Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/379

SCHUBERT. strongly marked, but the ritornels are longer and more frequent, and form a charming feature in that exquisite love-poem. Schubert's passion for rhythm comes out as strongly in many of the songs as it does in his marches and scherzos. In the two just named, though persistent throughout, the rhythm is subordinated to the general effect. But in others, as 'Suleika,' 'Die Sterne,' the 'Nachtgesang im Walde,' 'Erstarrung,' or 'Frühlingssehnsucht,' it forces itself more on the attention.

Schubert's basses are always splendid, and are so used as not only to be the basis of the harmony but to add essentially to the variety and effect of the songs. Sometimes, as in 'Die Krahe,' they are in unison with the voice-part. Often they share with the voice-part itself in the melody and structure of the whole. The wealth of ideas which they display is often astonishing. Thus in 'Waldesnacht,' a very long song of 1820, to a fine imaginative poem by F. Schlegel, describing the impressions produced by a night in the forest, we have a splendid example of the organic life which Schubert can infuse into a song. The pace is rapid throughout; the accompaniment for the right hand is in arpeggios of semiquavers throughout, never once leaving off; the left hand, where not in semiquavers also, has a succession of noble and varied rhythmical melodies, independent of the voice, and the whole is so blended with the voice part—itself extraordinarily broad and dignified throughout; the spirit and variety, and the poetry of the whole are so remarkable, and the mystery of the situation is so perfectly conveyed, as to make the song one of the finest of that class in the whole Schubert collection. The same qualities will be found in Auf der Brücke (1825).

We do not say that this is the highest class of his songs. The highest class of poetry, and of music illustrating and enforcing poetry, must always deal with human joys and sorrows, in their most individual form, with the soul loving or longing, in contact with another soul, or with its Maker; and the greatest of Schubert's songs will lie amongst those which are occupied with those topics, such as 'Gretchen am Spinnrade,' the Mignon songs, the 'Wanderer,' the 'Müllerlieder,' and 'Winterreise,' and perhaps highest of all, owing to the strong religious element which it contains, the 'Junge Nonne.' In that wonderful song, which fortunately is so well known that no attempt at describing it is necessary, the personal feelings and the surroundings are so blended—the fear, the faith, the rapture, the storm, the swaying of the house, are so given, that for the time the hearer becomes the Young Nun herself. Even the convent bell, which in other hands might be a burlesque, is an instrument of the greatest beauty.

We have spoken of the mental atmosphere which Schubert throws round his poems; but he does not neglect the representation of physical objects. He seems to confine himself to the imitation of natural noises, and not to attempt things which have no sound. The triplets in the Lindenbaum may be intended to convey the fluttering leaves of the lime-tree, and the accompaniment-figure in 'Die Forelle' may represent the leaps of the Trout; but there are other objects about which no mistake can be made. One imitation of the bell we have just referred to. Another is in the 'Abendbilder,' where an F♯ sounds through 16 bars to represent the 'evening bell'; in the Zügenglöcklein the upper E is heard through the whole piece; and the bell of St. Mark's is a well-known feature in the part-song of the 'Gondelfahrer.' The posthorn forms a natural feature in 'Die Post,' and the hurdy-gurdy in 'Der Leiermann.' Of birds he gives several instances; the Nightingale in 'Ganymed' and 'Die gefangene Sänger'; the Raven in 'Abendbilder,' and perhaps in 'Frühlingstraum'; the Cuckoo in 'Einsamkeit,' the Quail in 'Der Wachtelschlag'; and the Cock in 'Frühlingstraum.'

That hesitation between major and minor which is so marked in Beethoven is characteristic also of Schubert, and may be found in nearly every piece of his. A beautiful instance may be mentioned en passant in the trio of the G major Fantasia Sonata (op. 78), where the two bars in E minor which precede the E major have a peculiarly charming effect. Another is supplied by the four bars in A minor, for the question which begins and ends the beautiful fragment from Schiller's 'Gods of ancient Greece.' He also has an especially happy way—surely peculiarly his own—of bringing a minor piece to a conclusion in the major. Two instances of it, which all will remember, are in the Romance from 'Rosamunde':—

and in the 'Moment musical,' No. 3, in F minor. This and the ritornels already spoken of strike one like personal features or traits of the composer. But apart from these idiosyncrasies, the changes from minor to major in the songs are often superb. That in the 'Schawager Kronos' (astonishing production for a lad under 20), where the key changes into D major, and further on into F major, to welcome the girl on the threshold, with the sudden return to D minor for the onward journey, and the sinking sun—can be forgotten by no one who hears it, nor can that almost more beautiful change to D major in the 'Gute Nacht' on the mention of the dream. This latter, and the noble transition to F major in the 'Junge Nonne' are too familiar to need more than a passing reference, or that to G major in the 'Rückblick,' for the lark and nightingale and the girl's eyes, or to D major in the Serenade. 'Irdisches Glück' is in alternate stanzas of major and minor. In Schiller's 'Rose' (op. 73) every shade in the fate of the flower is thus indicated; and this is no solitary instance, but in almost