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Schubert's Self-Elegies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2011

James William Sobaskie
James William Sobaskie
Affiliation:
Mississippi State University
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Extract

The later music of Franz Schubert confers a remarkable blend of impact and intimacy. Some masterpieces, such as Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, capture striking images of despair and loneliness. Others, such as the String Quartet in A minor, the Piano Trio in E major and the String Quintet in C major, carry stirring impressions of struggle culminated by success. Yet all captivate us with sensitivity and sincerity, the products of considerable self-investment.

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Nineteenth-Century Music Review , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , November 2008 , pp. 71 - 105
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

1 I am grateful to Susan Youens, whose conversations during the Thirteenth International Conference on Nineteenth-Century Music at Durham University in 2004 stimulated the development of this study and led to her invitation to include it within this special Schubert-centred issue of Nineteenth Century Music Review. I also am indebted to Robert Hatten, whose observations enabled better characterization of Schubert's novel expressive genre, the musical self-elegy. Finally, I extend thanks to my anonymous readers, who reaffirmed the instrumental value of close structural analysis in the service of serious musicological inquiry.

2 Susan Youens examines Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795; 1823) and Winterreise(D. 911; 1827) in Franz Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), Schubert, Müller, and Die schöne Müllerin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Retracing a Winter's Journey: Franz Schubert's Winterreise (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

3 Schubert's String Quartet in A minor (Op. 29; D. 804; 1824), Piano Trio in E major (Op. 100; D. 929; 1827) and String Quintet in C major (Op. post. 163; D. 956; 1828) feature comprehensive contextual processes that unfold over the course of their four-movement spans and sustain engaging dramatic conflicts that are convincingly resolved near the ends of their finales. See Sobaskie, James William, ‘Tonal Implication and the Gestural Dialectic in Schubert's A Minor Quartet’, in Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis, ed. Newbould, Brian (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003): 53–80;Google ScholarSobaskie, James William, ‘A Balance Struck: Gesture, Form, and Drama in Schubert's E Major Piano Trio’, in Le Style instrumental de Schubert: sources, analyse, évolution ed. Hascher, Xavier (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2007): 117–48;Google Scholar and Sobaskie, James William, ‘The “Problem” of Schubert's String Quintet’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review 2/1 (2005): 57–92,CrossRefGoogle Scholar respectively.

4 Self-elegy refers to a mourning of one's own anticipated death. Forming a subgenre within the elegiac tradition of poetry, self-elegies became more common during the mid-nineteenth century, and especially during the twentieth century. Those of William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) are among the best known. However, in his book Yeats and the Poetry of Death: Elegy, Self-Elegy, and the Sublime (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), Jahan Ramazani observes: ‘Don’t all elegists, like Milton, Gray, and Shelley, “turn” to lament their own destined urns? … Yeats does not invent the self-elegy – witness the epigrammatic self-epitaphs of Raleigh, Coleridge, and Swift, the satiric “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” and the death poems of Keats, Dickinson, Whitman, and Christina Rosetti’ (136). It is neither difficult nor unreasonable to imagine that Schubert, aware of the implications of his syphilis, may have felt the impulse of self-mourningGoogle Scholar.

5 Arnold Schoenberg's notion of musical problem offers a valuable metaphor for interpreting certain contextual processes in music. Schoenberg believed that the essential motivic impulse of a composition – what drove it forward and determined its formal structure – emanated from a relatively brief gesture or theme, stated near the start of the piece, that he referred to as a basic shape or Grundgestalt. A distinctive and memorable musical idea, the basic shape embodied a purely musical kind of imbalance Schoenberg called a ‘problem’: ‘Every succession of tones produces unrest, conflict, problems … Every musical form can be considered as an attempt to treat this unrest either by halting or limiting it, or by solving the problem … A theme solves the problem by carrying out its consequences.’Google ScholarSchoenberg, Arnold, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. Strang, Gerald and Stein, Leonard (New York: Faber, 1967): 102. For more, see:Google ScholarSchoenberg, Arnold, The Musical Idea, and the Logic, Art, and Technique of its Presentation, ed. Carpenter, Patricia and Neff, Severine (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995): 226–7 and 395–6.Google Scholar While Schoenberg's notion of musical problem may seem most appropriate for illuminating ‘tonal’ problems within the context of his harmonic theories, Schoenberg's own writings suggest he believed musical problems could assume many forms. For analyses of other kinds of musical problems, see James William Sobaskie, ‘The Problem of Schubert's String Quintet’, and James William Sobaskie, ‘Contextual Drama in Bach’, in Music Theory Online 12/3 (2006), http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.06.12.3/toc.12.3.html.

6 Several of Schubert's instrumental works bear titles referring to death, including an early nonet for winds, Eine Kleine Trauermusik (D. 79; 1813), the Trauerwalzer (D. 365; 1821) for piano solo, a Trauermarsch (D. 819; 1824) and a Grande marche funèbre (D. 859; 1825) for piano duet. However, none of these is elegiac or autobiographical, like the compositions under consideration here. Indeed, the title Trauerwalzer came from Schubert's publisher Diabelli; see Otto Erich Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography (London: Dent, 1946): 88–9 and 200. Of course, Schubert's String Quartet in D minor (D. 810; 1824), popularly known as the ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet for its slow movement, which consists of five variations on the melody of his lied, Der Tod und das Mädchen (D. 531; 1817), must be the most famous of Schubert's instrumental works associated with mortality.

7 The term elegy comes from the ancient Greek word elegos, which initially meant ‘song’, and later denoted a ‘song of mourning’. Often such laments would be accompanied by the sound of a pipe, as well as the lyre, and thus were musico-poetic utterances.

8 For more on the elegiac tradition, see: West, Martin, Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luck, Georg, The Latin Love Elegy, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1969)Google Scholar; Miller, Paul Allen, Subjecting Verses: Latin Love Elegy and the Emergence of the Real (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Schenck, Celeste Marguerite, Mourning and Panegyric (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Ziolkowski, Theodore, The Classical German Elegy 1795–1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Sacks, Peter M., The English Elegy: Studies in the Genre from Spenser to Yeats (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Raymond, Claire, The Posthumous Voice in Women's Writing from Mary Shelley to Sylvia Plath (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006)Google Scholar.

9 The Greek idylls of Theocritus (3rd century bc) include several elegies, as do the Latin eclogues of Virgil (1st century bc), but other Roman poets, including Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, are more closely associated with the poetic form. Reflecting their influence are Edmund Spenser's Astrophel (1595), John Milton's Lycidas (1638) and Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751). To Thyrza: And Thou Art Dead (1812) by George Gordon, Lord Byron, and Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats (1821), by Percy Bysshe Shelley, represent later examples. While Schubert's acquaintance with this Classical and English literature may have been limited, even in translation, he may have been acquainted with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Römische Elegien (1795), Euphrosyne (1798) and Marienbader Elegie (1823), and is likely to have known elegies written by Ludwig Hölty, Friedrich Matthisson, Friedrich Rückert, Friedrich Schiller and Wilhelm Schlegel, whose poetry he often set.

10 The literature on grief has expanded considerably since the appearance of On Death and Dying (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969), by Kübler-Ross, Dr Elisabeth,Google ScholarPubMed in which the psychiatrist proposed that human bereavement features five sequential and sometimes overlapping stages, including denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. More recently, Dr John Bowlby identified four phases of the grieving process, including shock and numbness, yearning and searching, disorganization and despair, and then reorganization, states that could be experienced non-sequentially and sometimes simultaneously; see Bowlby, John, Attachment and Loss, Vol. 3: Loss: Sadness and Depression (London: Hogarth Press, 1980).Google Scholar

11 Abnegation denotes the self-willed resignation to and acceptance of an irremediably negative situation that is not rectified but risen above. Robert Hatten explores this concept in Musical Meaning in Beethoven (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994): 59–63 and 281–7, and in Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004): 142–4.

12 The psychological approach taken within this analytical examination of Schubert's music is neither unprecedented nor uncommon. For an example close at hand, see ‘“In dunklen Träumen”: Schubert's Heine-Lieder through the Psychological Prism’, by Xavier Hascher, in this issue of Nineteenth Century Music Review.

13 Deutsch indicates that the eight Impromptus of Op. 90 (D. 899) and Op. 142 (D. 935) were finished in December of 1827, but because there are no references to them among Schubert's letters, we cannot be sure when they were begun. Haslinger published the first two of Op. 90 individually, each titled in French: ‘Impromptu pour le Pianoforte seul par Franç. Schubert’. See Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 587 and 691.

14 It is unclear why the G Impromptu did not appear with its companions in 1827. Perhaps the publisher was taken aback by its signature of six flats, which may have been seen to stifle sales among amateurs, as the first edition (1857) presented it transposed to G major; see Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 692. Similarly, Schubert's song Iphigenia (D. 573; 1817), whose manuscript originally opened with the six flats of G major and ended with the five flats of D major, was transposed when first published by Diabelli, who lowered it by a semitone so that it began in F major and closed in C major.

15 In a letter to the publisher Schott on 21 February 1828, Schubert offered what would become his Op. 142 (D. 935), declaring: ‘I have the following compositions in stock … Four Impromptus for pianoforte solo, which might be published separately or all four together’. Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 739. Since the Impromptus of Op. 90 initially appeared individually, it would seem that Schubert conceived their genre as self-contained.

16 The Moments musicaux, Op. 94, were published by the Viennese firm of Leidesdorf on 11 July 1828, but two of them had appeared earlier; no. 3 had been released in 1823 under the title Air russe, and no. 6 was published in 1824 under the subtitle Les plaintes d’un Troubadour. See Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 306, 388 and 791. These French subtitles suggest that Schubert's publishers believed that the Moments musicaux and the Impromptus would appeal to amateurs and professionals outside German-speaking lands.

17 Deutsch observed that the first works titled ‘Impromptu’ were those of Johann Worzischek (Jan Vorisek), published in 1822 by Mechetti of Vienna, and that the title was used again by Leopold Czapek for his Op. 6 of 1826, also published by Mechetti, concluding that the name did not originate with Schubert; see Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 692. Yet the French title may have beckoned to Schubert for its relative lack of pre-existing associations and its suggestion of fluctuating moods.

18 Schubert studied violin as a boy (see Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 12) and later played the viola when joining his father and brothers to play quartets (see Deutsch, Schubert: A Documentary Biography, 913), but was most often heard at the piano, either accompanying his lieder, performing his own chamber music, or playing his solo works.

19 Hugh MacDonald, [Treble clef, 9/8 metre, G Major Key Signature], Nineteenth-Century Music 11/3 (1988): 223–5.

20 In his influential treatise, Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst (1784), Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart (1738–91) described the key of G major thusly: ‘Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief uttered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key.’ This translation comes from Steblin, Rita, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, 2nd edn (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2002), 117.Google Scholar Steblin concludes: ‘It is evident that by the 1830s a tradition of key characteristics … influenced to a great extent by Schubart, had become well established. Writers like Schilling and Hand, who believed that these traits were inherent in the keys, were no longer concerned with creating new subjective descriptions but rather with clarifying and illustrating earlier ones.’ See Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, 184. As an example, Steblin cites Gustav Schilling's account of F # major and G major in his Universal-Lexicon der Tonkunst (1835–36), paraphrasing Schilling thusly: ‘Schubart's “triumph over difficulty” is used to describe each key, but in F #, according to Schilling, the soul seizes its joy violently, while in G the soul is not yet sure of its goal, but anxiously peers across at the newly opened realm of joy.’ See Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics, 184.

21 Beethoven used the signature of seven flats in the third movement of his piano sonata, Op. 26 (1801), marked Marcia funebre sulla morte d’un eroe, which begins in A minor and ends in A major. Seven flats also appear within Schubert's posthumously published piano piece, D. 946, no. 2, distinguishing a section set in the minor subdominant of the framing key of E major. Like the G major Impromptu, each of these compositions also aspires toward exceptional expression. As we will see, the signature of seven sharps plays a crucial role in a movement of Schubert's last piano sonata.

22 Deutsch, Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 339. The quote, ‘My peace is gone, my heart is sore, I shall find it nevermore’ (Meine Ruh’ ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer, Ich finde sie nimmer, Und nimmermehr) is a refrain from Goethe's Faust, Part I, lines 3136–9, where it is repeated by Gretchen (Marguerite) alone in her room at her spinning wheel, that was set by Schubert a decade earlier in Gretchen am Spinnrade (D. 118; 1814).

23 In his study on the use of G major in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Hugh MacDonald noted that the increased use of ‘extreme’ keys corresponded to an increase in the use of atypical time signatures, and added: ‘Schubert's adoption of the style was characteristically fresh … Of the four Impromptus, D. 899, the first is marked ¢, yet as much as it is in; the second is marked yet is almost pure throughout; the third is marked ¢ but is in fact or perhaps. Here, intertwined, bloom both G and, with an aroma that intoxicated so many composers of Romantic piano music.’ Hugh MacDonald, [Treble clef, 9/8 metre, G Major Key Signature[, 255.

24 Familiar precedents with similar effects include the Pifa from Handel's Messiah (in), the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 21, K. 467 (in c with continuous triplets) and the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 27, no. 2 (in ¢ with continuous triplets). See Hatten, Robert, ‘Beethoven's Italian Trope: Modes of Stylistic Appropriation’, Beethoven Forum 13/1 (2006): 1–27,Google Scholar for more on this rhythmic phenomenon.

25 Had it been notated in ¢ with alternating downbeats instead of one downbeat in every four, the Impromptu would not sound nearly as broad as it does.

26 In the system of pitch identification employed in this article, ‘middle C’ is C4.

27 Perhaps the best-known exemplar of its genre, Gabriel Fauré's Elegie, Op. 24 (1880), for cello and piano (arranged for cello and orchestra in 1901), also exhibits ternary form.

28 In Ex. 5, upper-case letters identify the Impromptu's primary parts, lower-case letters indicate main sections subsumed by primary parts, and lower-case letters with numbers isolate subsections subsumed by main sections, whose divisions are marked by cadences. Prime and double-prime symbols individuate notable variations. Stemmed and beamed minims, accompanied by Roman numerals, represent tonic G and the cadential dominant corresponding to that of the fundamental structure. Crotchets and Roman numerals symbolize cadentially confirmed secondary tonalities (C major and E major), as well as the abruptly assumed key at the start of the centre section (E minor). Finally, stemless noteheads and slurs sketch prolongational elements that support and sustain the effects of more significant structural elements. The analytical notation used in Ex. 5 draws upon the tonal theories and graphic analytical techniques of the Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker.

29 Heinrich Schenker recognized the forward-facing character of the harmonic progressions in bars 9–12 of Schubert's Impromptu. Initially he described them as ‘anticipations … of the whole subsequent scale step’; see Schenker, Heinrich, Harmony, ed. Jonas, Oswald, trans. Elisabeth Mann Borgese (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, [1906] 1954): 304–5Google Scholar and Ex. 275. In bars 9–12 of the Impromptu, the ‘anticipated’ scale steps are the ii and IV harmonies in G major. Schenker characterized such anticipatory progressions as instances of ‘harmonic inversion’, noting how they ‘created a tension of high artistic value’; see Harmony, 31–7. Later Schenker indicated they were ‘auxiliary cadences’ – spans generated via the hypothetical transference of forms of the fundamental structure to lower levels, which were understood to be abbreviated by the omission of the initial tonic bass, and in some instances also by the omission of a linear descent in the uppermost voice. See Schenker, Heinrich, Free Composition, trans. and ed. Oster, Ernst (New York: Longman, [1935] 1979): 88–9Google Scholar and Fig. 110, b2, for his discussion of auxiliary cadences, where Schenker's sketch of bars 9–12 and 17–24 is rendered in G major, evidently based on the transposed edition of the Impromptu first published by Haslinger in 1857

30 Forward-facing harmonic progressions such as these represent what I have called precursive prolongations; see James William Sobaskie, ‘Tonal Implication and the Gestural Dialectic in Schubert's A Minor Quartet’: 56–65; James William Sobaskie, ‘The “Problem” of Schubert's String Quintet’, 57–92; and especially Sobaskie, James William, ‘Precursive Prolongation in the Préludes of Chopin’, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland 3 (2007–08): 25–61Google Scholar (downloadable as a PDF at www.music.ucc.ie/jsmi/index.php/jsmi), which features a comprehensive exposition of the concept.

31 At the surface level, these neighbour prefixes – sometimes referred to as appoggiaturas or incomplete neighbour tones – also represent precursive prolongations whose accented dissonance and contextual dependence imply their forthcoming stepwise resolutions.

32 A similar rhythm, expressed by the durational sequence of minim–crochet– crochet–minim–crochet–crochet distinguishes Schubert's lied Der Tod und Das Mädchen (D. 531; 1817), where it is associated with the persona of Death.

33 Perhaps these descending thirds inspired the so-called ‘death-thirds’ of Johannes Brahms, including those in the Fourth Symphony, Op. 98, and in O Tod, o Tod, wie bitter bist du, the third of the Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121, no. 3; for more, see Hull, Kenneth, ‘Allusive Irony in Brahms's Fourth Symphony’, in Brahms Studies 2, ed. Brodbeck, David (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1998): 135–68Google Scholar.

34 For a Schenkerian study of this work, see Renwick, William, ‘Schubert's Impromptu in G: A Response to Adam Krims’, Canadian University Music Review 20/2: 31–41Google Scholar.

35 The pitch classes G and B, which frame the bass in bars 78–80, correspond to the first two melodic tones in the upper voice of the Impromptu; see bars 1–2 of Ex. 1.

36 Heinrich Schenker offered a alternative interpretation of the goal chord at the start of bar 80, identifying it as an instance of IV and suggesting that the melodic tone in the uppermost voice arose through neighbour motion; see Schenker, Free Composition, 82 and Fig. 100, 3f. Given Schubert's exploration of the Neapolitan relation in his later works, I am inclined to believe that this particular sonority may be best understood as a deliberate harmonic choice rather than the contrapuntal elaboration of a chromatically lowered subdominant chord.

37 In private communication, Robert Hatten eloquently captured the contextual process of Schubert's G major Impromptu as ‘an evolving, developing, variational treatment that moves more deeply into the labyrinth of tonal space, whereby G minor is ultimately discovered in the heart of darkness’.

38 F major chords sound in bars 11 and 19 (see Ex. 2 for the former).

39 This stepwise motion was presaged by the bass sequence E2–D2–C2–B1–A1–G1–F1 in bars 51–54 that effected retransition to the reprise.

40 See Rosand, Ellen, ‘The Descending Tetrachord: An Emblem of Lament’, in The Musical Quarterly 65/3 (1979): 346–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Su Yin Mak examines the descending tetrachord in Schubert's music, including instances in the lied Die Liebe hat gelogen (D. 751; 1822) and the G major String Quartet (D. 887; 1826); see Mak, Su Yin, ‘Schubert's Allusions to the Descending Tetrachord’, in Le Style instrumental de Schubert: sources, analyse, évolution, Xavier Hascher (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2007): 163–79Google Scholar.

41 Brown, Maurice J.E., ‘Schubert and Neapolitan Relationships’, The Musical Times 85/1212 (1944): 43–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Brown offers an interesting observation regarding the G Impromptu: ‘A word might be said in conclusion about Schubert's use of the minor form of the Neapolitan sixth. In the article quoted just previously, Tovey refers to the use of an E minor chord at the end of the first movement of the D minor String Quartet; but he quotes it as if it were an isolated case, which it is far from being. More familiar to most people probably, is the sudden swerve into G minor at the end of the G major Piano Impromptu. Other examples are frequently to be found in the songs of 1827–28 – there is an emphatic use of it in the final cadence of “Herbst” – and also in the Sonatas of 1828’ (44). The article to which Brown refers is Tovey, Donald Francis, ‘Tonality’, in Music and Letters 9/4 (1928): 341–63,Google Scholar wherein the author discusses the D minor Quartet on p. 354.

42 For instance, see also Schubert's Moments musicaux in F minor and A major, Op. 94, Nos 5 and 6 (D. 780; 1828), and the Impromptu in A, Op. 142, no. 2 (D. 935; 1827), as well as the earlier ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy in C major (Op. 15; D. 760; 1822), whose central span in C # minor invokes the minor Neapolitan degree of the primary tonality.

43 Deutsch, Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 701, 742, 807–8. Schubert offered his last sonatas to Probst, who already had agreed to publish the Piano Trio in E major (D. 929), but aroused no interest. After Schubert's death, his brother Ferdinand sold them to Haslinger, though ultimately Diabelli published them in 1838. See Deutsch, Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 811.

44 Regarding the state of the composer's health in late summer, Deutsch confided: ‘Schubert removes, on the advice of Dr. Ernst Rinna von Sarenbach, to his brother Ferdinand's in the Neue Widen suburb, No. 694, 1st September 1828. Schubert was ailing. He suffered from effusions of blood and fits of giddiness.’ Deutsch, Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 803. Rinna was the physician who attended Schubert in the composer's last days.

45 James M. Baker observed that Schubert created long-range structural connections by exploiting the low-bass register in all four movements of the piano sonata in B major (D. 960); see his essay, ‘Skirting the Structural Tonic’, in Le Style instrumental de Schubert: sources, analyse, évolution, ed. Hascher, Xavier (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2007): 230–47.Google Scholar

46 The E # recalls what Edward T. Cone identified as a ‘promissory note … a troubling element of which one expects to hear more’, in the composer's Moment musical, Op. 94, no. 6 (D. 780), yet its implications may be less clear. See Cone, , ‘Schubert's Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics’, 19th-Century Music 5/3 (1982): 236Google Scholar.

47 Schubert's fondness for mixture, which involves the interchange of harmonies between parallel major and minor modes, is well known. Among the first essays to discuss this Schubertian ‘fingerprint’ is Blom's, Eric ‘His Favourite Device’, Music and Letters 9/4 (1928): 372–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Writing to Edler von Mosel regarding his opera Alfonso and Estrella on 28 February 1823, Schubert indicated a visit was not possible at that time, owing to ‘the circumstances of my health still forbidding me to leave the house’. Otto Eric Deutsch, Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 270. In his accompanying note, Deutsch speculates: ‘We here for the first time learn something of an illness, which seems to have attacked Schubert already at New Year’.

49 The original German text of Mein Gebet appears in Deutsch, Otto Eric, Franz Schubert: Die Dokumente Seines Lebens und Schaffens (Munich & Leipzig: Georg Müller, 1914): 192–3.I thank Kevin Dermott Smith for advice on my translation. In Deutsch's Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 279, Eric Blom's translation of Schubert's poem is rather free, evidently because he wished to create a rhyming English equivalent: ‘MY PRAYER. With a holy zeal I yearn/Life in fairer worlds to learn;/Would this gloomy earth might seem/Filled with love's almighty dream./Sorrow's child, almighty Lord,/Grant Thy bounty for reward./For redemption from above/Send a ray of endless love./See, abased in dust and mire,/Scorched by agonizing fire,/I in torture go my way,/Nearing doom's destructive day./Take my life, my flesh and blood,/Plunge it all in Lethe's flood,/To a purer, stronger state/Deign me, Great One, to translate./8th May 1823. Frz. Schubert.’Google Scholar

50 Deutsch, Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 286. In his notes for this letter, Deutsch states, ‘After a few earlier hints we find here the first definite mention of a serious illness suffered by Schubert. There is no doubt that it was venereal, probably syphilis.’ See Deutsch, A Documentary Biography, 287.

51 Ibid., 336.

52 Ibid., 337.

53 Ibid., 363. Deutsch identifies the ‘grand sonata’ as the Duo in C major, Op. posth. 140 (D. 812) for pianoforte four hands, and the Variations as those in A major, Op. 35 (D. 813), which had been written during the summer of 1824. Surely Schubert also gained considerable joy and diversion from playing these and other duets with friends and family but it would seem that, with what he faced, self-immersion in creativity supplied what kith and kin could not.

54 Deutsch, , Schubert, A Documentary Biography, 819–20.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 823.