have worked as he worked, and have composed nearly 1000 such works as his in 18 years, or have performed the feats of rapidity that Schubert did in the way of opera, symphony, quartet, song, which we have enumerated? No sot could write six of the 'Winterreise' songs—perfect, enduring works of art—in one morning, and that no singular feat! Your Morlands and Poes are obliged to wait their time, and produce a few works as their brain and their digestion will allow them, instead of being always ready for their greatest efforts, as Mozart and Schubert were. Schubert—like Mozart—loved society and its accompaniments; he would have been no Viennese if he had not; and he may have been occasionally led away; but such escapades were rare. He does not appear to have cared for the other sex, or to have been attractive to them as Beethoven was, notwithstanding his ugliness. This simplicity curiously characterises his whole life; no feats of memory are recorded of him as they so