In the Shadow of a Giant

1

I lived in his shadow most of my life. He basked in the glow of fame while I composed in almost complete anonymity what came out of my soul. No one cared for my music except for a few friends who listened to what I played and sang and who played and sang what I wrote for them. Outside this small circle, no one knew Franz Peter Schubert or his music. They were too busy listening to Ludwig van Beethoven, praising him to the skies or attacking him as a vain composer who composed incomprehensible unplayable music. Herr van Beethoven could take the praise as nonchalantly as the criticism. He told them, “I put down on paper what my God tells me and God does not care for what a poor fiddler can or can not play.”

Herr van Beethoven came to Vienna to learn composition from the masters. But none could satisfy him. Mozart, Haydn, Salieri, they were in awe of young Ludwig’s genius and there was nothing they could teach him. He did not hide his contempt for them, said their art was for the dying eighteenth century, not for the new century waiting in the wings. Music of the nineteenth century shall have emotion and melody of course, but it will also have passion and it will be full of surprises. It will be as fresh after years of performing and listening as it would be the first time. Not only will it touch heart strings, it will raise the spirits, rouse the patriotism of oppressed people and make the weak feel strong. Old masters did not understand how music could do all this and the young genius did not understand why it would not.

It took a while for young Ludwig to make his mark. But he did make his mark. People flocked to his concerts, to listen to him playing his piano sonatas and concertos, to listen to his trios, quartets and symphonies and the nobility showered him with commissions and invitations to play his chamber works, not when they were dining as they did for other musicians but when they were paying full attention. Proud Ludwig entered the palace from the front door not through servants’ entrance as Haydn used to and was announced by the butler with his full name with due emphasis on van. He discoursed with the counts as their equal and no one dared to keep him waiting without a reasonable excuse. Before long he was being offered commissions from all over Europe and travelers to Vienna made special efforts just to be able to see the great man.

Three years leading to 1809 were difficult in Vienna. Napoleon was the hero of common folks and many in the arts community adored him. It was rumoured that Herr van Beethoven had composed a special symphony, the longest any one had ever contemplated, and dedicated it to the French Emperor. However, without any provocation, the French marched into defenceless Vienna. This wanton aggression so angered the great composer that he scratched the dedication from the manuscript. When calm had returned to the city, the work was premiered with no dedicatee. The overflowing hall was stunned with the work in which passion was paramount. The applause after each movement was deafening and so long that it took two hours to finish playing it and some parts of the advertised program had to be omitted. The music raised the spirit of Viennese people who felt that the end of misery was not far off.

As a young singer in Royal Boys’ Choir, I heard these and other stories of young Ludwig who soon became Herr van Beethoven. Of course I took the opportunity to study his eight symphonies, five piano concertos and countless works for solo piano and chamber groups. I was amazed at the novelty of the music, it was so different than the music of Mozart and Haydn we were told to emulate. When I was fifteen, famous composer and teacher Antonio Salieri heard some songs and two symphonies I had composed for the young musicians of the school. These works were in traditional style and the master was so impressed that he offered me free lessons in composition. I was grateful and learned much from him. About this time Herr van Beethoven asked Master Salieri for advice on his opera but disregarded it when it was offered. Naturally my master was upset and I was too when I heard of such intransigence. However, when I had the good fortune of seeing the opera performed I fell under the spell of Herr van Beethoven for the second time and this time it was for good.

During my teen years I set numerous songs by Goethe, Klopstock and Heine for me to sing and play with my friends in the school and in their homes. Since I was not composing for any temperamental diva, I gave as much prominence to the piano as to the singer which was not customary. We had great fun with the friends standing around with me at the piano and singing from the music sheet even before the ink was dry. I also composed pieces for solo piano and loved playing them in private soirees but it never occurred to me that they were worthy of being played in public. I was afraid that they would be compared with the works of Herr van Beethoven and found wanting. However, I did not destroy any music; I stored everything I composed in a steel trunk.

2

1815 was the year when I started my first and only job as an assistant to my father who was a teacher. I was an unprepossessing eighteen years old, shorter and wider than almost everybody. I hated the job from the moment I first walked in front of the students. The boys were noisy and I was too gentle to bring peace to the room by punishing them. I was glad at the end of the day when the boys rushed out of the room. I would sit in the silent room for a while to recover my composure before dragging myself to my tiny apartment. I would open the door and there stood the piano waiting for me. I would sit on the stool, caressing the keys as if they were the body of a young woman. Then a melody would spring in my mind as if from nowhere. Sometimes the melody was related to a poem I had read and was moved by, other times it was on its own. I would play it, go where it took me and forget the school, the children, the tired limbs. When I had done all that could be done with the melody, I would jot the whole thing down. Many of them stayed there, scribbles on pieces of paper, never to become music, to stir the imagination, to play on the heartstrings, to move the spirits.

Next few years were difficult for Herr van Beethoven. He suffered from poor health, lost all of his hearing and had problems with the family on his brother’s death. There was a long drawn out legal case before he got custody of his nephew. It is amazing that in spite of so many problems he got any work done at all. He composed a great piano sonata and a Mass and was rumoured to be drawing sketches for what would be the greatest symphony of all times. He attended soirees whenever he could and I had the good fortune of watching him from a distance. I was too shy to introduce myself to this great man.

I was working steadily all these years and storing the compositions in my trunk. I set hundreds of songs to music, composed piano sonatas, lyrical quartets for my friends sometimes using the melodies from songs. Good old Paumgartner. He heard me play the song I called Trout and immediately commissioned me to write a piano quintet. I didn’t even know what to charge him. It took me a few weeks to compose it and he was very pleased with it. Soon after, Royal Opera commissioned me to write a heroic opera. I worked on it for a year but the House ran into financial difficulties and it was never performed. Over the next few years I wrote 17 operas, none with any success.

It was at this time my music received some notice. My songs, for one or more singers, were in demand, as were my piano works for two or four hands. I was even being hailed as Prince of Song in some circles. But there was a thought growing in my head. Vienna will need a musician to look up to if something were to happen to Herr van Beethoven. Why can’t he be Franz Schubert? I knew the answer. Great composers write great symphonies, concertos, operas. You are not recognized as great for writing lieder and music for drawing rooms howsoever artistic it is. To graduate from the Prince of Song to King of Music, I must write successful operas, symphonies, and of course serious artistic chamber music for Schuppenzigh to perform in his concerts, just not simple pleasant sounding pieces for amateurs to play in informal gatherings.

These thoughts inspired me to write two symphonic works. They were longer than half hour each and much better developed than six such pieces I had composed in my teens for the conservatory orchestra. But I needed some worthy opinion and after wavering for several weeks I gathered the two symphonies and some piano music and walked over to the home of the greatest symphonist of them all, Herr van Beethoven. Unfortunately, the great man was out for a walk and the maid could not say when he would return. I left one symphony and the piano music with a note signed “your humble admirer, Franz Schubert” and rushed out breathing only when I had stepped on the street.

3

It must have been January 1823 when I read the poem “The Beautiful Daughter of the Miller.” I felt the tragedy of the rejected lover of the maid, after all rejection by the other sex has been my fate too. The poem buzzed in my head day and night. I dreamt of the daughter, of the stream, of the lover. I saw my lifeless body floating in the cold stream and, strangely, felt good about it. I was so occupied by the poem that I couldn’t play the piano, did not even eat many evenings. I walked aimlessly along the Danube, in the Prater, on the streets often colliding with people I did not see. Fortunately, the spell was broken one evening when I was resting on a bench under a linden tree. The gentle perfumed breeze had a calming effect and I must have dozed off. When I woke up, I must have had a smile on my face. My head was not buzzing with the words; instead it was playing the music to go with them. I sat there till the whole poem was played out in my mind. Then I rushed home and put the music down on paper. I did not need to play it; the perfect match of the music and the words was crystal clear. As soon as the last note hit the paper, I felt hungry for the first time in weeks. I picked up a large sausage and sauerkraut from a stall and after the dinner had the most refreshing sleep for a long while.

In the spring of the following year Vienna was in a state of great excitement. Herr van Beethoven was preparing for the performance of his latest symphony and had booked Karntnertor theater. It was a huge work, needing a large orchestra and a larger choir with four soloist singers. People had hard time believing it. What was the great man doing, booking the opera house for a concert? Was he putting on an opera or a concert? What is more, he was planning to conduct the vast forces on the stage himself although he was known to be almost deaf and had not appeared on the stage for twelve years. The word had leaked out that Schiller’s great poem was set to even greater music with all these people on stage ready to bring the heavens down; may be raise us all to heaven. There were no tickets to be had, for love or money. I managed to get one only due to the kindness of Schuppanzigh who was organizing the concert for Herr van Beethoven.

The rumours of all sorts swirled round the city. The time was going fast and it was being said that there were problems in putting together the choirs and orchestra in numbers demanded by Herr van Beethoven. The whole city breathed a sigh of relief when the performers were engaged but there was time for only two rehearsals. What Schuppanzigh told me later really shocked me. It became clear to him during the first rehearsal that the deaf maestro could not really hold the orchestra and choir together. With great difficulty he persuaded Herr van Beethoven to let Kapellmeister of Karntnertor theater Michael Umlauf share the stage. He then instructed the performers to follow the Kapellmeister during the performance and ignore Herr van Beethoven altogether.

On May 7 the Karntnerstrasse and other streets in the area were packed with carriages of the nobility. Ladies, resplendent in silk gowns and diamond necklaces, had to alight from their carriages some distance from the hall and walk to the theatre on the arms of their escorts. Every seat in the hall was occupied several minutes before the concert was due to start. The loud cheer broke out when it was announced that the performance will start with the Consecration of the House Overture to be followed by first three parts of another new work, Missa Solemnis to be followed by a new form of symphony. I noticed the Kapellmeister with the music on the lectern in front of him. He was standing among the violins partly hidden from the audience. Suddenly the orchestra stopped practicing and an expectant hush settled over the hall. Herr van Beethoven walked to the stage as serious as ever and faced the players. He mumbled something to them and raised his arm.

Many in the audience were familiar with the Overture and there was only a mild interest in their performance and a little more than polite applause. Missa Solemnis received much better reception but the audience was there for the symphony. Therefore, thunderous cheers greeted Vienna’s greatest composer when he returned to the stage to conduct it. He could not have heard them but he felt the vibrations and bowed stiffly a few times. Then he turned to face the orchestra and my heart jumped with the first barely audible notes from violins and horns. Then the orchestra exploded into a burst of activity. It was as if the creator, after a long period of meditation, has come alive and started the work of creating the universe. For the first three movements the music continued in this vein. Although it seemed repetitious at times, it was always pleasant to the ear and must have been challenging to a serious listener. Then the fourth movement began with the recapitulation of first three and the bass telling the audience to forget what has gone on before, the music had to tell us something new. Indeed it was. The drudgery of work of creation was over; it was the time to celebrate the greatness of human spirit, now and for the eternity to come. The audience jumped up as the last note sounded and the ovation was deafening. The great man stood still facing the performers till the soprano turned him around to face the cheering mass.

The premiere was followed by another performance a few days later. Most of the nobility had left for summer palaces and the hall was no more than half full. Still, Schuppanzigh told me that it was a great performance and pleased Herr van Beethoven.

4.

Vienna gradually returned to normal. I never received a note from Herr van Beethoven regarding the music I had left with his maid. It did not surprise me considering how busy he must have been. One evening I ran into Schuppanzigh on my way to the tavern. He looked unusually cheerful. He shook my hand heartily and asked, “Haven’t seen you for a while. What are you working on these days? It is time you moved up to some large scale work.”
“The performance inspired me and I agree with you. I have some ideas about a new symphony. I had left two full symphonies with Herr van Beethoven and was hoping his comments will give me some direction,” I replied.
“I don’t think you should wait for him. He is very busy with some quartets he has been commissioned to write. Dear Franz, if you want to be worshipped in Vienna there are only two ways for a composer of your genius. Either write operas like Rossini or orchestral works like Beethoven. You know from your own experience how hard it is to get an impresario to accept a German opera, doesn’t matter how good it is. That leaves great orchestral works; symphonies, concertos, may be a mass or two. You can do these better than any one else in Vienna if you put your mind to it. I will make you a promise. If you get busy and put enough music together I will arrange a benefit concert of your music. It would acquaint Viennese with your talents as well as bring in some cash. Think about it. You know how to get hold of me.” With that advice, the celebrated violinist waved goodbye, crossed the street and walked towards Karntnerstrasse.

I decided to work on a symphony. But first I had to clear my mind of the clutter of all the ideas for other works. Over next eighteen months I composed a song cycle from the poems of Muller, an Octet, a string quartet, arpeggione sonata and a piano sonata among other works. Symphony was not forgotten though. In the autumn two years after the Choral Ninth, ideas gelled for a four movement classical symphony. Counting the ones I wrote at Imperial Seminary and the two I had left with Herr van Beethoven it would be ninth. It would be melodic, it would have movement, it would be thrilling. What is more, people will hum and whistle the tunes. Over the next six months I wrote the whole work including the orchestration. For a diversion, I wrote a quartet based on the theme from the setting for a song “Death of the Maiden” I had worked on a while back. I liked the symphony. It was in C major. It was melodious; it had excitement and joy oozed out of every note. I made a copy and sent it to the Society of the Friends of Music.

The spring arrived early in Vienna in 1827. Or that is how it seemed to me because the performances of my songs and piano pieces were being received well by the Viennese. Then the bombshell dropped. I heard someone say that Herr van Beethoven was very ill. I made haste to his lodging. There was a crowd of well-wishers in the courtyard and I joined them. I did not think that the last moments of this great man should be wasted on someone like me and did not make any effort to see him to pay personal homage. It was quite late when the word came that his condition was stabilizing. The crowd thinned out and I sat down on a bench with my head in my hands, “What will happen to music now that the greatest of them all is on his deathbed?” “I still hope to be able to make something of myself, but who can do anything after Beethoven?” My thoughts were confused. Then I felt an arm around my shoulders. It was Schindler. He had a folder in his hands. I recognized it straight away – the one I had left with the maid for the master. He had tears in his eyes, “For last year or two Beethoven has been asking, ‘What will happen to music after me, where is the successor?’ I called on him one morning last week. He was shuffling through pages of music looking perplexed. He did not notice me and continued his study. Then he got up and played some notes on his special piano. He turned around, saw me and a sigh escaped his lips, ‘Schindler, at last a successor.’ He instructed me to make sure that the music got back to you when he was finished with it. I don’t believe he will look at any music again.” Tears flowed freely from our eyes. When we had collected ourselves I took the folder. I seemed much thinner than I remembered it to have been but I did not say anything. “At last a successor”, the words of the master were spinning round my head with a ferocity that made the loss of music irrelevant.

Next day, March 26 1827, Ludwig van Beethoven, who had defied authority as a citizen and the convention as a musician, passed away with a gesture of defiance. In spite of thunder and lightening, the crowds gathered in the courtyard and the streets to pay last respects to their hero. However, it was bright sunshine when the huge procession followed him to the cemetery three days later. I had the honour of being one of the pall bearers.

5

Vienna recovered from the loss and the wheel of life resumed its normal pace. I set about composing driven by the urge to live up to the master’s words. I was thrilled to hear that the Society had accepted my symphony for performance. “My day has arrived at last” I thought. But it was not to be. The orchestra rehearsed it and decided that the work was too difficult for an orchestra to play. They sent it back to me with regrets suggesting that if I made it easier to perform they would consider it again. I was shocked. My headaches, which had resumed a week earlier, became worse. Whole of my body ached and I felt feverish. I could not eat. I felt weak and my clothes hung loose. There was some good news though. Schuppanzigh sent a note saying that he had booked Theater an der Wien for March 26 for my benefit concert and was gathering the performers. The irony of the date, the first anniversary of the death of the great man hit me straight away. I did not feel well enough to revise the symphony for that day; in any event it would be too expensive to perform without any patronage.

The concert was a big success with the public as well as the critics even without the symphony. This encouraged me. Over the summer I was busy composing. I completed the revision of the symphony, set to music two groups of songs, most of them poems of Heine and Muller, and sketched another symphony. The autumn was beautiful. I joined some friends on a walking holiday to Eisenstaedt. However, after we had visited the grave of another master, the opposite personality of my hero Beethoven, that unique genius Haydn, the headaches of a couple of years ago returned with great ferocity and I had to cut the visit short. Back in Vienna I developed a fever and lay in bed muttering to Ferdinand, my dear brother, “Ferdinand, you are so kind to me. I do hope that the fever will go away as it did last time. If it does not and my life were to end, I would be so sorry I did not live up to my hero’s expectations. I am not worried about what will happen to music after my death. After all is said and done though, music is greater than an individual, howsoever talented. It is a reflection of human spirit. Like all true Art, it will prosper as long as the human spirit is alive. Oh Ferdinand! The pain is too much to bear. Oh my head! It is exploding.” I closed my eyes tighter but the pain did not go away. Then my whole life passed before my eyes.

Thanks for your interest. Next entry: First week of September, 2009.