I can think of no better way to start the new year than with some music by Franz Schubert (1797-1928), the most incandescent of composers. They are presented in no particular order and are selected by no criteria save personnel taste. The Boy Wonder began producing masterpieces when he was just 17 and continued to turn them out with astonishing rapidity until God recalled him to Paradise at the tender age of 31.
The composer’s first masterpiece was written in 1814. Gretchen am Spinnrade is taken from Part 1 of Goethe’s Faust. It depicts her at the spinning wheel, depicted by the piano; she is emotionally overwhelmed by her encounter with Faust. Jessye Norman is the soprano.
Der Erlkönig was written in 1815 again to a Goethe text. There are four characters in the song – narrator, father, son, and the Erlking – all sung by a single vocalist. The piano accompaniment is daunting, Schubert couldn’t play it and made a simplified version allowing him to perform the song with the soloist. The lied is a perfect example of Schubert’s ability to do in three minutes what took Wagner and Verdi three hours. I don’t know who first made this observation, but it’s very insightful. The baritone is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Die Forelle (The Trout) is one of Schubert’s most popular songs. Fritz Wunderlich is the singer. It was written in 1817 to a poem by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart. In 1819 Sylvester Baumgartner commissioned Schubert to write a chamber piece that used the song. The result was the Trout Quintet that quoted the song as a set of variations in its fourth movement. The quintet was written for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass bass. While it may lack the profundity of Schubert’s latter chamber music it is one of the sunniest pieces in the chamber music repertory as well as one of the most popular. The Trout 4th movement
Der Tod und das Mädchen is another example of a song that Schubert later used in a chamber piece. Marian Anderson is the singer. The song was written in 1817 to a poem by Matthias Claudius. The maiden asks death to pass her by. Death responds that she shall sleep in his arms. The string quartet that uses the theme from the song is one of the greatest ever composed. Its second movement is a theme and five variations based on the song. The entire quartet is about death. Perhaps not a good choice the mark a new year, but the music is so exalted as to get a pass regarding its aptness. Death and the maiden movement 2
Schubert’s String Quintet in C Maj is a pinnacle in Western Art. Its second movement is beyond praise; words cannot do it justice. So I’ll let it speak for itself in a universal language.
The composer’s Fantasia in F min written around the same time as the great quintet is another example of supreme inspiration and craft. It’s for piano four hands. It ranks among the supreme works written for the piano. There’s almost no end to Schubert’s miraculous greatness, but I’ll stop for now.
Happy New Year
