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Page 20
SCHUBERT
Excepting during his lifetime and for a period of some thirty years
after his death, Schubert cannot be said to have been neglected; and
last year there was quite an epidemic of concerts to celebrate the
hundredth anniversary of his birth. Centenary celebrations are often a
little disconcerting. They remind one that a composer has been dead
either a much shorter or a much longer time than one supposed; and one
gets down Riemann's "Musical Dictionary" and realises with a sigh that
the human memory is treacherous. Who, for instance, that is familiar
with Schubert's music can easily believe that it is a hundred years
since the composer was born and seventy since he died? It is as
startling to find him, as one might say, one of the ancients as it is
to remember that Spohr lived until comparatively recent times; for
whereas Spohr's music is already older than Beethoven's, older than
Mozart's, in many respects quite as old as Haydn's, much of Schubert's
is as modern as Wagner's, and more modern than a great deal that was
written yesterday. This modernity will, I fancy, be readily admitted
by everyone; and it is the only one quality of Schubert's music which
any two competent people will agree to admit. Liszt had the highest
admiration for everything he wrote; Wagner admired the songs, but
wondered at Liszt's acceptance of the chamber and orchestral music.
Sir George Grove outdoes Liszt in his Schubert worship; and an
astonishing genius lately rushed in, as his kind always does, where
Sir George would fear to tread, boldly, blatantly asserting that
Schubert is "the greatest musical genius that the Western world has
yet produced." On the other hand, Mr. G. Bernard Shaw out-Wagners
Wagner in denunciation, and declares the C symphony childish, inept,
mere Rossini badly done. Now, I can understand Sir George Grove's
enthusiasm; for Sir George to a large extent discovered Schubert; and
disinterested art-lovers always become unduly excited about any art
they have discovered: for example, see how excited Wagner became about
his own music, how rapt Mr. Dolmetsch is in much of the old music. But
I can understand Wagner's attitude no better than I can the attitude
of Mr. Shaw. I should like to have met Wagner and have said to him,
"My dear Richard, this disparaging tone is not good enough: where did
you get the introduction to 'The Valkyrie'?--didn't that long tremolo
D and the figure in the bass both come out of 'The Erl-king'? has your
Spear theme nothing in common with the last line but one of 'The
Wanderer'? or--if it is only the instrumental music you object to--did
you learn nothing for the third act of 'The Valkyrie' from the
working-out of the Unfinished Symphony? did you know that Schubert had
used your Mime theme in a quartet before you? do you know that I could
mention a hundred things you borrowed from Schubert? Go to, Richard:
be fair." Having extinguished Richard thus, and made his utter
discomfiture doubly certain by handing him a list of the hundred
instances, I should turn to Mr. Shaw and say, "My good G.B.S., you
understand a good deal about politics and political economy,
Socialism, and Fabians, painting and actors [and so on, with untrue
and ill-natured remarks _ad lib_.], but evidently you understand very
little about Schubert. That 'Rossini crescendo' is as tragic a piece
of music as ever was written." Yet, after dismissing the twain in this
friendly manner, I should have an uneasy feeling that there was some
good reason for their lack of enthusiasm for Schubert. The very fact
of there being such wide disagreement about the value of music that is
now so familiar to us all, points to some weakness in it which some of
us feel less than others; and I, poor unhappy mortal, who in my
unexcited moments neither place Schubert among the highest gods, like
Liszt and Sir George Grove, nor damn him cordially, like Wagner and
Mr. Shaw, cannot help perceiving that along with much that is
magnificently strong, distinguished, and beautiful in his music, there
is much that is pitiably weak, and worse than commonplace. The music
is like the man--the oddest combination of greatness and smallness
that the world has seen. Like Wagner and Beethoven, Schubert was
strong enough to refuse to earn an honest living; yet he yielded
miserably to publishers when discussing the number of halfpence he
should receive for a dozen songs. He had energy enough to go on
writing operas, but apparently not intelligence to see that his
librettos were worth setting, or to ensure that anything should come
of them when they were set. He thought, rightly or wrongly, that he
needed more counterpoint, yet continued to compose symphonies and
masses without it, vaguely intending to the very end to take lessons
from a sound teacher. He had spirit enough to fall in love (so far as
stories may be relied on), but not to make the lady promise to marry
him, nor yet resolutely to cure himself of his affliction. He had
courage to face the truth, as he saw it, and he found life bitter, and
not worth enduring; yet he could not renounce it, like Beethoven, nor
end it as others have done. As in actual life, so in his music; having
once started anything, he seemed quite unable to make up his mind to
fetch it to a conclusion. He was like a man who lets himself roll down
a hill because it is easier to keep on rolling than to stop. He
repeats his melodies interminably, and then draws a double bar and
sets down the two fatal dots which mean that all has to be played
again. If the repeat had not been a favourite resort of lazy composers
before his time he would have invented it, not because he was lazy,
but because he wanted to go on and could not afford infinite
music-paper. Hence his music at its worst is the merest drivel ever
set down by a great composer; hence at anything but its best it lacks
concentrated passion and dramatic intensity; more than any other
composer's it has one prevailing note, a note of deepest melancholy;
and therefore, when a few pieces are known, most of the rest seem
barren of what is wanted by those who seek chiefly in music the
expression of all the human passions.
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