SCHUBART 



SCHUBERT 



223 



Leyden, and died llth September 1664. He was 

 a laborious and erudite man, but possessed little 

 critical discernment. His most notable perform- 

 ance was a Lexicon Grteco-Latinum et Latino- 

 Gnecum (Leyden, 1654), of which there have been 

 innumerable editions. He also executed between 

 1648 and 1665 many variorum editions of the 

 classics Juvenal, Hesiod, Terence, Virgil, Horace, 

 Homer, Martial, Lucan, Cicero, Ovid, and 

 Claudian. 



Schubart, CHRISTIAN DANIEL, poet, was 

 born 13th April 1739 at Sontheim in Swabia, 

 and studied theology, afterwards becoming school- 

 master and organist, first at Geisslingen and then 

 at Lndwigsburg. But he wrote satirical poems 

 and spoke unadvisedly, lost his post, and then led 

 a wandering life in various cities and countries, 



S'ving poetical readings and piano performances, 

 e got into difficulty in Austrian territory at Ulm, 

 was enticed back to Wurtemberg by the prince, 

 whom he had greatly irritated by a stinging epi- 

 gram, was earned to the fortress-prison of Hohen- 

 Asperg ( 1777 ), and there pined for ten years. Then 

 he was set free by intervention of the Prussian 

 court, and straightway appointed court musician 

 and theatre-director at Stuttgart to the same prince 

 who had kept him all these years in prison. But 

 he was utterly broken in health, and died 10th 

 October 1791. His poetry is very unequal in value ; 

 he was an effective satirist of abuses in church and 

 state, and some of his patriotic pieces, odes and 

 hymns, have real poetic worth ; but he is chiefly 

 remembered for his tragic fate, and for the influ- 

 ence his work exercised on Schiller. His Getam- 

 melte Schnften (including essays and newspaper 

 articles) lill s volumes. 



See the autobiographical Xthutiart Ltben (1793), and 

 monographs on the man by D. F. Strauss (1849), HaufT 

 (1885), and Nagele ( 1888). 



Schubert, FRANZ PETER, the celebrated com- 

 poser, was born in Vienna on January 31, 1797. 

 His father, who came of a Moravian peasant stock, 

 had settled some years previously as a school- 

 master in a district of the city called the Lichten- 

 thal ; his mother before her marriage had been a 

 cook. Their two elder sons, Ignaz and Ferdinand, 

 adopted the father's calling. Franz's musical gifts 

 very early declared themselves. At first he was 

 taught the violin by his father, and the piano- 

 forte by his brother Ignaz ; but he very soon out- 

 stripped their powers of instruction. His train- 

 ing was therefore entrusted to Holzer, organist 

 of the parish church, whose raptures over the 

 boy's talents were a poor substitute for the con- 

 scientious care which they demanded. Before 

 he was eleven years of age young Schubert was 

 leading soprano in the Lichtenthal choir, whence 

 he was soon transferred to the Konvikt or 

 choristers' school of the Court-chapel. Franz at 

 once took his place as one of the violin-players in 

 the school band, where he soon became leader. 

 The constant practice thus afforded him wasdoubt- 

 I'-si an inestimable advantage, though it must 

 always be regretted that his theoretical training 

 was practically left to take care of itself; for 

 Huzicka, the music-master at the Konvikt, seems 

 to have taken much the same line with Schubert 

 as Holzer had done before him. The circumstances 

 of the school were not favourable to study. The 

 boys were allowed to go hungry, and in winter 

 without fire, so that even practice was carried on 

 under difficulties. But Schubert's thirst for composi- 

 tion triumphed over all snch obstacles, and in its 

 endeavour to lie satisfied interfered seriously with 

 his progress in the ordinary curriculum. He made 

 many friends at this time, for his schoolfellows 

 were all proud of his gifts and were delighted to 



take part in the performance of his compositions ; 

 while in Spaun, one of the senior choristers, he 

 found a benefactor who kept him supplied with 

 music-paper, a luxury beyond the reach of his own 

 very slender resources. During the five years thus 

 spent Schubert tried his hand at almost every kind 

 of composition, the work which marks the comple- 

 tion of this period being a symphony in D ( October 

 28, 1813). 



On his departure from the Konvikt he became 

 an under-teacher in his father's school in order to 

 avoid the conscription. Even at this early date 

 he wrote some of nis most enduring compositions. 

 Of these may be mentioned that immortal song 

 the Erl King, truly marvellous as the work of 

 a youth of eighteen, and the Mass in F, first 

 performed by the Lichtenthal choir under the 

 direction of the composer. Among those who 

 congratulated him on this occasion was Salieri, 

 under whose guidance his more recent studies hail 

 been made. Schubert's delivery from the drudgery 

 of his father's school was brought about by Franz 

 von Schober, a young man of his own age, who 

 had met with some of his songs, and who, on 

 coming to the university of Vienna, lost no time 

 in finding out the composer. As soon as he be- 

 came aware of Schubert's anomalous position, he 

 proposed that he should share his lodging and 

 lie free to devote himself entirely to his art. Franz 

 fell in with the arrangement, which, however, 

 was put an end to by the interference of Schober's 

 brother after a few months, when Schubert was 

 doubtless laid under a similar obligation to other 

 friends; for, with the exception of 4 paid to liim 

 for a cantata written for a Herr Watteroth, his work 

 as yet had brought him in nothing. His short 

 residence with Schober was marked by an event 

 which had a lasting influence on his career his 

 acquaintance with Yogi, the eminent singer and 

 actor, who very soon appreciated his genius, and 

 became his firm and most valued friend. Yogi's 

 fine literary taste enabled him to curb that omniv- 

 orous instinct of Schubert's which impelled him 

 to lavish his treasures of melody on words alto- 

 gether unworthy of them. To him also Schubert 

 owed the recognition (inadequate as it was) of 

 his talents by the Viennese, for Vogl constantly 

 sang his songs at the houses of people of in- 

 fluence in the first instance, and eventually in 

 public. 



In 1818 Schubert became teacher of music in the 

 family of Count Johann Esterhazy at his country 

 seat at Zelesz, in Hungary, where he passed several 

 months, finding in the beauty of his surroundings 

 a new stimulus to composition. The end of the year, 

 however, saw him back in Vienna and installed in 

 lodgings with the poet Mayrhofer. The two would 

 often work together in the same room, the one 

 writing verses which the other as rapidly set to 

 music. On February 28, 1819, Schubert was first 

 brought before the public as a composer by the 

 performance of one of his songs, the Scndfers 

 Klagelied, at a concert in Vienna. In the summer 

 he made an extended tour with Vogl, and found 

 time to compose, during a halt at Steyr, his well- 

 known pianoforte quintett (op. 114). His comic 

 operetta, iheZvrillingsbruder, finished 19th January 

 1819, was produced at the Karnthnerthor theatre 

 on June 14, 1820, and two months later came the 

 first performance of the Zauberharfe at the Theater- 

 an-der-Wien. His appearance in print was de- 

 layed until April 1821, when his old schoolfellow 

 Leopold Sonnleither and another friend named 

 Gymnich had the Erl King engraved at their 

 own cost. But as Schubert's songs began to 

 lie heard more frequently the enthusiasm with 

 which they were received at length overcame the 

 hesitation of publishers in accepting his MSS. As 



