Franz Schubert and His World

Franz Schubert and His World is the title of an essay anthology edited by Christopher H. Gibbs and Morten Solvik and recently published by Princeton University Press. Despite the title, most of the volume is devoted to what might be called Schubert sidelights, secondary topics, or even tangents. One chapter restates an already well-known position. A promising essay on Schubert and the Vienna Volkstheater descends into superficial melodic comparisons.

The great exception to the rule is John M. Gingerich's brilliant essay on the Schubert circle, "'Those of us who found our life in art': The Second-Generation Romanticism of the Schubert-Schober Circle, 1820-1825." Level-headed evaluations are greatly welcome about a number of issues--from assumptions about the Schubertkreis (which Gingerich narrows to a circle about Schubert and his friend Franz von Schober, a group with Romantic ideals about art and artists), about Schubert and money (a communitarian attitude prevailed among the group), about sexuality (Gingerich debunks the once fashionable notion of Schubert and homosexuality), and about religious non-conformity.

Dance in Vienna circa 1820, part 3

Schubert's dance compositions circulated in copies he himself made for friends (Brown, 218), and collections of his dances were published as early as 1821. He also contributed dances to "special Carnival anthologies every year from 1822 through 1828" (Hanson 155). Apart from three sets of dances for four-part strings, written in 1813-1814, Schubert left no orchestral arrangements of his dances, but the evidence that arrangements of his dances were made by others for a public casino ball in Linz in 1826 (Litschauer, 248) suggests that it is by no means impossible his waltzes and schottisches were heard in the great Viennese halls, too, as the thirst for music to accompany all-night dancing must have been extreme. (Josef Kenner, an acquaintance from Schubert's school days, writing in 1858, recalled that Schubert's waltzes were praised in Austria, though "not unanimously," but they became popular in Paris when arranged for strings (Deutsch 86).)

Still, among those generally considered to be major composers of the era, only Hummel left dances specifically identified with their use in the large halls (in his case, the Apollo-saal) (link to a page with scans of the first editions, keyboard versions). Given that the waltz collection, D 365, was the first of his compositions taken up by a commercial publisher, it seems likely that, had he lived into the 1830s, Schubert could have made a very comfortable living as a dance composer, had he chosen to do so; by then a combination of rapidly increasing venues and rising income in the middle classes made such specialized musical entrepeneurship rewarding (Otterbach, 231).

Schubert also heard the waltzes of Michael Pamer and Josef Lanner in taverns in the 1810s and 1820s–-one of Schubert's favorite nighttime haunts, the Café Rebhuhn, was Lanner's base, and Schubert is said to have enjoyed the performances (Deutsch 188). On music and dancing in Viennese restaurants and taverns, see Hanson, 169-76. By contrast, it was the Sperl where, a decade later, Chopin and Wagner heard and admired the waltzes of Johann Strauss, sr.

In a moment of all-too obvious bias towards the "master composers," Paul Nettl says of Schubert that "it was he who actually introduced the Viennese waltz as a gift to the world" (261). There is little if anything in the historical evidence to support such an extravagant claim. Schubert's waltzes may have been dear to his circle of friends (Litschauer), and even known to a limited extent outside that circle, but without any doubt Schubert's contemporary Lanner is the seminal figure in the development of the Viennese waltz as it was later known, not only because of the compositions he created but also because of his influence on Johann Strauss, sr. Once Lanner split his band into two groups (in 1829), with Strauss leading one of them, Strauss's reputation grew very rapidly, and before long he was the widely acknowledged patriarch of the waltz (whose history from that point on unfolded as much in concert–-and in the musical theater–-as in social dance). Strauss's concerts, being more fashionable, also attracted members of the upper-middle class (Weber, 110; Gartenberg, 95).

References:

Brown, Maurice. Essays on Schubert. London: Macmillan, 1966.

Deutsch, Otto. Rosamond Ley and John Nowell. trans. Schubert: Memoirs by His Friends. London: A. & C. Black, 1958.

Gartenberg, Egon. Johann Strauss: The End of an Era. New York: Da Capo Press, 1979. Original edition published in 1974.

Hanson, Alice. Musical Life in Biedermeier Vienna. London: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Litschauer, Walburga. "Unbekannte Dokumente zum Tanz in Schuberts Freundeskreis." Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 42 (1993): 243-249.

Nettl, Paul. The Story of Dance Music. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.

Otterbach, Friedemann. Die Geschichte der europäischen Tanzmusik. Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichson's, 1980.

Weber, William. Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna. London: Croom Helm, 1975.

Dance in Vienna circa 1820, part 2

The waltz, however, was protected by its very fashionableness, by the ubiquity of dancing as an element of evening entertainment in and outside the home, and by its crossing of the lines of class status. Long before 1815, when the Congress of Vienna seems to have been characterized as much by dancing as by diplomacy, the passion for dancing had swept past the occasional complaints and sporadic censorship. Litschauer and Deutsch give some idea of the remarkable extent of activity during this period, in terms of the range and character of venues, the dance's popularity among all social classes, and the intimate connection to the contemporary folkloristic movement (1-17). To the latter, they write that "the first decades of the nineteenth century distinguish themselves through an aesthetic intertwining of social dance and folk dance such as had never happened before in the history of European dance culture. The deutsche, the ländler, the schottisch, the polonaise and the mazurka, the Styrische, the Schwäbische, the Strassburgoise, the Anglaise, the Française, and the waltz are only some of the dance categories that contributed to this folkloristically vibrant era" (11; my translation).

The great public dance halls of Vienna–-especially the Sperl (opened 1807) and the Apollo-saal (1808)–-could often hold a thousand people at a time (an astonishing six thousand in the Apollo-saal if one counts both grounds and dancehalls) and quickly became great gathering places for wealthier middle class citizens and occasionally for members of the aristocracy as well (Aldrich; Hanson, 163-7; Salmen, 98). In addition to the public venues, house balls and a wide array of private gatherings and dance parties were common and quite as important to dance culture as they were to music—as we know, since these latter were the venues that nurtured Schubert.

We do not know if Schubert ever found his way into any of the large halls (friends certainly had the social status to facilitate this, but he is known to have disliked dressing up for social events). We do know, however, that he regularly played (though he did not dance) at house balls and parties (Deutsch, Mem, 121; Hanson, 152; Litschauer and Deutsch, 28, 151). (The great dividing line in Schubert's social life is early 1823, when the first symptoms appeared of the syphilis he had apparently contracted in December 1822. At first because of disfigurement, then due to true ill-health, he avoided social and public gatherings for most of 1823 and early 1824 and was active only sporadically thereafter (Bevan, 245-8, 257-8).)

Schubert was not the only performer for dancing at the balls and dance parties of his friends. Josef von Gahy was an excellent pianist who performed many of Schubert's keyboard works and sometimes substituted for Schubert. Josef von Spaun, in fact, seems to hint that Gahy's playing was esteemed better than the composer's own: "from time to time [Schubert] surprised us dancing enthusiasts with the most beautiful Deutsche Tänze and Écossaises . . . . Gahy had the knack of playing these wonderful dances with such fire that the dancers were quite electrified by them" (Deutsch, Mem, 133). Franz von Schober also recalls that Gahy "used to play the Schubert dances so remarkably on the piano and . . . never tired of playing, in his masterly way, for nights on end at our dances" (Deutsch, Mem, 207). Spaun, similarly, writes that Gahy "often sacrificed himself to the young people's dancing for whole nights at a time, bringing fire and life to the party with the wonderful Schubert dances" (Deutsch, Mem, 358).

These events varied in their programs but were typically constituted as some combination of dance, party, and meal(s). Examples with contemporary descriptions are cited in Litschauer and Deutsch, 23-29. Here is one from Franz von Hartmann's diary: "I went to Spaun's, where there was a big, big Schubertiade ... There was a huge gathering ... When the music was done there was grand eating and then dancing" (Deutsch, Doc, 571-72). If there was no dancing, participants might disperse to taverns or coffee-houses (according to Hartmann's recollections (Deutsch, Mem, 274), where they almost certainly heard music.

Christopher Gibbs describes the Schubertiades as

unpublicized events devoted primarily or exclusively to his music. Usually given by the composer's more well-to-do friends and patrons (although not the high-ranking men that supported Beethoven), they offered an informal, sociable atmosphere that often included recitations, eating, drinking, and dancing. The number of participants at a Schubertiade could range from a handful to over a hundred, and their frequency varied; some years saw weekly gatherings (or more), other years saw none. (74)

All this is not to imply that Schubert's dances were strictly segregated from "concert" music: as Litschauer and Deutsch observe, "From the evidence of various diaries and memoirs [of his friends], we can deduce that [Schubert's dances] were primarily played as functional dance music, but sometimes also as performance pieces [Vortragsstücke]" (150; my translation). Hartmann recalled that, in February 1827, "there was a particularly successful dance at Schober's, when Schubert played his beautiful 'Valses nobles'" (Deutsch, Mem, 276)–-this set is more amenable to performance and less to dancing than any of Schubert's collections other than the posthumous Letzte Walzer. On the other hand, a reminiscence by Ludwig August Frankl describes an occasion where Schubert "had a great triumph. A large company was there, including the Duke of Reichstadt. [Schubert] sang and played his things. They got ready for dancing, whereupon he played and improvised waltzes; they listened, asked him to go on playing, completely forgot the dancing and so it went on till long after midnight. They departed enraptured, he likewise, the triumph had delighted him" (Deutsch, Mem, 265).

Postscript: In Warsaw at the same time–-and to a lesser extent in Paris–-Chopin served a role similar to that of Schubert at salon balls and private parties. Unlike Schubert, however, who according to accounts of several friends never danced, Chopin was a willing and expert dancer (McKee 109, 118).) To complicate matters, McKee observes that "Chopin was not only receptive to the needs of the dancers, but was also able to translate their bodily motions into an artistic musical vision. . . . Only after he left Warsaw in 1830 did Chopin begin consistently to introduce nondance elements. . . . Even so, many of Chopin's Viennese and Parisian waltzes are eminently danceable, and the distinction between functional and stylized was largely a matter of how they were used in their social context" (121).

References:

Aldrich, Elizabeth. "Social Dancing in Schubert's World." In Raymond Erickson, ed. Schubert's Vienna, 119-40. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Bevan, Peter Gilroy. "Adversity: Schubert's Illnesses and Their Background." In Newbould, Brian, ed. Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis, 244-66. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.

Deutsch, Otto. Rosamond Ley and John Nowell. trans. Schubert: Memoirs by His Friends. London: A. & C. Black, 1958.

Deutsch, Otto. Eric Blom, trans. Schubert: A Documentary Biography. London: J. M. Dent, 1946.

Gibbs, Christopher. The Life of Schubert. London: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Hanson, Alice. Musical Life in Biedermeier Vienna. London: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Litschauer, Walburga, and Walter Deutsch. Schubert und das Tanzvergnügen. Vienna: Holzhausen, 1997.

McKee, Eric. "Dance and the Music of Chopin: The Waltz." In Goldberg, Halina, ed. The Age of Chopin: Interdisciplinary Inquiries, 106-61. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

Salmen, Walter. Tanz im 19. Jahrhundert. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1989.

Gesellschaftspiel; pianos

Here is a detail from a fanciful painting [watercolor] that depicts the Schubert-Kreis in a combination tableau entertainment and party game similar to Charades. Schubert himself sits in a corner of the room, at the piano. I don't know who the fellow is staring intently in Schubert's direction [one source says "Hartmann" -- that would be either Franz or Fritz von Hartmann] [update 2-20-10: according to Dieckmann, it's one Welser von Hartmann, relation to the brothers unknown (120)], but the visual parallel between Schubert and the dog [the artist Kupelwieser's dog Drago (118)] suggests the amount of (perhaps not always rewarding) work involved in playing for "endless cotillons" (dances that can last an hour at a time). (Diary notations and reminiscences from 1829 through the 1870s contradict one another: in some of them Schubert declares he loves to play for dancing; in others he seems borne down by the tedium of playing for hours and is happy to cede place to his friend Josef von Gahy, who was said to perform Schubert's own waltzes with "fiery spirit.") [Here is a link to a small but good-quality image: CorbisImages.] [edits 12-28-09]

The counter to this interpretation is the truly remarkable fact that Schubert did not have regular access to a piano as he composed. Robert Winter, in the New Grove biographical sketch of Schubert, writes that in late 1824,"on his return to Vienna [from Zseliz] Schubert moved briefly – probably for financial reasons – for one last time into the Schubert family home in the Rossau. To be sure, it was the only place he ever lived in that contained a piano; Schubert never bought, leased or borrowed a piano of his own." Since he composed on a regular basis throughout the morning (one of the few disciplined parts of his life, apparently), this means that great swathes of Schubert's music were written "in his head," that is, without assistance from an instrument, at least not from a keyboard.

[update 2-20-10: I am still trying to trace this history of Schubert's instrumentarium. Given that he was a proficient violinist, it's not unreasonable to assume that he would have owned that instrument, perhaps for most or all of his adult life, but so far I have found no reference in the literature. And, as to the piano, here is a bit of counter-evidence in a drawing by Moritz von Schwind, made in 1821 and called "Schuberts Zimmer."

end update]

This also means that playing for dancing might have been far less onerous than I suggested above, because Schubert might have happily used the time to make "sound experiments," to try out melodies -- or, more likely, progressions or key relations -- that he had already written or wanted to write but might not be able to auralize sufficiently. Maurice Brown's comment about the dances as "notebooks" for larger compositions, then, is on the mark but too text-oriented -- the dances as "sound experiments" would be a better description. [added text 12-19-09: Brown speculates that Schubert used casual dance improvisations "as 'journals' or 'notebooks' in which the composer was able to try out...new ideas and techniques that might later be developed in more substantial pieces" (Brown cited in Brodbeck 32). Brian Newbould follows out this idea by making comparisons between dances and some of Schubert's sonata movements.]

References:

Brodbeck, David. "Dance Music as High Art: Schubert's Twelve Ländler, op. 171 (D. 790)." In Walter Frisch, ed., Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, pp. 31-47. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.

[added] Dieckmann, Friedrich. Franz Schubert: eine Annäherung. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1996.

Newbould, Brian. "Cornered in the Middle Eight: Dance Miniaturism vis-à-vis Sonata." In Newbould, ed. Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis, 107-116. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.