The Music of Schubert
Schubert. By Alfred Einstein. (Cassell. 2ss.) Schubert: A Thematic Catalogue. By 0. E. Deutsch. (Dent. 4ss.)
THERE has long been need of an adequate monograph on Schubert, one which will delineate, as Einstein did for 'Mozart, the composer's style and artistic personality. Specialised studies we have, such as Capell's fine account in Schubert's Songs (1928) and Otto Deutsch's collection of biograpl)ical material in Schubert—a Documentary Biography -(1946) ; but no synthetic monograph. Arthur Hutching's study in the " Master Musicians " series was 'written at a time when the author could not take into account the dramatic works ; and Gerald Abraham's Symposium (1946), which remains the best single book on the composer, is of its nature cumulative in effect, not durchgeschrieben. Now in Mozart, his Character, his Work, Dr. Einstein wrote a model critical biography of a composer, which set his life in relation to his music, his music in relation to its historical background, and evaluated the works in terms of the man himself. After Mozart, Dr. Einstein's Schubert is rather disappointing. He has chosen another form for it, which is less successful.
The heir of Mozart and Haydn, overshadowed in his life by Beethoven, Schubert remained to the end an innovator. Like Walther, he was a natural " Meister," who wrote Gretchen am Spinnrade when he was seventeen ; though in opera he was always to be a stage-struck "Schiller." Schubert's music, for the most part, is Cut of the same cloth, and it is true that any consideration of it chapter-divided by genres would be hard to bring off. The songs encircle everything ; orchestral and instrumental works must be taken together with songs written at the same time. But Dr. Einstein's arrangement, a steady chronological working through the oeuvre, has its own disadvantaW It precludes, apparently, any broader considerations. There are discussions of Schubert's harmony, his " key-characteristic," his union of voice and piano, but always these are bounded by the period (generally three -years) limiOng the chapter in which they appear. For instance, a chapter headed promisingly " The Piano and the Piano Sonata " initiates some general discussion about Schubert's treatment of instrument and form, deals with the two unfinished sonatas of 1815, and then breaks off maddeningly to talk about string quartets. Like a queue clamouring for attention, the long file of works is waiting ; an inexorable " Next, please " cuts across any pause for reflection. Only once, in " Schubert and his Attitude to Death," does Dr. Einstein step back from the works immediately in hand. Biography is almost excluded, and extends " only up to the time when Schubert shook off his ' middle-class' shackles " ; so, apart from a good sketch of Viennese music in Schubert's " Convict " days, is " back- ground," whether social or musical.
The book then is not easy reading, for it seems,to be too much a catalogue of works, grouped not more than two or three at a time, with, let it be added, much excellent commentary. Inevitably, the impression is rather scrappy. No room is left to expand or justify promising general apercus. For instance, " the dualism in Schubert% music—that of the most gifted Viennese composer of his time and of the great Romantic ' classicist " is thus alluded to, scarcely amplified. Again, we -might well have been told more about Dr. Einstein's view that "there is no fundamental connection between w Schubert's dramatic works and the rest of his music." Cut of a different cloth ? It is true that early in his career Schubert learnt from Salieri the manners of Italian opera (as Beethoven had done twenty years before), which he adopted while setting ever poorer librettos ; and that his stage-works became less anfl less dramatic as his mastery of orchestral drama increased. But there is surely no lack of relation.
Though we may freely feel disappointed that this book is not something else, we must praise what it is: an excellent assessment, if not of Schubert the composer, at any rate of many individual works. Turn up a song in the index ; you may only find two adjectives about it, but they are sure to be the most relevant. And invaluable to English ,readers, since it deals with music rarely heard and scantily considered, is a good deal about Schubert's choral writing: unaccompanied choruses and part-songs, and the Masses whose fragrant piety should have ensured for them far more frequent performances. The operas too are afforded full treatment. Simultaneously with Schubert comes Professor Deutsch's Schubert Thematic Catalogue. For a work of such specialised interest, this is rather unambitious ; it is an " austerity catalogue," no companion to Dr. Einstein's revised edition of Kochel. It gives, for each work, date and place of composition and first performance, date and publisher of the first edition, the whereabouts of the manuscript, and a single stave summary of opening bars. It does not give- . and this is a serious omission—the length of any work, even of those unpublished ; nor any dedication or inscription on the auto- graph. Nor, businesslike, can it afford such pleasant inforn)ation (gleaned from Einstein) as that on .the title-page of Des Teufels Lustschloss Schubert still styled filtnself proudly " Pupil of Herr
Salieri" ; or that over MS 550(b) (Die Forelle), finished at midnight on February 21st, 1818, the drowsy composer poured • the contents of the ink-pot instead of the sand-box. ANDREW PORTER.
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