DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (July 27, 2020)
Franz Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828), loved and admired Beethoven for all of his life. He was born in Vienna, where Beethoven lived, but was 27 years younger than the master. That, and the awesome power of Beethoven's works, may have intimidated the younger man. It would seem that they never met.
The only concert Schubert ever organized of his own music was on March 26th, 1828, just seven months before his own death. Some accounts of the concert say that he staged it because he needed more publicity to get his works published. That may be true, but they are missing one thing: March 26th 1828 was the first anniversary of Beethoven's death.
Schubert did not know that he would only live for another half year. He felt it necessary to pick up the mantle of Beethoven, as terrifying a prospect as that might be. The concert publicly announced that commitment.
We have already mentioned the way in which Schubert's setting, after Beethoven's death, of the poet Heine's poem "Der Atlas", invokes the main intervals of the first movement theme from Beethoven's piano sonata, Op 111. If Beethoven were an Atlas—holding up the world, then Schubert, after Beethoven's demise, would accept the same burden.
The poet Rellstab gave several of his poems to Beethoven in the hopes that he would set them to music. When Beethoven became too ill to consider it, his secretary Schindler gave the poems to Schubert, who set several of them to music.
Schubert's concert was the world premier of his setting of one of the Rellstab poems, “Auf dem Strom, D943”, for voice, piano, and horn. In it, Schubert employs a direct quote from the funeral (2nd) movement of Beethoven's "Eroica (Heroic) Symphony". Beethoven scratched out his original dedication to Napoleon, and rededicated it to "the memory of a great man." For Schubert, Beethoven clearly was that great man.
This short audio compares the passages:
https://drive.google.com/…/1VSIikrv18kq16b6c76OW2WZPWo…/view
Here is the full "Auf dem Strom”:
TRANSLATION:
Take the last goodbye kisses,
And the blowing, the greetings,
Which I still send to the bank
Before your foot turns sharply!
The current is already rippling
The sailors quickly moved away,
But the [dark eyes] 1 look
Always draws longing back!
And so the wave carries me
Away with unrequested speed.
Oh, the hallway is gone
Where I found you blessed!
Forever, you happy days!
The lawsuit is empty of hope
To the beautiful homeland,
Where I found her love
See how the beach flees past
And how it pushes me over
Pulls with undeniable gangs,
To land there at the hut
To stay there in the arbor;
But waves of the river hurry
Further, without rest and rest,
Lead me to the ocean!
Oh, in that dark desert
Far from any bright coast
Where no island to look
Oh, how trembling horror seizes me!
To bring tears of melancholy gently,
Can't say a song from the shore;
Only the storm blows cold
Through the gray raised sea!
Can long the eyes longing
No longer take banks,
Now as [view '] I to the stars
[There] in those sacred distances!
Oh with her mild sheen
I first called her mine;
Maybe there, comforting happiness!
There I meet her gaze.
Schubert's concert also included the premier of one of his finest chamber works, the “Trio No. 2 in E-flat major for piano, violin, and violoncello, D. 929”. We include a video of it.