Maturity of Franz Schubert

On his return to Vienna he shared lodgings with Mayrhofer and during the winter months composed the operetta Die Zwillingsbrüder (The Twin Brothers). Although sponsored by Vogl, the production of the work was postponed, and in June 1819 Schubert and Vogl set off for a protracted holiday in the singer’s native district of upper Austria. The composer delighted in the beauty of the countryside and was touched by the enthusiastic reception given everywhere to his music. At Steyr he composed the first of his widely known instrumental compositions, the Piano Sonata in A Major, D. 664, and the celebrated Trout Quintet for piano and strings. The close of 1819 saw him engrossed in songs to poems by his friend Mayrhofer and by Goethe, who inspired the masterly Prometheus.

In June 1820 Die Zwillingsbrüder was performed with moderate success in Vienna, Vogl doubling in the parts of the twin brothers. It was followed by the performance of incidental music for the play Die Zauberharfe (The Magic Harp), given in August of the same year. The lovely, melodious overture became famous as the Rosamunde overture. Schubert was achieving renown in wider social circles than the restricted spheres of friend and patron. The wealthy and influential Sonnleithner family was interested in his development; their son Leopold became a great friend and supporter. At the close of the year 1820, Schubert composed the Quartettsatz (Quartet-Movement) in C Minor, heralding the great string quartets of the middle 1820s, and another popular piece, the motet for female voices on the text of Psalm 23. In December 1820 he began the choral setting of Goethe’s Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (Song of the Spirits over the Water) for male-voice octet with accompaniment for bass strings, D. 714, completed in February 1821.

All of Schubert’s efforts to publish his own work were fruitless. Early in 1821, however, a few friends offered his song “Erlkönig” (“Erl King” or “Elf King”) on a subscription basis. The response was so successful that enough money was raised for the printing of “Gretchen am Spinnrade” also. Eighteen months later, opus 12 had been reached.

In Vienna the popularity of Schubert’s songs and dance music became so great that concert parties were entirely devoted to them. These parties, called Schubertiaden, were given in the homes of wealthy merchants and civil servants, but the wider worlds of opera and public concerts still eluded him. He worked during August 1821 on a seventh symphony in E Minor and Major, but this, too, was put aside, along with many other unfinished works of the period. His determination to establish himself in opera led him in September and October to spend a short holiday with Schober at Sankt Pölten, where the friends devoted their energies to the production of a three-act opera, Alfonso und Estrell. It was completed in February 1822 but was never performed. While spending a few days at Atzenbrugg in July 1822, with Schober and other friends, he produced the document called Mein Traum (“My Dream”), describing a quarrel between a music-loving youth and his father. The autumn of 1822 saw the beginning of yet another unfinished composition—not, this time, destined to obscurity: the Symphony in B Minor (Unfinished), which speaks from Schubert’s heart. Two movements and a half-finished scherzo were completed in October and November 1822. In November of the same year Schubert composed a piano fantasia in which the variations are on a theme from his song “Der Wanderer” and completed the Mass in A-flat Major.

At the close of 1822 Schubert contracted a venereal disease, probably syphilis, and the following year was one of illness and retirement. He continued to write almost incessantly. In February 1823 he wrote the Piano Sonata in A Minor, and in April he made another attempt to gain success in Viennese theatres with the one-act operetta Die Verschworenen (The Conspirators), the title being changed later (because of political censorship) to Der häusliche Krieg (Domestic Warfare). The famous work of the year, however, was the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin (“The Fair Maid of the Mill”), representing the epitome of Schubert’s lyrical art. Schubert spent part of the summer in the hospital and probably started work—while still a patient—on his most ambitious opera, Fierrabras. The work was rejected by the directorate of the prestigious Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna. The year 1823 closed with Schubert’s composition of the music for the play Rosamunde, performed at Vienna in December.

The early months of 1824 were again unhappy. Schubert was ill, penniless, and plagued by a sense of failure. Yet during these months he composed three masterly chamber works: the String Quartet in A Minor, a second string quartet in D Minor containing variations on his song “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”), and the Octet in F Major for strings and wind instruments. His dejection is manifest in a letter of March 31, 1824, to the painter Leopold Kupelwieser in which he speaks of himself as “the most unfortunate, the most miserable being in the world.” In desperate need of money, he returned in the summer to his teaching post with the Esterházy family and in May 1824 went again to Zseliz. Once more his health and spirits revived. The period was marked by some magnificent piano duets, the Piano Sonata in C Major (Grand Duo), the Variations on an Original Theme in A-flat Major, and the Divertissement à la hongroise (Hungarian Divertissement).

Although his operas remained unperformed, there were frequent public performances of his songs and part-songs in Vienna during these and the following years. Publication proceeded rapidly, and his financial position, though still strained, was at any rate eased. This is the period of the Lady of the Lake songs, including the once popular but later neglected “Ave Maria.” Instrumental compositions are the piano sonatas in A Minor and in D Major, the latter composed at Badgastein. He sketched a symphony during the summer holiday, in all probability the beginnings of the Symphony in C Major (Great), completed in 1828. New friends Moritz von Schwind, a young painter, and Eduard Bauernfeld, a dramatist, were almost continuously in his company during this period.