András Schiff (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˌɒndraːʃ ˈʃifː]) (born 21 December 1953) is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist and conductor, who made numerous recordings and is one of the most highly honored pianists of our time, having won numerous major awards. He has also become an outspoken critic of the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán, whom he has publicly accused of racism, anti-Semitism, and neo-fascism, stating in January 2012 that he would never again set foot in his native country.^[1]

Biography[link]

Schiff was born in Budapest into a Jewish family and began piano lessons at the age five with Elisabeth Vadasz. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest until 1974 and in London with George Malcolm. He was a finalist in the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition in 1975. He emigrated from Hungary in 1979.^[2] He was unable to meet requirements for US citizenship because of his long absences for touring ^[3], and accepted Austrian citizenship in 1987 and established homes in London and Salzburg. He became a British citizen in 2001. He is married to the violinist Yuuko Shiokawa, and resides in London, England, and Florence, Italy.^[4]

Awards he has won include a 1990 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) - English Suites by Bach; a 1990 Gramophone Award for a Schubert recital with Peter Schreier; the Bartok Prize in 1991; the Claudio Arrau Memorial Medal in 1994; the Kossuth Prize in 1996; the Léonie Sonning Music Prize in 1997; honorary membership in the Beethoven House in Bonn, awarded in 2006 in honor of his complete recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas; the Italian prize, Premio della critica musicale Franco Abbiati, also for his Beethoven cycle in 2007; also in 2007, the Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize, sponsored by the Kohn Foundation, awarded to "an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the performance and/or scholarly study of Johann Sebastian Bach" ^[5]; the Wigmore Hall Medal in 2008 ^[6]; also in 2008, the Klavier-Festival Ruhr Prize, for outstanding pianistic achievement; the Robert Schumann Prize of the City of Zwickau in 2011; and in January 2012, the Golden Mozart Medal of the International Stiftung Mozarteum of which there have been only four previous winners in 70 years. He has been made an Honorary Professor by music academies in Budapest, Detmold and Munich, and a Special Supernumerary Fellow of Balliol College of Oxford University.

From 1989 until 1998 Schiff was Artistic Director of the "Musiktage Mondsee" chamber music festival near Salzburg. In 1995, he co- founded the "Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte" in Kartause Ittingen, Switzerland, together with the famed oboist Heinz Holliger. From 2004 to 2007 he was Artist in Residence of the Kunstfest Weimar. In the 2007-2008 season he was Pianist in Residence of the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2011-12 he was one of the "Perspectives Artists" of Carnegie Hall ^[7], a prestigious position.

In 1999 he formed an occasional chamber orchestra, which he named the Cappella Andrea Barca, with the name coming from an Italian translation of his last name (Barca and Schiff both mean "boat"), although he has provided a humorous pseudo-biography of the fictional Barca.^[8] He has appeared as a conductor with several major orchestras, including regular appearances with Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Schiff is one of the most renowned interpreters of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Schumann. His many recordings for the Decca label include the complete piano sonatas of Mozart and Schubert and much of the keyboard music of Bach, as well as the complete Mozart piano concertos with the Camerata Academica Salzburg led by Sándor Végh. His recordings for the Teldec label include the complete Beethoven piano concertos with the Staatskapelle Dresden led by Bernard Haitink. For the ECM label Schiff has recorded the music of Janáček and Sándor Veress, and made live recordings in the Zurich Tonhalle of all of Beethoven's piano sonatas. He gave a series of lecture-recitals on the complete Beethoven sonatas in London.^[9] His live concert recordings for ECM also include his second traversals of the Bach Partitas and Goldberg Variations.

For G. Henle, he provided fingerings for new editions of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (published in 2006) and fingerings and missing cadenzas for a new edition of the Mozart piano concertos (begun in 2007).

He prefers to play a Bösendorfer piano rather than the more widely used Steinway, and when possible travels and performs with his own instrument. He has also recorded Mozart using Mozart's own piano.

Political views[link]

Schiff has made public statements about politics in Austria and Hungary.

• Austria

In 2000 he commented on the rise of the far right in Austria.^[10]. He subsequently renounced his Austrian citizenship.

• Hungary

On 1 January 2011, Schiff published a letter in the Washington Post questioning whether "Hungary is ready and worthy to take on" the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, as it did that day,^[11] because of "racism, discrimination against the Roma, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, chauvinism and reactionary nationalism," and "the latest media laws" (referring to new media laws passed by the government of Viktor Orbán). On 16 January 2011, Schiff told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he had become "persona non grata" in Hungary and would probably never perform there again "or even visit." On 17 January he joined Hungarian conductor Ádám Fischer and six other Hungarian intellectuals and artists in publishing an open letter "To the artists of Europe and the World" protesting "racism against Roma, with homophobia and with antisemitism" and saying that "the freedom of the media, of the arts and artists, and of those who could most effectively act against such tendencies is more and more curtailed." The letter appeared in German and in English,^[12] with a note of support from Daniel Barenboim appended. As a result of his statements, he came under attack from Hungarian nationalists. ^[13] On January 14, 2012, in an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiel Schiff accused the Viktor Orbán government of racism, anti-Semitism and neo-fascism, and declared that he would never set foot in Hungary again.^[1][13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Andras Schiff: Beethoven Lecture-recitals at Wigmore Hall, London
• National Public Radio Article
• In Concert on National Public Radio
• Andras Schiff biography at the Pittsburgh Symphony

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms (pronounced [joːˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms]; 7 May 1833  – 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene. In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable; following a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the Three Bs.

Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and for voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works; he also worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed many of his works and left some of them unpublished.^[1]

Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. He was a master of counterpoint, the complex and highly disciplined art for which Johann Sebastian Bach is famous, and also of development, a compositional ethos pioneered by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. Brahms aimed to honour the "purity" of these venerable "German" structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.

Life[link]

Early years[link]

Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms (1806–72), came to Hamburg from Dithmarschen, seeking a career as a town musician. He was proficient in several instruments, but found employment mostly playing the horn and double bass. In 1830, he married Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen (1789–1865), a seamstress never previously married, who was seventeen years older than he was. Johannes Brahms had an older sister and a younger brother. Initially, they lived near the city docks, in the Gängeviertel quarter of Hamburg, for six months, before moving to a small house on the Dammtorwall, a small city in the Inner Alster.

Photograph from 1891 of the building in Hamburg where Brahms was born. Brahms's family occupied part of the first floor, behind the two double windows on the left hand side. The building was destroyed by bombing in 1943.

Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training. He studied piano from the age of seven with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Owing to the family's poverty, as a boy Brahms played in dance halls and brothels – some of the seediest places in Hamburg – surrounded by drunken sailors and prostitutes that often fondled the boy as he played.^{[citation needed]} Early biographers found this shocking and played down this portion of his life. Modern writers have pointed to this as a reason for Brahms's later inability to have a successful relationship for marriage, etc., his view of women being warped by his experiences.^[2] Recently, Brahms scholars Styra Avins^[3] and Kurt Hoffman have suggested that this legend is false. Since Brahms himself clearly originated the story, however, some have questioned Hoffman's theory.^[4][5]

For a time, Brahms also learned the cello.^[6] After his early piano lessons with Otto Cossel, Brahms studied piano with Eduard Marxsen, who had studied in Vienna with Ignaz von Seyfried (a pupil of Mozart) and Carl Maria von Bocklet (a close friend of Schubert). The young Brahms gave a few public concerts in Hamburg, but did not become well known as a pianist until he made a concert tour at the age of nineteen. (In later life, he frequently took part in the performance of his own works, whether as soloist, accompanist, or participant in chamber music.) He conducted choirs from his early teens, and became a proficient choral and orchestral conductor.

Meeting Joachim and Liszt[link]

Brahms in 1853

He began to compose quite early in life, but later destroyed most copies of his first works; for instance, Louise Japha, a fellow-pupil of Marxsen, reported a piano sonata, that Brahms had played or improvised at the age of 11, had been destroyed. His compositions did not receive public acclaim until he went on a concert tour as accompanist to the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi in April and May 1853. On this tour he met Joseph Joachim at Hanover, and went on to the Court of Weimar where he met Franz Liszt, Peter Cornelius, and Joachim Raff. According to several witnesses of Brahms's meeting with Liszt (at which Liszt performed Brahms's Scherzo, Op. 4, at sight), Reményi was offended by Brahms's failure to praise Liszt's Sonata in B minor wholeheartedly (Brahms supposedly fell asleep during a performance of the recently composed work), and they parted company shortly afterwards. Brahms later excused himself, saying that he could not help it, having been exhausted by his travels.

Brahms and Schumann[link]

Joachim had given Brahms a letter of introduction to Robert Schumann, and after a walking tour in the Rhineland, Brahms took the train to Düsseldorf, and was welcomed into the Schumann family on arrival there. Schumann, amazed by the 20-year-old's talent, published an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" (New Paths) in the 28 October 1853 issue of the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik alerting the public to the young man, who, he claimed, was "destined to give ideal expression to the times."^[7] This pronouncement was received with some scepticism outside of Schumann's immediate circle, and may have increased Brahms's naturally self-critical need to perfect his works and technique. While he was in Düsseldorf, Brahms participated with Schumann and Albert Dietrich in writing a sonata for Joachim; this is known as the "F–A–E Sonata" (German: Frei aber einsam). He became very attached to Schumann's wife, the composer and pianist Clara, fourteen years his senior, with whom he would carry on a lifelong, emotionally passionate relationship. Brahms never married, despite strong feelings for several women and despite entering into an engagement, soon broken off, with Agathe von Siebold in Göttingen in 1859. After Schumann's attempted suicide and subsequent confinement in a mental sanatorium near Bonn in February 1854, Brahms was the main intercessor between Clara and her husband, and found himself virtually head of the household.

After Schumann's death, Brahms hurried to Düsseldorf and for the next two years lived in an apartment above the Schumann's house, and sacrificed his career and his art for Clara's sake. The question of Brahms and Clara Schumann is perhaps the most mysterious in music history, alongside that of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved". Whether they were actually lovers is unknown, but their destruction of their letters to each other may point to something beyond mere privacy.^[8]

Detmold and Hamburg[link]

After Schumann's death at the sanatorium in 1856, Brahms divided his time between Hamburg, where he formed and conducted a ladies' choir, and Detmold in the Principality of Lippe, where he was court music-teacher and conductor. He was the soloist at the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1859. He first visited Vienna in 1862, staying there over the winter, and, in 1863, was appointed conductor of the Vienna Singakademie. Though he resigned the position the following year, and entertained the idea of taking up conducting posts elsewhere, he based himself increasingly in Vienna and soon made his home there. From 1872 to 1875, he was director of the concerts of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde; afterwards, he accepted no formal position. He declined an honorary doctorate of music from University of Cambridge in 1877, but accepted one from the University of Breslau in 1879, and composed the Academic Festival Overture as a gesture of appreciation.

He had been composing steadily throughout the 1850s and 60s, but his music had evoked divided critical responses, and the Piano Concerto No. 1 had been badly received in some of its early performances. His works were labelled old-fashioned by the 'New German School' whose principal figures included Liszt and Richard Wagner. Brahms admired some of Wagner's music and admired Liszt as a great pianist, but the conflict between the two schools, known as the War of the Romantics, soon embroiled all of musical Europe. In the Brahms camp were his close friends: Clara Schumann, the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick, and the leading Viennese surgeon Theodor Billroth. In 1860, Brahms attempted to organise a public protest against some of the wilder excesses of the Wagnerians' music. This took the form of a manifesto, written by Brahms and Joachim jointly. The manifesto, which was published prematurely with only three supporting signatures, was a failure, and he never engaged in public polemics again.^[9]

Years of popularity[link]

It was the premiere of A German Requiem, his largest choral work, in Bremen, in 1868, that confirmed Brahms's European reputation and led many to accept that he had conquered Beethoven and the symphony. This may have given him the confidence finally to complete a number of works that he had wrestled with over many years, such as the cantata Rinaldo, his first string quartet, third piano quartet, and most notably his first symphony. This appeared in 1876, though it had been begun (and a version of the first movement seen by some of his friends) in the early 1860s. The other three symphonies then followed in 1877, 1883, and 1885. From 1881, he was able to try out his new orchestral works with the court orchestra of the Duke of Meiningen, whose conductor was Hans von Bülow. He was the soloist at the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1881, in Pest.

Brahms frequently travelled, both for business (concert tours) and pleasure. From 1878 onwards, he often visited Italy in the springtime, and he usually sought out a pleasant rural location in which to compose during the summer. He was a great walker and especially enjoyed spending time in the open air, where he felt that he could think more clearly.

Brahms's grave in the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery), Vienna.

In 1889, one Theo Wangemann, a representative of American inventor Thomas Edison, visited the composer in Vienna and invited him to make an experimental recording. Brahms played an abbreviated version of his first Hungarian dance on the piano. The recording was later issued on an LP of early piano performances (compiled by Gregor Benko). Although the spoken introduction to the short piece of music is quite clear, the piano playing is largely inaudible due to heavy surface noise. Nevertheless, this remains the earliest recording made by a major composer. Analysts and scholars remain divided, however, as to whether the voice that introduces the piece is that of Wangemann or of Brahms.^[10] Several attempts have been made to improve the quality of this historic recording; a "denoised" version was produced at Stanford University which claims to solve the mystery.^[11]

In 1889, Brahms was named an honorary citizen of Hamburg, until 1948 the only one born in Hamburg.^[12]

Later years[link]

In 1890, the 57-year-old Brahms resolved to give up composing. However, as it turned out, he was unable to abide by his decision, and in the years before his death he produced a number of acknowledged masterpieces. His admiration for Richard Mühlfeld, clarinetist with the Meiningen orchestra, moved him to compose the Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115 (1891), and the two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120 (1894). He also wrote several cycles of piano pieces, Opp. 116–119, the Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op. 121 (1896), and the Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, Op. 122 (1896).

While completing the Op. 121 songs, Brahms developed cancer (sources differ on whether this was of the liver or pancreas). His condition gradually worsened and he died on 3 April 1897, aged 63. Brahms is buried in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.

Tributes[link]

Later that year, the British composer Hubert Parry, who considered Brahms the greatest artist of the time, wrote an orchestral Elegy for Brahms. This was never played in Parry's lifetime, receiving its first performance at a memorial concert for Parry himself in 1918.

Music of Brahms[link]

	Intermezzo, Op. 116, No. 4 Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 1 Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 2 Intermezzo, Op. 117, No. 3 Intermezzo, Op. 76, No. 7
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Double Concerto in A minor, 2nd movement Double Concerto in A minor, 3rd movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 1st movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 2nd movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 3rd movement Cello Sonata in F, Op. 99, 4th movement Wiegenlied (Op. 49) Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1915)

Brahms plays his Hungarian Dance No. 1 Hungarian Dance No. 1 Recorded on 2 December 1889

Works[link]

Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including two serenades, four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 in D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and two companion orchestral overtures, the Academic Festival Overture and the Tragic Overture.

His large choral work A German Requiem is not a setting of the liturgical Missa pro defunctis but a setting of texts which Brahms selected from the Lutheran Bible. The work was composed in three major periods of his life. An early version of the second movement was first composed in 1854, not long after Robert Schumann's attempted suicide, and this was later used in his first piano concerto. The majority of the Requiem was composed after his mother's death in 1865. The fifth movement was added after the official premiere in 1868, and the work was published in 1869.

Brahms's works in variation form include, among others, the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel and the Paganini Variations, both for solo piano, and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn (now sometimes called the Saint Anthony Variations) in versions for two pianos and for orchestra. The final movement of the Fourth Symphony, Op. 98, is formally a passacaglia.

His chamber works include three string quartets, two string quintets, two string sextets, a clarinet quintet, a clarinet trio, a horn trio, a piano quintet, three piano quartets, and four piano trios (the fourth being published posthumously). He composed several instrumental sonatas with piano, including three for violin, two for cello, and two for clarinet (which were subsequently arranged for viola by the composer). His solo piano works range from his early piano sonatas and ballades to his late sets of character pieces. Brahms was a significant lieder composer, who wrote over 200 songs. His chorale preludes for organ, Op. 122, which he wrote shortly before his death, have become an important part of the organist's repertoire.

Brahms strongly preferred writing absolute music that does not refer to an explicit scene or narrative, and he never wrote an opera or a symphonic poem.

Despite his reputation as a serious composer of large, complex musical structures, some of Brahms's most widely known and most commercially successful compositions during his life were small-scale works of popular intent aimed at the thriving contemporary market for domestic music-making; indeed, during the 20th century, the influential American critic B. H. Haggin, rejecting more mainstream views, argued in his various guides to recorded music that Brahms was at his best in such works and much less successful in larger forms. Among the most cherished of these lighter works by Brahms are his sets of popular dances—the Hungarian Dances, the Waltzes, Op. 39, for piano duet, and the Liebeslieder Waltzes for vocal quartet and piano—and some of his many songs, notably the Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4 (published in 1868). This last was written (to a folk text) to celebrate the birth of a son to Brahms's friend Bertha Faber and is universally known as Brahms's Lullaby.

Style and influences[link]

Brahms in mid-career

Brahms maintained a Classical sense of form and order in his works – in contrast to the opulence of the music of many of his contemporaries. Thus many admirers (though not necessarily Brahms himself) saw him as the champion of traditional forms and "pure music", as opposed to the "New German" embrace of programme music.

Brahms venerated Beethoven: in the composer's home, a marble bust of Beethoven looked down on the spot where he composed, and some passages in his works are reminiscent of Beethoven's style. Brahms's First Symphony bears strongly the influence of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, as the two works are both in a formidable C minor, and end in the struggle towards a C major triumph. The main theme of the finale of the First Symphony is also reminiscent of the main theme of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth, and when this resemblance was pointed out to Brahms, he replied that any ass – jeder Esel – could see that. In 1876, when the work was premiered in Vienna, it was immediately hailed as "Beethoven's Tenth". However, the similarity of Brahms's music to that of late Beethoven had first been noted as early as November 1853, in a letter from Albert Dietrich to Ernst Naumann.^[13][14]

A German Requiem was partially inspired by his mother's death in 1865 (at which time he composed a funeral march that was to become the basis of Part Two, Denn alles Fleisch), but it also incorporates material from a symphony which he started in 1854 but abandoned following Schumann's suicide attempt. He once wrote that the Requiem "belonged to Schumann". The first movement of this abandoned Symphony was re-worked as the first movement of the First Piano Concerto.

Brahms also loved the Classical composers Mozart and Haydn. He collected first editions and autographs of their works, and edited performing editions. He studied the music of pre-classical composers, including Giovanni Gabrieli, Johann Adolph Hasse, Heinrich Schütz, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, and, especially, Johann Sebastian Bach. His friends included leading musicologists, and, with Friedrich Chrysander, he edited an edition of the works of François Couperin. Brahms also edited works by C. P. E. and W. F. Bach. He looked to older music for inspiration in the art of counterpoint; the themes of some of his works are modelled on Baroque sources such as Bach's The Art of Fugue in the fugal finale of Cello Sonata No. 1 or the same composer's Cantata No. 150 in the passacaglia theme of the Fourth Symphony's finale.

The early Romantic composers also had a major influence on Brahms, particularly Schumann, who encouraged Brahms as a young composer. During his stay in Vienna in 1862–63, Brahms became particularly interested in the music of Franz Schubert.^[15] The latter's influence may be identified in works by Brahms dating from the period, such as the two piano quartets Op. 25 and Op. 26, and the Piano Quintet which alludes to Schubert's String Quintet and Grand Duo for piano four hands.^[15][16] The influence of Chopin and Mendelssohn on Brahms is less obvious, although occasionally one can find in his works what seems to be an allusion to one of theirs (for example, Brahms's Scherzo, Op. 4, alludes to Chopin's Scherzo in B-flat minor;^[17] the scherzo movement in Brahms's Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, alludes to the finale of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in C minor).^[18]

Brahms considered giving up composition when it seemed that other composers' innovations in extended tonality would result in the rule of tonality being broken altogether. Although Wagner became fiercely critical of Brahms as the latter grew in stature and popularity, he was enthusiastically receptive of the early Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel; Brahms himself, according to many sources (Swafford, 1999), deeply admired Wagner's music, confining his ambivalence only to the dramaturgical precepts of Wagner's theory.

Brahms wrote settings for piano and voice of 144 German folk songs, and many of his lieder reflect folk themes or depict scenes of rural life. His Hungarian Dances were among his most profitable compositions.

Brahms and religion[link]

Brahms's personal views tended to be humanistic and sceptical, though one of his musical influences was undoubtedly the Bible as rendered in German by Martin Luther. His Requiem employs biblical texts to speak words of comfort to the bereaved while generally omitting statements concerning salvation or immortality. Composer Walter Niemann declared "The fact that Brahms began his creative activity with the German folk song and closed with the Bible reveals... the true religious creed of this great man of the people." Biographers and critics more often understand Brahms's appreciation of Lutheran tradition as cultural more than existential.^[19] When asked by conductor Karl Reinthaler to add additional sectarian text to his German Requiem, Brahms responded, "As far as the text is concerned, I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and instead use Human; also with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John 3:16. On the other hand, I have chosen one thing or another because I am a musician, because I needed it, and because with my venerable authors I can't delete or dispute anything. But I had better stop before I say too much."

There is reason to believe that Brahms was a religious freethinker. Being a star of his age, he would frequently say deceptive things to the public. This means that the most reliable accounts on Brahms's innermost feelings may come from the people in the close circle around him. Among these was the devout Catholic Antonín Dvořák, the closest Brahms ever came to having a protégé. In a letter, Dvořák disclosed his concerns regarding Brahms's religious views: "Such a man, such a fine soul—and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!"^[20]

The question of Brahms and religiosity has been controversial and elicited accusations of fraud. One example is the book Talks With Great Composers, released in the 1950s by Arthur Abell, which contains an unconfirmed interview with Brahms and Joseph Joachim, replete with biblical references. The interview has been declared fraudulent by Brahms biographer Jan Swafford.^[5]

Influence[link]

Brahms's point of view looked both backward and forward; his output was often bold in its exploration of harmony and rhythm. As a result, he was an influence on composers of both conservative and modernist tendencies. Within his lifetime, his idiom left an imprint on several composers within his personal circle, who strongly admired his music, such as Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Robert Fuchs, and Julius Röntgen, as well as on Gustav Jenner, who was Brahms's only formal composition pupil. Antonín Dvořák, who received substantial assistance from Brahms, deeply admired his music and was influenced by it in several works, such as the Symphony No. 7 in D minor and the F minor Piano Trio. Features of the 'Brahms style' were absorbed in a more complex synthesis with other contemporary (chiefly Wagnerian) trends by Hans Rott, Wilhelm Berger, Max Reger and Franz Schmidt, whereas the British composers Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar and the Swede Wilhelm Stenhammar all testified to learning much from Brahms's example. As Elgar said, "I look at the Third Symphony of Brahms, and I feel like a pygmy."^[21]

Ferruccio Busoni's early music shows much Brahmsian influence, and Brahms took an interest in him, though Busoni later tended to disparage Brahms. Towards the end of his life, Brahms offered substantial encouragement to Ernő Dohnányi and also to Alexander von Zemlinsky. Their early chamber works (and those of Béla Bartók, who was friendly with Dohnányi) show a thoroughgoing absorption of the Brahmsian idiom. Zemlinsky, moreover, was in turn the teacher of Arnold Schoenberg, and Brahms was apparently impressed by two movements of Schoenberg's early Quartet in D major which Zemlinsky showed him. In 1933, Schoenberg wrote an essay "Brahms the Progressive" (re-written 1947), which drew attention to Brahms's fondness for motivic saturation and irregularities of rhythm and phrase; in his last book (Structural Functions of Harmony, 1948), he analysed Brahms's "enriched harmony" and exploration of remote tonal regions. These efforts paved the way for a re-evaluation of Brahms's reputation in the 20th century. Schoenberg went so far as to orchestrate one of Brahms's piano quartets. Schoenberg's pupil Anton Webern, in his 1933 lectures, posthumously published under the title The Path to the New Music, claimed Brahms as one who had anticipated the developments of the Second Viennese School, and Webern's own Op. 1, an orchestral passacaglia, is clearly in part a homage to, and development of, the variation techniques of the passacaglia-finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony.

Brahms was honoured by the German Hall of Fame, the Walhalla memorial. On 14 September 2000, he was introduced there as the 126th "rühmlich ausgezeichneter Teutscher" and 13th composer among them, with a bust by sculptor Milan Knobloch.^[22]

Personality[link]

Like Beethoven, Brahms was fond of nature and often went walking in the woods around Vienna. He often brought penny candy with him to hand out to children. To adults, Brahms was often brusque and sarcastic, and he sometimes alienated other people. His pupil Gustav Jenner wrote, "Brahms has acquired, not without reason, the reputation for being a grump, even though few could also be as lovable as he."^[23] He also had predictable habits, which were noted by the Viennese press, such as his daily visit to his favourite "Red Hedgehog" tavern in Vienna, and his habit of walking with his hands firmly behind his back, which led to a caricature of him in this pose walking alongside a red hedgehog. Those who remained his friends were very loyal to him, however, and he reciprocated with equal loyalty and generosity.

Brahms had amassed a small fortune in the second half of his career, around 1860, when his works sold widely. But despite his wealth, he lived very simply, with a modest apartment – a mess of music papers and books – and a single housekeeper who cleaned and cooked for him. He was often the butt of jokes for his long beard, his cheap clothes and often not wearing socks, etc. Brahms gave away large sums of money to friends and to aid various musical students, often with the term of strict secrecy. Brahms' domicile was hit during World War II, destroying his piano and other possessions that were still kept there for posterity by the Viennese.^[2]

Johann Strauss II (left) and Johannes Brahms (right) photographed in Vienna

Brahms was a lifelong friend of Johann Strauss II, though they were very different as composers. Brahms even struggled to get to the Theater an der Wien in Vienna for the premiere of Strauss's operetta Die Göttin der Vernunft in 1897 before his death. Perhaps the greatest tribute that Brahms paid to Strauss was his remark that he would have given anything to have written The Blue Danube waltz. An old anecdote recounts that when Strauss's wife Adele asked Brahms to autograph her fan, he wrote the first few notes of the "Blue Danube" waltz, and then wrote the words "Unfortunately not by Johannes Brahms!" underneath.

Brahms was an extreme perfectionist. He destroyed many early works – including a Violin Sonata he had performed with Reményi and violinist Ferdinand David – and once claimed to have destroyed 20 string quartets before he issued his official First in 1873. Over the course of several years, he changed an original project for a symphony in D minor into his first piano concerto. In another instance of devotion to detail, he laboured over the official First Symphony for almost fifteen years, from about 1861 to 1876. Even after its first few performances, Brahms destroyed the original slow movement and substituted another before the score was published. (A conjectural restoration of the original slow movement has been published by Robert Pascall.) Another factor that contributed to Brahms's perfectionism was that Schumann had announced early on that Brahms was to become the next great composer like Beethoven, a prediction that Brahms was determined to live up to. This prediction hardly added to the composer's self-confidence, and may have contributed to the delay in producing the First Symphony. However, Clara Schumann noted before that Brahms's First Symphony was a product that was not reflective of Brahms's real nature. She felt that the final exuberant movement was "too brilliant", as she was encouraged by the dark and tempestuous opening movement she had seen in an early draft. However, she recanted in accepting the Second Symphony, which has often been seen in modern times as one of his sunniest works. Other contemporaries, however, found the first movement especially dark, and Reinhold Brinkmann, in a study of Symphony No. 2 in relation to 19th century ideas of melancholy, has published a revealing letter from Brahms to the composer and conductor Vinzenz Lachner in which Brahms confesses to the melancholic side of his nature and comments on specific features of the movement that reflect this.

International Johannes Brahms Competition[link]

Further reading[link]

• Deiters/Newmarch. (1888). Johannes Brahms: A Biographical Sketch. Fisher Unwin (reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00479-4)
• Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, ISBN 0-19-816234-0 by Brahms himself, edited by Styra Avins, translated by Josef Eisinger (1998). A biography by way of comprehensive footnotes to a comprehensive collection of Brahms's letters (some translated into English for the first time). Elucidates some previously contentious matters, such as Brahms's reasons for declining the Cambridge invitation.
• Brahms, His Life and Work, by Karl Geiringer, photographs by Irene Geiringer (1987, ISBN 0-306-80223-6). A biog and discussion of his musical output, supplemented by, and cross-referenced with, the body of correspondence sent to Brahms.
• Charles Rosen discusses a number of Brahms's imitations of Beethoven in Chapter 9 of his Critical Entertainments: Music Old and New (2000; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-17730-4).
• Brahms by Malcolm MacDonald is a biography and also discussion of virtually everything Brahms composed, along with chapters examining his position in Romantic music, his devotion to Early Music, and his influence on later composers. (Dent 'Master Musicians' series, 1990; 2nd edition Oxford, 2001, ISBN 0-19-816484-X
• Johannes Brahms: A Biography, by Jan Swafford. A comprehensive (752 pages) look at the life and works of Brahms. (1999; Vintage, ISBN 0-679-74582-3)
• Late Idyll: The Second Symphony of Johannes Brahms, by Reinhold Brinkmann, translated by Peter Palmer. An analysis of Symphony No.2 and meditation of its position in Brahms's career and in relation to 19th century ideas of melancholy. (1995, Harvard, ISBN 0-674-51175-1)
• Johannes Brahms, His Work & Personality, by Hans Gal (Translated by Joseph Stein). Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1963.
• The Music of Brahms, by Michael Musgrave. Oxford, 1985 ISBN 0-19-816401-7

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Johannes Brahms

• Brahms Institut, Lübeck Academy of Music
• The Lied and Art Song Texts Page created and maintained by Emily Ezust Texts of the Lieder of Brahms with translations in various languages.
• "What's late about late Brahms?": an article in the TLS by Peter Williams, 7 November 2007
• Brahms at the Piano. Information about the recording made by Thomas Edison in 1889 of Brahms playing part of his Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor.
• Johannes Brahms: list of works from http://www.johannesbrahms.org
• Photo of Brahms as a young man in 1853
• Brahms Listening Guides. A collection in progress of detailed guides to the composer's works, linked to specific recordings but also including measure numbers
• Listings of live performances at Bachtrack
• johannes brahms biography
• Works by or about Johannes Brahms in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Johannes Brahms in the German National Library catalogue (German)

Sheet music[link]

• Complete collection of scores at the Brahms Institut in Breitkopf & Härtel or Simrock editions; work details
• Brahms’ scores – selection of printable works.
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Brahms's piano works
• Free scores of Brahms Lieder and orchestral works in GIF format from the Variations Project at Indiana University. Last accessed 14 August 2008.
• Free scores by Brahms at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Johannes Brahms in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Works by Johannes Brahms at Project Gutenberg
• Free scores by Johannes Brahms in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores Mutopia Project

Recordings[link]

• Free audio MP3 of some Brahms's works OnClassical – Creative Commons BY-NC-SA, 1.0 licensed
• Johannes Brahms – Violin Sonatas MP3 Creative Commons Recording
• Fünf Gesänge, Op. 104 (Brahms): Free MP3s (Op. 42, Op. 93a, Op. 104 and Op. 52)
• Kunst der Fuge: Johannes Brahms – MIDI files Daily limit of 5 files.
• Works by Brahms performed on virtual organs
• Classic Cat – Brahms – mp3s
• Performances of works by Johannes Brahms in MIDI and MP3 formats at Logos Virtual Library

1875 oil painting by Wilhelm August Rieder, after his own 1825 watercolor portrait

Franz Peter Schubert (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁants ˈʃuːbɛɐ̯t]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer.

Although he died at the age of 31, Schubert was a prolific composer, having written some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. Appreciation of Schubert's music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered and championed his works in the 19th century. Today, Schubert is seen as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers.

Biography[link]

Early life and education[link]

Schubert was born in Himmelpfortgrund (now a part of Alsergrund), Vienna, on 31 January 1797. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elisabeth Vietz, was the daughter of a Silesian master locksmith, and had also been a housemaid for a Viennese family prior to her marriage. Of Franz Theodor's fourteen children (one illegitimate child was born in 1783),^[1] nine died in infancy; five survived. Their father was a well-known teacher, and his school in Lichtental, a part of Vienna's 9th district, was well attended.^[2] He was not a musician of fame or with formal training, but he taught his son some elements of music.^[3]

The house in which Schubert was born, today Nussdorfer Strasse 54, in the 9th district of Vienna.

At the age of five, Schubert began receiving regular instruction from his father and a year later was enrolled at his father's school. His formal musical education also started around the same time. His father continued to teach him the basics of the violin,^[3] and his brother Ignaz gave him piano lessons.^[4] At the age of seven, Schubert began receiving lessons from Michael Holzer, the local church organist and choirmaster. Holzer's lessons seem to have mainly consisted of conversations and expressions of admiration^[5] and the boy gained more from his acquaintance with a friendly joiner's apprentice who used to take him to a neighboring pianoforte warehouse where he had the opportunity to practice on better instruments.^[6] He also played the viola in the family string quartet, with brothers Ferdinand and Ignaz on violin and his father on the cello. Schubert wrote many of his early string quartets for this ensemble.^[7]

Schubert first came to the attention of Antonio Salieri, then Vienna's leading musical authority, in 1804, when his vocal talent was recognized.^[7] In October 1808, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial seminary) through a choir scholarship. At the Stadtkonvikt, Schubert was introduced to the overtures and symphonies of Mozart.^[8] His exposure to these pieces and various lighter compositions, combined with his occasional visits to the opera set the foundation for his greater musical knowledge.^[9] One important musical influence came from the songs of Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, who was an important Lied composer of the time, which, his friend Joseph von Spaun reported, he "wanted to modernize".^[10] Schubert's friendship with Spaun began at the Stadtkonvikt and endured through his lifetime. In those early days, the more well-to-do Spaun furnished the impoverished Schubert with manuscript paper.^[9]

Meanwhile, his genius began to show in his compositions. Schubert was occasionally permitted to lead the Stadtkonvikt's orchestra, and Salieri decided to begin training him privately in musical composition and theory in these years.^[11] It was the first germ of that amateur orchestra for which, in later years, many of his compositions were written. During the remainder of his stay at the Stadtkonvikt he wrote a good deal of chamber music, several songs, some miscellaneous pieces for the pianoforte and, among his more ambitious efforts, a Kyrie (D. 31) and Salve Regina (D. 27), an octet for wind instruments (D. 72/72a, said to commemorate the 1812 death of his mother),^[12] a cantata for guitar and male voices (D. 110, in honor of his father's birthday in 1813), and his first symphony (D. 82).^[13]

	Mass No. 2 in G, D. 167 Kyrie Gloria Credo Sanctus Benedictus Agnus Dei Performance by the MIT Concert Choir
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Teacher at his father's school[link]

At the end of 1813, he left the Stadtkonvikt, and returned home for studies at the Normalhauptschule to train as a teacher. In 1814, he entered his father's school as teacher of the youngest students. For over two years, the young man endured the drudgery of the work, which he performed with very indifferent success.^[14] There were, however, other interests to compensate. He continued to receive private lessons in composition from Salieri, who did more for Schubert’s musical training than any of his other teachers. Salieri and Schubert would part ways in 1817.^[11]

In 1814, Schubert met a young soprano named Therese Grob, the daughter of a local silk manufacturer. Several of his songs (Salve Regina and Tantum Ergo) were composed for her voice, and she also performed in the premiere of his first Mass (D. 105) in September^[15] 1814.^[14] Schubert intended to marry Grob, but was hindered by the harsh marriage consent law of 1815,^[16] which required the ability to show the means to support a family.^[17] In November 1816, after failing to gain a position at Laibach, Schubert sent Grob's brother Heinrich a collection of songs, which were retained by her family into the 20th century.^[18][18][18]

One of Schubert's most prolific years was 1815. He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half of which was for orchestra, including nine church works, a symphony, and about 140 Lieder.^[19] In that year, he was also introduced to Anselm Hüttenbrenner and Franz von Schober, who would become his lifelong friends. Another friend, Johann Mayrhofer, was introduced to him by Spaun in 1814.^[20] Maynard Solomon suggested that Schubert was erotically attracted to men,^[21] a thesis that has, at times, been heatedly debated.^[22] Musicologist and Schubert expert Rita Steblin claimed that he was "chasing women".^[23]

Supported by friends[link]

Significant changes happened in 1816. Schober, a student of good family and some means, invited Schubert to room with him at his mother's house. The proposal was particularly opportune, for Schubert had just made the unsuccessful application for the post of Kapellmeister at Laibach, and he had also decided not to resume teaching duties at his father's school. By the end of the year, he became a guest in Schober's lodgings. For a time, he attempted to increase the household resources by giving music lessons, but they were soon abandoned, and he devoted himself to composition. "I compose every morning, and when one piece is done, I begin another."^[24] During this year, he focused on orchestral and choral works, although he also continued to write Lieder.^[25] Much of this work was unpublished, but manuscripts and copies circulated among friends and admirers.^[26]

Schubert and Vogl

In early 1817, Schober introduced Schubert to Johann Michael Vogl, a prominent baritone twenty years Schubert's senior. Vogl, for whom Schubert went on to write a great many songs, became one of Schubert's main proponents in Viennese musical circles. He also met Joseph Hüttenbrenner (brother to Anselm), who also played a role in promoting Schubert's music.^[27] These, and an increasing circle of friends and musicians, became responsible for promoting, collecting, and, after his death, preserving, his work.^[28]

In late 1817, Schubert's father gained a new position at a school in Rossau (not far from Lichtental). Schubert rejoined his father and reluctantly took up teaching duties there. In early 1818, he was rejected for membership in the prestigious Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, something that might have furthered his musical career.^[29] However, he began to gain more notice in the press, and the first public performance of a secular work, an overture performed in February 1818, received praise from the press in Vienna and abroad.^[30]

Schubert spent the summer of 1818 as music teacher to the family of Count Johann Karl Esterházy at their château in Zseliz (then in Hungary, now in Slovakia). His duties were relatively light (teaching piano and singing to the two daughters, Marie and Karoline), and the pay was relatively good. As a result, he happily continued to compose during this time. It may have been at this time that he wrote one of his now world-famous compositions, the Marche militaire No. 1 in D major. Marie and Karoline both being his piano students, and the original score of "Marche Militaire" being a piano duet, lend credence to this view. On his return from Zseliz, he took up residence with his friend Mayrhofer.^[29] The respite at Zseliz led to a succession of compositions for piano duet.^[31]

During the early 1820s, Schubert was part of a close-knit circle of artists and students who had social gatherings together that became known as "Schubertiaden". The tight circle of friends with which Schubert surrounded himself was dealt a blow in early 1820. Schubert and four of his friends were arrested by the Austrian police, who (in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars) were on their guard against revolutionary activities and suspicious of any gathering of youth or students. One of Schubert's friends, Johann Senn, was put on trial, imprisoned for over a year, and then permanently forbidden to enter Vienna. The other four, including Schubert, were "severely reprimanded", in part for "inveighing against [officials] with insulting and opprobrious language".^[32] While Schubert never saw Senn again, he did set some of his poems, "Selige Welt" and "Schwanengesang", to music. The incident may have played a role in a falling-out with Mayrhofer, with whom he was living at the time.^[33]

He was nicknamed "Schwämmerl" by his friends, which Gibbs describes as translating to "Tubby" or "Little Mushroom". "Schwammerl" is Austrian (and other) dialect for mushroom; the umlaut makes it a diminutive.

The Wanderer Fantasy D. 760 I. Allegro con fuoco II. Adagio III. Presto IV. Allegro Performed by Daniel Blanch. Courtesy of Musopen

Musical maturity[link]

The compositions of 1819 and 1820 show a marked advance in development and maturity of style.^[34] The unfinished oratorio "Lazarus" (D. 689) was begun in February; later followed, amid a number of smaller works, by the 23rd Psalm (D. 706), the Gesang der Geister (D. 705/714), the Quartettsatz in C minor (D. 703), and the "Wanderer Fantasy" for piano (D. 760). Of most notable interest is the staging in 1820 of two of Schubert's operas: Die Zwillingsbrüder (D. 647) appeared at the Theater am Kärntnertor on 14 June, and Die Zauberharfe (D. 644) appeared at the Theater an der Wien on 21 August.^[35] Hitherto, his larger compositions (apart from his masses) had been restricted to the amateur orchestra at the Gundelhof, a society which grew out of the quartet-parties at his home. Now he began to assume a more prominent position, addressing a wider public.^[35] Publishers, however, remained distant, with Anton Diabelli hesitantly agreeing to print some of his works on commission.^[36] The first seven opus numbers (all songs) appeared on these terms; then the commission ceased, and he began to receive the meager pittances which were all that the great publishing houses ever paid him. The situation improved somewhat in March 1821 when Vogl sang "Der Erlkönig" at a concert that was extremely well received.^[37] That month, Schubert composed a variation on a waltz by Anton Diabelli (D. 718), being one of the fifty composers who contributed to Vaterländischer Künstlerverein.

	Piano sonata in B♭, D. 960 (composed in 1828) 1. Molto moderato 2. Andante sostenuto 3. Scherzo. Allegro vivace con delicatezza 4. Allegro, ma non troppo Performed by Randolph Hokanson
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The production of the two operas turned Schubert's attention more firmly than ever in the direction of the stage, where, for a variety of reasons, he was almost completely unsuccessful. All in all, he produced seventeen stage works, each of them failures which were quickly forgotten. In 1822, Alfonso und Estrella was refused, partly owing to its libretto.^[38] Fierrabras (D. 796) was rejected in the fall of 1823, but this was largely due to the popularity of Rossini and the Italian operatic style, and the failure of Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe.^[39] Die Verschworenen (The Conspirators, D. 787) was prohibited by the censor (apparently on the grounds of its title),^[40] and Rosamunde (D. 797) was withdrawn after two nights, owing to the poor quality of the play for which Schubert had written incidental music. Of these works, the two former are written on a scale which would make their performances exceedingly difficult (Fierrabras, for instance, contains over 1,000 pages of manuscript score), but Die Verschworenen is a bright attractive comedy, and Rosamunde contains some of the most charming music that Schubert ever composed. In 1822, he made the acquaintance of both Weber and Beethoven, but little came of it in either case. Beethoven is said to have acknowledged the younger man's gifts on a few occasions, but some of this is likely legend and in any case he could not have known the real scope of Schubert's music – especially not the instrumental works – as so little of it was printed or performed in the composer's lifetime. On his deathbed, Beethoven is said to have looked into some of the younger man's works and exclaimed, "Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert!"^[41] but what would have come of it if he had recovered we can never know.

Schubert in 1825 (watercolor by Wilhelm August Rieder)

In the autumn of 1822, Schubert embarked suddenly on a work which more decisively than almost any other in those years showed his maturing personal vision, the "Unfinished Symphony" in B minor. The reason he left it unfinished after two movements and sketches some way into a third remains an enigma, and it is also remarkable that he did not mention it to any of his friends even though, as Brian Newbould notes, he must have felt thrilled by what he was achieving.

Last years and masterworks[link]

In 1823 Schubert, in addition to Fierrabras, also wrote his first song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795), setting poems by Wilhelm Müller.^[42] This series, together with the later cycle "Winterreise" (D. 911, also setting texts of Müller in 1827) is widely considered one of the pinnacles of Lieder.^{[citation needed]} He also composed the song Du bist die Ruh ("You are stillness/peace") D. 776 during this year. Also in that year, symptoms of syphilis first appeared.^[43]

In the spring of 1824 he wrote the Octet in F (D. 803), "A Sketch for a Grand Symphony"; and in the summer went back to Zseliz. There he became attracted to Hungarian musical idiom, and wrote the Divertissement à la hongroise (D. 818) for piano duet and the String Quartet in A minor (D. 804).

It has been said that he held a hopeless passion for his pupil, the Countess Karoline Eszterházy, but the only work he dedicated to her was his Fantasie in F minor (D. 940) for piano duet.^[44] His friend Bauernfeld penned the following verse, which appears to reference Schubert's unrequited sentiments:

In love with a Countess of youthful grace,
—A pupil of Galt's; in desperate case
Young Schubert surrenders himself to another,
And fain would avoid such affectionate pother^[45]

Despite his preoccupation with the stage, and later with his official duties, he found time during these years for a significant amount of composition. He completed the Mass in A flat (fr) (D. 678) and, in 1822, began the "Unfinished Symphony" (Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759). Why the symphony was "unfinished" has been debated endlessly without resolution. In 1824, he wrote the variations for flute and piano on "Trockne Blumen", from the cycle Die schöne Müllerin, and several string quartets. He also wrote the Arpeggione Sonata (D. 821), at a time when there was a minor craze over that instrument.^[46]

Ellens dritter Gesang (Ave Maria), D. 839 Performed by Dorothea Fayne (voice) and Uwe Streibel (piano)

The setbacks of previous years were compensated for by the prosperity and happiness of 1825. Publication had been moving more rapidly; the stress of poverty was for a time lightened; and in the summer he had a pleasant holiday in Upper Austria, where he was welcomed with enthusiasm. It was during this tour that he produced his "Songs from Sir Walter Scott". This cycle contains Ellens dritter Gesang (D. 839), a setting of Adam Storck's German translation of Scott's hymn from The Lady of the Lake, which is widely, though mistakenly, referred to as "Schubert's Ave Maria". It opens with the greeting Ave Maria, which recurs in the refrain; the entire Scott/Storck text in Schubert's song is frequently substituted with the complete Latin text of the traditional Ave Maria prayer.^[47] In 1825, Schubert also wrote the Piano Sonata in A minor (Op. 42, D. 845), and began the "Great" C major Symphony (Symphony No. 9, D. 944), which was completed the following year.^[48]

Schubert in 1827 (oil on canvas, by Anton Depauly)

From 1826 to 1828, Schubert resided continuously in Vienna, except for a brief visit to Graz in 1827. The history of his life during these three years was comparatively uninteresting, and is little more than a record of his compositions. In 1826, he dedicated a symphony (D. 944, that later came to be known as the "Great") to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and received an honorarium in return.^[49] In the spring of 1828, he gave, for the first and only time in his career, a public concert of his own works, which was very well received.^[50] The compositions themselves are a sufficient biography. The String Quartet in D minor (D. 810), with the variations on "Death and the Maiden", was written during the winter of 1825–1826, and first played on 25 January 1826. Later in the year came the String Quartet in G major, (D. 887, Op. 161), the "Rondeau brillant" for piano and violin (D. 895, Op. 70), and the Piano Sonata in G (D. 894, Op. 78) (first published under the title "Fantasia in G"). To these should be added the three Shakespearian songs, of which "Hark! Hark! the Lark" (D. 889) and "An Sylvia" (D. 891) were allegedly written on the same day, the former at a tavern where he broke his afternoon's walk, the latter on his return to his lodging in the evening.^[51]

In 1827, Schubert wrote the song cycle Winterreise (D. 911), a colossal peak in art song ("remarkable" was the way it was described at the Schubertiades), the Fantasia for piano and violin in C (D. 934), the Impromptus for piano, and the two piano trios (the first in B flat (D. 898), and the second in E flat, D. 929);^[52] in 1828 the Mirjams Siegesgesang (Song of Miriam, D. 942) on a text by Franz Grillparzer, the Mass in E-flat (D. 950), the Tantum Ergo (D. 962) in the same key, the String Quintet in C (D. 956), the second Benedictus to the Mass in C, the last three piano sonatas, and the collection of songs published posthumously as Schwanengesang ("Swan-song", D. 957).^[53] This collection, while not a true song cycle, retains a unity of style amongst the individual songs, touching depths of tragedy and of the morbidly supernatural which had rarely been plumbed by any composer in the century preceding it. Six of these are set to words by Heinrich Heine, whose Buch der Lieder appeared in the autumn. The Symphony No. 9 (D. 944) is dated 1828, but Schubert scholars believe that this symphony was largely written in 1825–1826 (being referred to while he was on holiday at Gastein in 1825 – that work, once considered lost, now is generally seen as an early stage of his C major symphony) and was revised for prospective performance in 1828. This huge, Beethovenian work was declared "unplayable" by a Viennese orchestra.^[54] This was a fairly unusual practice for Schubert, for whom publication, let alone performance, was rarely contemplated for most of his larger-scale works during his lifetime. In the last weeks of his life, he began to sketch three movements for a new Symphony in D (D. 936A).^[55]

Impromptu in B♭ D. 935 No. 3 This Impromptu is a theme and variations based on a theme from Rosamunde. Performed by Randolph Hokanson.

The works of his last two years reveal a composer increasingly meditating on the darker side of the human psyche and human relationships, and with a deeper sense of spiritual awareness and conception of the 'beyond'. He reaches extraordinary depths in several chillingly dark songs of this period, especially in the larger cycles. For example, the song Der Doppelgänger reaching an extraordinary climax, conveying madness at the realization of rejection and imminent death – a stark and visionary picture in sound and words that had been prefigured a year before by "Der Leiermann" (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man) at the end of Winterreise – and yet the composer is able to touch repose and communion with the infinite in the almost timeless ebb and flow of the String Quintet and his last three piano sonatas, moving between joyful, vibrant poetry and remote introspection. Even in large-scale works he was sometimes using increasingly sparse textures; Newbould compares his writing in the fragmentary Tenth Symphony (D. 936A), probably the work of his very last two months with Mahler's use of folksong-like harmonics and bare soundscapes.^[56] Schubert expressed the wish, were he to survive his final illness, to further develop his knowledge of harmony and counterpoint, and had actually made appointments for lessons with the counterpoint master Simon Sechter.^[57]

Final illness and death[link]

Franz Schubert's first tomb at Währing

In the midst of this creative activity, his health deteriorated. The cause of his death was officially diagnosed as typhoid fever, though other theories have been proposed, including the tertiary stage of syphilis.^[58] By the late 1820s, Schubert's health was failing and he confided to some friends that he feared that he was near death.^{[59][page needed]} In the late summer of 1828, the composer saw court physician Ernst Rinna, who may have confirmed Schubert's suspicions that he was ill beyond cure and likely to die soon.^{[60][page needed]} Some of his symptoms matched those of mercury poisoning (mercury was then a common treatment for syphilis, again suggesting that Schubert suffered from it).^[61] At the beginning of November, he again fell ill, experiencing headaches, fever, swollen joints, and vomiting. He was generally unable to retain solid food and his condition worsened. Schubert died in Vienna, at age 31, on 19 November 1828, at the apartment of his brother Ferdinand. The last musical work he had wished to hear was Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 131; his friend, violinist Karl Holz, who was present at the gathering, 5 days before Schubert's death, commented: "The King of Harmony has sent the King of Song a friendly bidding to the crossing".^[62] It was next to Beethoven, whom he had admired all his life, that Schubert was buried by his own request, in the village cemetery of Währing.^[63]

In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected in Vienna's Stadtpark.^[63] In 1888, both Schubert's and Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof, where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms.^[64] The cemetery in Währing was converted into a park in 1925, called the Schubert Park, and his former grave site was marked by a bust.

Music[link]

Franz Schubert memorial by Karl Kundmann in Vienna's Stadtpark

Schubert wrote almost 1000 works in a remarkably short career. The largest number of these are songs (over 600). He wrote seven complete symphonies, as well as the two movements of the "Unfinished" Symphony, a complete sketch (with partial orchestration) of a ninth, and arguable fragments of a tenth. There is a large body of music for solo piano, including 21 complete sonatas and many short dances, and a relatively large set of works for piano duet. There are nearly 30 chamber works, including some fragmentary works. His choral output includes six masses.^[65] He completed only half of his eighteen operatic projects,^[66] and composed no concertos.

Style and reception[link]

In July 1947 the twentieth-century composer Ernst Krenek discussed Schubert's style, abashedly admitting that he at first "shared the wide-spread opinion that Schubert was a lucky inventor of pleasing tunes ... lacking the dramatic power and searching intelligence which distinguished such 'real' masters as Bach or Beethoven". Krenek wrote that he reached a completely different assessment after close study of Schubert's songs at the urging of friend and fellow composer Eduard Erdmann. Krenek pointed to the piano sonatas as giving "ample evidence that [Schubert] was much more than an easy-going tune-smith who did not know, and did not care, about the craft of composition." Each sonata then in print, according to Krenek, exhibited "a great wealth of technical finesse" and revealed Schubert as "far from satisfied with pouring his charming ideas into conventional molds; on the contrary he was a thinking artist with a keen appetite for experimentation."^[67]

That "appetite for experimentation" manifests itself repeatedly in Schubert's output in a wide variety of forms and genres, including opera, liturgical music, chamber and solo piano music, and symphonic works. Perhaps most familiarly, his adventurousness manifests itself as a notably original sense of modulation, as in the second movement of the String Quintet, where he modulates from C major, through E major, to reach the tonic key of C♯ major.^[68] It also appears in unusual choices of instrumentation, as in the Arpeggione Sonata or the unconventional scoring of the Trout Quintet.

The Arpeggione Sonata, D. 821 I. Allegro Moderato 2. Adagio and 3. Allegretto Performed by Hans Goldstein (cello) and Clinton Adams (piano)

While he was clearly influenced by the Classical sonata forms of Beethoven and Mozart (his early works, among them notably the 5th Symphony, are particularly Mozartean), his formal structures and his developments tend to give the impression more of melodic development than of harmonic drama.^[69] This combination of Classical form and long-breathed Romantic melody sometimes lends them a discursive style: his 9th Symphony was described by Robert Schumann as running to "heavenly lengths".^[70] His harmonic innovations include movements in which the first section ends in the key of the subdominant rather than the dominant (as in the last movement of the Trout Quintet). Schubert's practice here was a forerunner of the common Romantic technique of relaxing, rather than raising, tension in the middle of a movement, with final resolution postponed to the very end.^{[citation needed]}

It was in the genre of the Lied, however, that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Leon Plantinga remarks, "In his more than six hundred Lieder he explored and expanded the potentialities of the genre as no composer before him."^[71] Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities burgeoned by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism.^[72] Among Schubert's treatments of the poetry of Goethe, his settings of Gretchen am Spinnrade and Der Erlkönig are particularly striking for their dramatic content, forward-looking uses of harmony, and their use of eloquent pictorial keyboard figurations, such as the depiction of the spinning wheel and treadle in the piano in Gretchen and the furious and ceaseless gallop in Erlkönig.^[73] He has composed music using the poems of a myriad of poets, with Goethe, Mayrhofer and Schiller being the top three most frequent, and others like Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Rückert and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff among many others. Also of particular note are his two song cycles on the poems of Wilhelm Müller, Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, which helped to establish the genre and its potential for musical, poetic, and almost operatic dramatic narrative. His last song cycle published in 1828 before his death, Schwanengesang, is also an innovative contribution to German lieder literature, as it features poems by different poets, namely Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Gabriel Seidl. The Theaterzeitung, writing about Winterreise at the time, commented that it was a work that "none can sing or hear without being deeply moved".^[74] Antonín Dvořák wrote in 1894 that Schubert, whom he considered one of the truly great composers, was clearly influential on shorter works, especially Lieder and shorter piano works: "The tendency of the romantic school has been toward short forms, and although Weber helped to show the way, to Schubert belongs the chief credit of originating the short models of piano forte pieces which the romantic school has preferably cultivated. [...] Schubert created a new epoch with the Lied. [...] All other songwriters have followed in his footsteps."^[75]

Schubert's compositional style progressed rapidly throughout his short life.^[76] The loss of potential masterpieces caused by his early death at age 31 was perhaps best expressed in the epitaph on his large tombstone written by the poet Franz Grillparzer, "Here music has buried a treasure, but even fairer hopes."^[77]

Schubert's chamber music continues to be popular. In a poll of classical music listeners announced in October 2008, the ABC in Australia found that Schubert's chamber works dominated the field, with the Trout Quintet coming first, followed by two of his other works.^[78]

The New York Times music critic, Anthony Tommasini, who ranked Schubert as the fourth greatest composer, wrote, "Four? Schubert. You have to love the guy, who died at 31, ill, impoverished and neglected except by a circle of friends who were in awe of his genius. For his hundreds of songs alone – including the haunting cycle “Winterreise,” which will never release its tenacious hold on singers and audiences – Schubert is central to our concert life.... Schubert’s first few symphonies may be works in progress. But the “Unfinished” and especially the Ninth Symphony are astonishing. The Ninth paves the way for Bruckner and prefigures Mahler.".^[79]

Posthumous history of Schubert's music[link]

Interior of museum at Schubert's birthplace, Vienna, 1914

Some of his smaller pieces were printed shortly after his death, but the manuscripts of many of the longer works, whose existence was not widely known, remained hidden in cabinets and file boxes of Schubert's family, friends, and publishers.^[80] Even some of Schubert's friends were unaware of the full scope of what he wrote, and for many years he was primarily recognized as the "prince of song", although there was recognition of some of his larger-scale efforts.^[81] In 1838 Robert Schumann, on a visit to Vienna, found the dusty manuscript of the C major symphony (the "Great", D. 944) and took it back to Leipzig, where it was performed by Felix Mendelssohn and celebrated in the Neue Zeitschrift. The most important step towards the recovery of the neglected works was the journey to Vienna which Sir George Grove (widely known for the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians) and Arthur Sullivan made in the autumn of 1867. The travellers rescued from oblivion seven symphonies, the Rosamunde incidental music, some of the Masses and operas, some of the chamber works, and a vast quantity of miscellaneous pieces and songs.^[80] This led to more widespread public interest in Schubert's work.^[82]

Posthumous lithograph by Joseph Kriehuber

From the 1830s through the 1870s, Franz Liszt transcribed and arranged a number of Schubert's works, particularly the songs. Liszt, who was a significant force in spreading Schubert's work after his death, said Schubert was "the most poetic musician who ever lived."^[83] Schubert's symphonies were of particular interest to Antonín Dvořák, with Hector Berlioz and Anton Bruckner acknowledging the influence of the "Great" Symphony.^[84]

In 1897, the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel released a critical edition of Schubert's works, under the general editing of Johannes Brahms, enabling a wider dissemination of his music. In the 20th century, composers such as Benjamin Britten, Richard Strauss, and George Crumb either championed or paid homage to Schubert in their work. Britten, an accomplished pianist, accompanied many of Schubert's Lieder and performed many piano solo and duet works.^[84]

Numbering of symphonies[link]

Confusion arose quite early over the numbering of Schubert's symphonies, in particular the "Great" C Major Symphony. George Grove, who rediscovered many of Schubert's symphonies, assigned the following numbering after his 1867 visit to Vienna:

• Number 7: E major D. 729 (completely sketched but not completely scored by Schubert, with multiple historic and modern completions)
• Number 8: B minor Unfinished D. 759
• Number 9: C major Great D. 944.

Breitkopf & Härtel, when preparing the 1897 complete works publication, originally planned to publish only complete works (which would have given the Great number 7), with "fragments", including the Unfinished and the D. 729 sketch, receiving no number at all. When Johannes Brahms became general editor of that project, he assigned the following numbers:^[85]

• Number 7: C major Great
• Number 8: B minor Unfinished
• no number: E major D. 729.

	Examples of Works for violin and piano Rondeau brillant, D. 895, Op. 70 Fantasia in C major, D. 934 Performed by Denes Zsigmondy (violin) and Annaliese Nissen(piano)
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Some of the disagreement continued into the 20th century. George Grove in his 1908 Dictionary of Music and Musicians, assigned the Great as number 10, and the Unfinished as number 9. (It is unclear from his article which symphonies, fragmentary or otherwise, are numbers 7 and 8.)^[86] However, the Unfinished is now generally referred to as number 8 in the English-speaking world, with the Great at number 9. Number 10 is generally acknowledged to be the D. 936a fragment, for which a completion by Brian Newbould exists. The 1978 revision to the Deutsch catalog leaves D. 729 without a number (in spite of numerous completions), and assigns number 7 to the Unfinished and number 8 to the Great.^[87] As a consequence, generally available scores for the later symphonies may be published using conflicting numbers.^[88]

Grove and Sullivan also suggested that there may have been a "lost" symphony. Immediately before Schubert's death, his friend Eduard von Bauernfeld recorded the existence of an additional symphony, dated 1828 (although this does not necessarily indicate the year of composition) named the "Letzte" or "Last" symphony. Brian Newbould^[55] believes that the "Last" symphony refers to a sketch in D major (D. 936A), identified by Ernst Hilmar in 1977, and which was realised by Newbould as the Tenth Symphony. The fragment was bound with other symphony fragments (D. 615 and D. 708a) that Schubert had apparently intended to combine.^[55]

Commemorations[link]

In 1897, the 100th anniversary of Schubert's birth was marked in the musical world by festivals and performances dedicated to his music. In Vienna, there were ten days of concerts, and the Emperor Franz Joseph gave a speech recognizing Schubert as the creator of the art song, and one of Austria's favorite sons.^[89][90] Karlsruhe saw the first production of his opera Fierrabras.^[91]

In 1928, Schubert week was held in Europe and the United States to mark the centenary of the composer's death. Works by Schubert were performed in churches, in concert halls, and on radio stations. A competition, with top prize money of $10,000 and sponsorship by the Columbia Phonograph Company, was held for "original symphonic works presented as an apotheosis of the lyrical genius of Schubert, and dedicated to his memory".^[92] The winning entry was Kurt Atterberg's sixth symphony.^[92]

In 1977, the German electronic band Kraftwerk recorded a tribute song called "Franz Schubert", which can be found on the album Trans-Europe Express.^[93]

Schubert has featured as a character in a number of films including The Great Awakening (1941) and Franz Schubert (1953).

Catalogue[link]

Since relatively few of Schubert's works were published in his lifetime, only a small number of them have opus numbers assigned, and, even in those cases, the sequence of the numbers does not give a good indication of the order of composition. In 1951, musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch published a "thematic catalogue" of Schubert's works that lists his compositions numerically by their composition date.

• Catalogue by Deutsch number: D 1 to 500 – D 501 to 998
• List of compositions by Franz Schubert – by musical genre
• Wikipedia articles about Schubert's compositions

Notes[link]