"Unsere Schubert"

"Owning Your Favorite Composer:
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A year or two ago, I came across a biography of Schubert, which I began reading with great interest. I'm sorry to say today that I cannot actually remember the author of this work, but what I do remember is that the work was a fairly interesting assessment of the good man Franz. One thing that stuck out and that I still remember being fairly forcefully noted was the fact that Schubert went into teaching in Rossau near his father sometime around 1817, and that this has always been described as "reluctant." Clearly, he was more interested in writing music and performing works for friends, than disciplining unwieldy youth and guiding them through their lessons. Now that I've begun to dig more into the Schubertian biographical cosmos, though, the biography that I'd encountered a few years back now seems like a distant floating cloud, slightly in focus, but more truthfully a mirage. This has brought me to search more thoroughly through a new world of Schubertiana, with both surprising and entertaining results. With any sort of exploration and research into a topic or persona, one is likely to discover a whole array of histories, perceptions, depictions, and understandings about the subject. And Schubert (the man and the idea) is no exception. It would be a huge and perhaps nearly impossible undertaking to review each and every Schubert biography, article, or corollary to his life and work. Instead, I think that an attempt may be made simply to go more deeply into Schubertian studies than one might otherwise for journalistic purposes--to look at the historical biography as genre, but also pull out the questions that may be relevant to our discussions as practitioners of chamber music and discussants in developing models of that communal spirit of musical dialogue and conversation.

The focal point, today, is about how we might go about this examination, and departure point for our discussions, by appropriating our past experiences in chamber music in general and Schubert's music, specifically. Who is "our Schubert," or "your Schubert?" Admittedly, this idea only came to me a few nights ago when I ventured into the music library at Columbia University and started wandering around its stacks containing biographies of the great, not-so-great, and in some cases, just plain unknown composers and musicians. It was no surprise to find that the "Mozart Section" was plump with biographies and biographical tomes embarking on everything from the compositional techniques found in Mozart's Symphonies to the pecadillos in "Wolfy's" love life! The Schubert sections of the shelving were only slightly less ample. Yet they too had an intriguing array of topics relating to the composer, including not one, but two books with the same title: "Goethe and Schubert," which I feel that I'll be motivated at some point to examine in further depth. But for now, we shall leave them to the imagination.

After a fair amount of time determining what book would be the best to start reading through, I found this great volume titled "Our Schubert: His Enduring Legacy," by David Schroeder. Perhaps the best thing about this book (around 300 pages, including the index), is that it is broken down into two very nicely written parts: a) His Lifetime and b) His Legacy. So, it is not simply an "old fashioned" biography, but a work that explores in art, music, film, and elsewhere, the legacy of Schubert, in a very deft and engaging way. Additionally, and with similar importance, it is the personalized nature of this work, which the author Schroeder employs in his preface and introduction that makes this book even more enjoyable. It is clear that he really, simply loves Schubert's music, in a way that transcends any possible written language, and envelopes the core relationships that he has had in life. And so, from this, I took the cue to assess (or re-assess) this idea of "Compositional Ownership"--owning my own composer, as Schroeder has done...with "his Schubert." Of course, we all experience and, therefore begin to possess our composers in a way that makes sense for ourselves. But it is also a question of wondering how this "ownership" may bring us into other cross-disciplinary realms and discussions with our peers and co-discussants.

"Our Schubert"--the book and the idea--is a starting point for us, where we can begin to recognize manifold opportunities for conversation and basic musical imbibing. As Schroeder muses in Part II of his work, what did Schubert think of his own legacy while drawing his last breath? And what can we make from the curious lacuna of written letters or directives about his own work? (See 163-5). Whether we make our entry at Schubert himself, or at the early attempts at understanding and reconstructing an elusive character through Robert Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, we will ultimately see that the manifestation of Schubert will not be just "our Schubert," but rather "our Schuberts" (plural). The truth is that, perhaps like some of the other great luminaries of music, we construct our understandings and perceptions of a composer around both memories and experiential readings, for example. The vision of Schubert, for me, in part, comes from reading poetic or literary adaptations of Schubertian motifs or works, such as Death and the Maiden--which here we can note Ariel Dorfman's play from 1991; but also seeing such images as Gustav Klimt's 1899 painting Schubert am Klavier, almost ethereally layered with Fin de siècle impressionism and sensuality. Even the cinematic representation (whether Luis Buñuel's L'Age d'Or from 1930 or Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity in 1944). The truest images of creating "our Schuberts" (or "my own") come from a mix of these learning moments, but are more vibrant in actual memories: the vision of a statue and poster I saw of Schubert as a child in school; the powerful and mysterious tones of the "Unfinished" 8th that came from my grandparents' living room, later to be echoed in the opening sequence of Peter Sellers' magnificent late life performance in "Being There." But also the images of the Schubert, who wrote the Trout Quintet, which I remember seeing (and hearing) at Tanglewood a dozen years ago with my dear late violin teacher, Dr. Ash. The Juillard Quartet, I think, ripped through that piece with the speed of chain saws and the delicacy of weaving! And even Dr. Ash's friend, Peter Stern, speaking about a Japanese business man he'd met, who after a meeting in Tokyo or some other locale, broke out into Schubert Lieder!

These are all the images and themes of "our Schuberts." And I think we will continue to imagine and re-imagine this character, as we move onward in our pursuit of understanding the man, his life, his music, and his legacy.