Schubert

I have this thing that I do in regards to different composers of music. I go through huge phases where for a few weeks (or months...sometimes even years in the case of Tchaikovsky) I will become fascinated with a certain composer and most of what I'll listen to will be by that composer. Besides their musics being worthy of being listened to, most of the time I am drawn to a composer at a given time because at that point I feel as if I can relate to them fairly well, if not completely in some cases.

The composer focus instilled within me for the last few weeks, almost month, has been Franz Schubert. Unfortunately, little is known about his life mostly because 1) he was never recognized as a great composer by the public at large while he was living and 2) the people who knew the most about him were his closest friends whom he saw every day, consequently the amount of letters that could exist remains diminished. There are many that survive but even these provide little insight into Schubert the man (as he was usually not open with his inner feelings and especially not over written correspondance).

A few of his closest friends (i.e. Spaun, Bauernfeld) wrote Memoirs of their relationship with the composer but most of these writings came about 30+ years after Schubert's death and are probably to some extent obscured with age. How sad that of all the great composers, Schubert is the one we know least about.

On the flip side, this creates an almost insatiable curiosity in regards to his personal life, about which, together with our own conjectures and the thoughts of his friends we may only speculate. Undoubtedly this translates into an almost magnetic draw into his music which, as a whole, is deeply indicative of the human condition. The famous singer Dietrich Fischer Dieskau once remarked that of all the composers of German Lied, Schubert was the most "authentic".

What kind of a man could write such morbid works as a musical setting of Goethe's "Erlkonig", a string quartet subtitled "Death and the Maiden", a stupendous setting of Muller's poem cycle called "Winterreise" which deals with the winter wanderings of a dejected lover and on the opposite side of the coin could also compose works of such sincere optimism such as the "Trout quintet", the piano impromptus, waltzes, not to mention the gloriously energetic 9th symphony?

Yet even in his most light works, there is this hint of pain and sorrow. Schubert often will open a piece of music with a phrase in the Major mode and the follow it with another in the minor mode. How fascinating such an individual is.

In part it is this presence of co-existance of pain with that of beauty in much of his music that is so compelling to me as a listener.

In this post, I didn't want to talk about his life so much as that I just wanted to mention the ambiguity that surrounds Schubert the man and why he makes such a fascinating composer to study. Does this ambiguity of Schubert's personal life translate into a very real ambiguity of his music. I suppose it does in the sense that we'll always be trying to understand completely what Schubert, the poor man, was trying to say through his music. Perhaps its only that mysteries have always appealed to me.

I have recently acquired by way of a generous gift the Schubert's "Winterreise, with Fischer-Dieskau singing. I have longed pined for this recording and in no way has it let me down. The performing quality is excellent of course and often times, the man just leaves you breathless with some of the things he does musically.

The music itself is very moving and depicts a dejected lover wandering to and fro in the midst of winter, disheartened and ultimately rejected. He finds a lone hurdy-gurdy man at the end of the cycle, a man who, like him has been rejected by society, and implores: "shall I go then with you? will you play your organ to my songs?" - the songs being those of a lost, isolated human being. Before this point, he even implores a cemetary for a place of repose, even referring to the cemetary as an "inn". There are many songs that are utterly captivating for me yet if I had to choose one that's my favorite, it would be his one:

The Crow
A crow has accompanied me
Since I left the town,
Until today, as ever,
It has circled over my head.

Crow, you strange creature,
Won't you ever leave me ?
Do you plan soon as booty
To have my carcase ?

Well, I won't be much longer
Wandering on the road.
Crow, let me finally see
Loyalty unto the grave !

In a literary sense, this is a completely desolate piece of poetry, conveying utter hopelessness and irrevocable loneliness. Musically it remains especially poignant (which is why it's my favorite). The vocal line is middle range bass clef while the piano plays some flittering triplet figures at a piano dynamic in the high register which seems to me to be conveying the physical distance between the speaker and the crow and also, perhaps in a more abstract sense, conveying the isolation of the speaker. Because the piano part falls in the higher register, there are less overtones heard which creates a sense of a lack of body and substance to the sound, (which is why bass lines are down low). Without a foundation in the middle or lower registers, the music has a very empty feeling to it. I've always thought that writing in the high range of any instrument conveys beautifully an inexplicaple sense of emptiness and even loneliness.

What kind of man was writing this? One wonders. My fascination will continue unabated for a few more weeks at least. And "Winterreise" is very powerful indeed, especially when keeps in mind not only what is going on in the poems, but what was outwardly characteristic of Schubert's own life. My own lied are poor stuff compared to this master.

Adieu.