Schubert in Graz

Last week I was in the Old City, enjoying an after-dinner ice-cream with a friend before the orchestra concert taking place at the Stephaniensaal, when I noticed a bas relief of Schubert's familiar visage on a building across from where we were sitting with '1827' written under it. Schubert in Graz? I had no idea. A few nights ago I was enjoying an evening with friends in a popular beergarden, the Schuberthof Propeller. I thought nothing of the name because the place happens to be on Schubertstrasse. (If you think I spend a lot of time in ice-cream parlors, beergardens and restaurants, you're right, I do! -- it's part of the fun of spending the summer here.) One member of our party has been coming to Graz for a very long time and remembered the former incarnation of the Propeller as the Schuberthof. He went on to say that Schubert liked to come to Graz because of a special wine made here, and that, as legend would have it, he visited this very beergarden. You mean Schubert sat under these very trees? I asked incredulously. Back home I did a little research on the internet. It is true: Schubert came to Graz, but only on one occasion. The house with the plaque in the Herrengasse must be where he stayed. Here is a detailed account of that visit from the year 1827, copied from the website www.franzschubert.org.uk.

"Back in Vienna much of the summer was occupied trying to promote a performance of his (‘Great’) C major symphony, the score of which he had already presented to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in the previous December. Two copyists had been busy with the immense task of preparing the orchestral parts and the work was put into rehearsal (according to Leopold Sonnleithner – writing in 1861, long after Schubert’s death), but "it was provisionally put on one side because of its length and difficulty".

On Sunday 2nd September Schubert left Vienna by coach in the company of Johann Baptist Jenger for a 24-hour journey to Graz, where they would stay with their host Doktor Karl Pachler. As the fare for this journey by express coach was 9 florins 20 kreuzer AC, Deutsch speculates that "Schubert may have obtained the means for this journey from the proceeds of Opp.75 and 87" (D599 and D713,637,638). Dr Pachler’s wife Maria was an exceptionally good pianist of whom Beethoven was able to write, "I have not found anyone who performed my compositions as well as you do". Whilst in Graz Schubert was present at an opera by Mayerbeer that was not to his liking, but an event of greater importance and appeal for Schubert came only a few days later when the Styrian Musical Society, of which he had been elected an honorary member in 1823, mounted a charity concert in his honour, from which the proceeds would be divided between the victims of recent floods and the widows and orphans of country schoolmasters. At this concert Schubert made one of his very few appearances as an accompanist at a public performance as he almost entirely restricted his piano playing to private gatherings. The pieces of his that were performed were the song Normans Gesang (Scott, D846), the quartet for male voices and piano Geist der Liebe (D747) and the female chorus Gott in der Natur (D757).

The Pachlers invited many friends and keen music lovers to several Schubertiads at which Schubert sang to his own accompaniment, there being no other singer present, and played piano duets with Jenger. He may also have played some of his first set of Impromptus (D899) that he had in preparation."

Liederabend

In less than a week the Liederabend (song program) I am preparing will be presented two evenings in a row. This is, of course, the main reason for my being here at AIMS. The eleven singers and three pianists I have been coaching have all been working hard and all are on track to do this program. (I wish a few were a bit more solid in the memory of their pieces, but that's par for the course.) We are all excited about doing it. The students appreciate the fact that much of the program is unknown; I'd venture to say that two thirds of the twenty-two songs programmed will be unfamiliar to the audience. But what treasures await them! There are two songs by Schubert that are rarely done: "Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren" and "An die Leier". Both have melodies that seem to have fallen out of heaven, the kind of exquisite lyricism that only Schubert could have come up with. The same goes for "Suleika I", a substantial Schubert song that is not often performed. The one example of 20th century style is Wolfgang Fortner's "Hyperions Schicksalslied". I'll bet few listeners will know that either. Fortner, a contemporary of Hindemith, wrote in a similar style. The first half will end with the spectacular coloratura tour de force "Amor" from the Strauss Brentano Lieder. The second half of the program includes two rarely heard Schumann songs, and of those I am particularly fond of "Lied der Suleika". Of the two Brahms songs programmed, "Die Schale der Vergessenheit" will be a revelation; it's a mature piece with drama and sweeping Brahmsian lines. There are half a dozen Wolf Lieder, three of them settings of Goethe's translations of Persian poetry. They are perhaps the most obscure pieces on the program. I adore the song "Als ich auf dem Euphrat schiffte", a gem of a song in two pages. In the poem a man is floating down the Euphrates in his boat; his ring of betrothal slips off his finger into the water; the sun rises through the trees and he wakes up from his dream. He says: "Sag Poete, sag Prophete! Was bedeutet dieser Traum?" -- Tell me Poet, tell me Prophet, what is the meaning of this dream? The program is framed by two settings of Goethe's "Kennst du das Land", Beethoven's at the beginning and Wolf's magnificent version at the end. The official title of the program is: "Kennst du das Land? -- Sehnsucht nach Italien, Griechenland und dem exotischen Osten" (Do you know the far-off land? Yearning for Italy, Greece and the exotic East).