seems to have been a very wild and irregular one, but he must have been a man of great talent and energy to justify the eulogies on him so frequent in the early volumes of the Allg. musikalische Zeitung of Leipzig (see ii. 78, 98, etc.), and the constant references of Otto Jahn in his Life of Mozart. He lived in Mannheim, Munich, Augsburg, and Ulm; was more than once in confinement for his misdeeds, and at length was imprisoned from 1777 to 1787 at Hohenasperg. He died shortly after his release, Oct. 10, 1797. His compositions are few and unimportant. A work of his on musical æsthetics, 'Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkust,' was published after his death by his son Ludwig (Vienna, 1806). From the notices of it in the A. M. Z. (viii. 801, xiii. 53, etc.) and Jahn's citations, it appears to be partly a dissertation on the styles, abilities, and characteristics of great musicians and artists. It also contains some fanciful descriptions of the various keys, which Schumann notices (Ges. Schriften, i. 180) only to condemn. But Schubart will always be known as the author of the words of one of F. Schubert's most favourite songs 'Die Forelle' (op. 32). The words of 'An den Tod' and 'Grablied auf einen Soldaten' are also his. His son further published 2 vols. of his 'Vermischte Schriften' (Zürich, 1812).
SCHUBERT,[1] FRANZ PETER, the one great composer native to Vienna, was born Jan. 31, 1797, in the district called Lichtenthal, at the house which is now[2] numbered 54 of the Nussdorfer Strasse, on the right, going out from Vienna. There is now a gray marble tablet over the door, with the words 'Franz Schuberts Geburtshaus' in the centre; on the left side a lyre crowned with a star, and on the right a chaplet of leaves containing the words, '31 Jänner 1797.' He came of a country stock, originally belonging to Zukmantel in Austrian Silesia. His father, Franz, the son of a peasant at Neudorf in Moravia, was born about 1764, studied in Vienna, and in 1784 became assistant to his brother, who kept a school in the Leopoldstadt. His ability and integrity raised him in 1786 to be parish schoolmaster in the parish of the 'Twelve holy helpers' in the Lichtenthal, a post which he kept till 1817 or 18, when he was appointed to the parish school in the adjoining district of the Rossau, and there he remained till his death, July 9, 1830. He married early, while still helping his brother, probably in 1783, Elisabeth Vitz, or Fitz, a Silesian, who was in service in Vienna, and was, like Beethoven's mother, a cook. Their first child, Ignaz, was born in 1784. Then came a long gap, possibly filled by children who died in infancy—of which they lost nine in all; then, Oct. 19, 1794, another boy, Ferdinand; then in 96, Karl, then Franz, and lastly, a daughter, Theresia, Sept. 17, 1801, who died Aug. 7, 1878. The hard-worked mother of these 14 children lived till 1812. Soon after her death her husband was married again, to Anna Klayenbök, a Viennese, and had a second family of 5 children, of whom 3 grew up, viz. Josefa (+ 1861), Andreas, an accountant in one of the public offices, and Anton, a Benedictine priest, 'Father [3]Hermann'—the last two still living (1881).
Ignaz and Ferdinand followed their father's calling, and inherited with it the integrity, frugality, and modesty, which had gained him such respect. Of the former we do not hear much; the one letter by him that is preserved (Oct. 13, 1818), shows him very free-thinking, very tired of schoolmastering, very much attached to his home and his brother.[4] He remained at the Rossau school till his death in 1844. Ferdinand, on the other hand, rose to be director of the chief normal school of St. Anna in Vienna, and played a considerable part in the life of his celebrated brother, by whom he was fondly loved, to whom he was deeply attached, and whose eyes it was given to him to close in death.
Little Franz was no doubt well grounded by his father, and to that early training probably owed the methodical habit which stuck to him more or less closely through life, of dating his pieces, a practice which makes the investigation of them doubly interesting.[5] As schoolmasters the father and his two eldest sons were all more or less musical. Ignaz and Ferdinand had learned the violin with other rudiments from the father, and Franz was also taught it by him in his turn, and the 'clavier' (i.e. probably the pianoforte for Beethoven's op. 31 was published before Schubert had passed his 6th year) by Ignaz, who was twelve years his senior. But his high vocation quickly revealed itself; he soon outstripped these simple teachers, and was put under Michael Holzer, the choirmaster of the parish, for both violin and piano, as well as for singing, the organ, and thorough bass. On this good man, who long outlived him, he made a deep impression. 'When I wished to teach him anything fresh,' he would say, 'he always knew it already. I have often listened to him in astonishment.'[6] Holzer would give him subjects to extemporise upon,
- ↑ The following abbreviations are used in the notes to this article:—
K.H. = Kreissle von Heilborn. The first reference to the German edition; the second, in brackets, to Coleridge's translation.
Ferd. = Ferdinand Schubert, in his biographical sketch in Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift für die Musik, x. p. 129, etc.
A.M.Z. = Allgemelne Musikalische Zeitung.
N.Z.M. = Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.
W.Z.K. = Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst, etc.
- ↑ The Nussdorfer Strasse runs north and south. At the time of Schubert's birth it was called 'Auf dem Himmelpfortgrund,' and the house was No. 72. The 'Himmelpfortgrund' itself (the 'gate of heaven') was a short street running out of it westwards towards the fortifications—the same which is now the 'Säulengasse.' The present Schubertgasse did not then exist beyond the opening into the main street. I find all this on a large map of the date in the British Museum.
- ↑ Author of a sermon on the 1400th anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict (Vienna, 1880). In which he Is styled 'Capitularpriester des Stiftes Schotten; Curat und Prediger an der Stiftspfarre; Besitzer des gold. Verdienstkreuzes m. d. Krone.'
- ↑ K.H. 146 (i. 149).
- ↑ His usual practice was to write the title of the piece, the date, and his name, 'Frz Schubert Mpia,' at the head of the first page, on beginning to compose. In his earlier years he added the full date of completion at the end, even when it was the same day. See nos. 1, 2, and 5 of the '6 Lieder' (Müller)—all three belonging to 1813, as given in Nottebohm's Catalogue, p. 243. Sometimes he has dated each movement, as in the String Quartet in B♭ (op. 168), described under 1814. With 1815, however, this minute dating in great measure ceases, and as a rule we find the year or at most the month stated.
- ↑ N.Z.M.
