lisher anxious for some easy PF. pieces for a series called 'Mühling's Museum,' by no means fulfilled the promise of their commencement. The magnificent style in which the Schotts desired Schubert to name his own terms[1] contrasts badly with their ultimate refusal (Oct. 30) to pay more than 30 florins (or about 25s.) for the PF. Quintet (op. 114) instead of the modest 60 demanded by him. In fact the sole result was an arrangement with Probst to publish the long and splendid E♭ Trio, which he did, according to Nottebohm,[2] in September, and for which the composer received the incredibly small sum of 21 Vienna florins, or just 17s. 6d.! Schubert's answer to Probst's enquiry as to the 'Dedication' is so characteristic as to deserve reprinting:—
Vienna, Aug. 1.
Euer Wohlgeboren, the opus of the Trio is 100. I entreat you to make the edition correct; I am extremely anxious about it. The work will be dedicated to no one but those who like it. That is the most profitable dedication. With all esteem,
Franz Schubert.
The home publications of 1828 are not so important as those of former years. The first part of the Winterreise (op. 89) was issued in January by Haslinger; March 14, 3 songs by Sir W. Scott (ops. 85, 86) by Diabelli; at Easter (April 6) 6 songs (ops. 92 and 108), and one set of 'Momens musicals,' by Leidesdorf; in May, 2 songs (op. 93) by Kienreich[3] of Gratz; in June or July ('Sommer') 4 songs (op. 96) by Diabelli; Aug. 13, 4 Refrain-Lieder (op. 95) Weigl. Also the following, to which no month can be fixed:—'Andantino varié and Rondeau brillant' (op. 84), PF. 4 hands, on French motifs, forming a continuation of op. 63, Weigl; 3 songs (op. 87), Pennauer; 4 impromptus (op. 90), and 12 Gratzer Walzer (op. 91) for PF. solo, Diabelli; Gratzer Galopp, do. Haslinger; 4 songs (op. 106) lithographed without publisher's name.
There is nothing in the events already catalogued to have prevented Schubert's taking an excursion this summer. In either Styria or Upper Austria he would have been welcomed with open arms, and the journey might have given him a stock of health sufficient to carry him on for years. And he appears to have entertained the idea of both.[4] But the real obstacle, as he constantly repeats, was his poverty.[5] 'Its all over with Gratz for the present,' he says, with a touch of his old fun, 'for money and weather are both against me.' Herr Franz Lachner, at that time his constant companion, told the writer, that he had taken half-a-dozen of the 'Winterreise' songs to Haslinger and brought back half-a-dozen gulden—each gulden being then worth a franc. Let the lover of Schubert pause a moment, and think of the 'Post' or the 'Wirthshaus' being sold for tenpence! of that unrivalled imagination and genius producing those deathless strains and being thus rewarded! When this was the case, when even a great work like the E♭ Trio, after months and months of negotiation and heavy postage, realises the truly microscopic amount of '20 florins 60 kreutzers' (as with true Prussian businesslike minuteness Herr Probst specifies it), of 17s. 6d. as our modern currency has it not even Schubert's fluency and rapidity could do more than keep body and soul together. It must have been hard not to apply the words of Müller's 'Leyermann' to his own case—
Barfuss auf dem Eise
Wankt er hin und her,
Und sein kleiner Teller
Bleibt ihm immer leer.
Wandering barefoot to and fro
On the icy ground,
In his little empty tray
Not a copper to be found.
In fact so empty was his little tray that he could not even afford the diligence-fare to Pesth, where Lachner's 'Bürgschaft' was to be brought out, and where, as Schindler reminds him, he would be safe to have a lucrative concert of his own music, as profitable as that of March 26. Escape from Vienna by that road was impossible for him this year.
Schubert had for some time past been living with Schober at the 'Blaue Igel' (or Blue Hedgehog), still a well-known tavern and resort of musicians in the Tuchlauben; but at the end of August he left, and took up his quarters with Ferdinand in a new house in the Neue Wieden suburb, then known as No. 694 Firmian, or Lumpert,[6] or Neugebauten, Gasse, now (1881) No. 6 Kettenbrücken Gasse; a long house with three rows of nine windows in front; a brown sloping tiled roof; an entry in the middle to a quadrangle behind; a quiet, clean, inoffensive place.[7] Here, on the second floor, to the right hand, lived Schubert for the last five weeks of his life, and his death is commemorated by a stone tablet over the entry, placed there by the Männergesang Verein in Nov. 1869, and containing these words:—'In diesem Hause starb am 19 November 1828 der Tondichter Franz Schubert':—In this house died on Nov. 19, 1828, the composer Franz Schubert. Ferdinand had removed there, and Franz, perhaps to help his brother with the rent, went there too. He made the move with the concurrence of his doctor, von Rinna, in the hope that as it was nearer the country—it was just over the river in the direction of the Belvedere—Schubert would be able to reach fresh air and exercise more easily than he could from the heart of the city. The old attacks of giddiness and blood to the head had of late been frequent, and soon after taking up his new quarters he became seriously unwell. However, this was so far relieved that at the beginning of October he made a short walking tour with Ferdinand and two other friends to Ueber-Waltersdorf, and thence to Haydn's old residence and grave at Eisenstadt, some 25 miles from Vienna. It took
- ↑ K.H. 424 (ii. 109).
- ↑ Probst announces two long lists of new music in the A.M.Z. for Oct., but no mention of the Trio. It is reviewed most favourably in the A.M.Z. for Deo. 10. 1828. Alas! he was then beyond the reach of praise or blame.
- ↑ Whom Schubert parodies as 'Greiner' i.e. grumbler.
- ↑ Jenger's and Traweger's letters, K. H. 416, 427, 431, etc.
- ↑ Letters, K.H. 437 (ii. 124), etc.
- ↑ K. H. 453 note.
- ↑ It is quite a musical spot. 'Franz Haydn' has a shop for comestibles at the corner of the next house to Schubert's.
