'Something utterly new': Listening to Schubert Lieder

Early Music

Volumn 25, Issue 4, 1997, Pages 703-714

  Van Tassel, Eric ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 63849195142     PISSN: 03061078     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/earlyj/xxv.4.702     Document Type: Article

References (132)

1. 'Die Art und Weise, wie Vogl singt und ich accompagnire, wie wir in einem solchen Augenblicke Eins zu sein scheinen, ist diesen Leuten etwas ganz Neues, Unerhörtes.' Letter to Ferdinand Schubert, 12 Sep 1825: O. E. Deutsch, Schubert: die Dokumente seines Lebens (Kassel, 1964) [hereafter Dokumente], p.314 (my translation; emphasis original)
2. Cf. O. E. Deutsch, Schubert: a documentary biography, trans. E. Blom (London, 1966) [hereafter Documentary biography], p.458
3. D. Montgomery, 'Modern Schubert interpretation in the light of the pedagogical sources of his day', Early music, xxv (1997). pp.100-18, here p.104. A similar claim is made by Susan Kagan, cited in n.63 below
4. Schubert's travels with Vogl in Upper Austria are now colourfully described in E. N. McKay, Franz Schubert: a biography (Oxford, 1996), pp.94-7, 177-80, 225-42
5. Josef von Spaun, 1864: O. E. Deutsch, Schubert: memoirs by his friends, trans. R. Ley and J. Nowell (London, 1958) [hereafter Memoirs], p.365
6. cf. O. E. Deutsch, Schubert: die Erinnerungen seiner Freunde (Leipzig, '957) [hereafter Erinnerungen], p.420
7. Adam Haller, 1858: Memoirs, p.56
8. cf. Erinnerungen, p.64
9. On Vogl's 'embellishments' and 'advice' and Schubert's reaction, see also Memoirs, pp.101 (Karl Freiherr von Schönstein, 1857), 243 (Eduard von Bauernfeld, 1878)
10. and cf. W. Dürr, 'Schubert and Johann Michael Vogl: a reappraisal', 19th century music, iii (1979/80), pp.126-40, esp. pp.127f
11. 'Er beschäftigt sich fast ausschließend mit meinen Liedern. Schreibt sich selber die Singstimmen heraus u. lebt so zu sagen, davon. Er ist daher gegen mich äußerst manierlich u. folgsam.' Letter to Franz von Schober, 30 Nov 1823: Dokumente, p.207 (my translation); cf. Documentary biography, pp.300f
12. See e.g. Memoirs, pp.11 (Rossini), 27 (Stadler), 135 (Kreutzer and Rossini), 361f ('his worst enemy')
13. See especially Memoirs, p.27, but also pp.129, 137, 230ff, 309ff, 366, 377
14. and cf. Documentary biography, pp.294, 301, 529
15. For instance, Karl Freiherr von Schönstein, the dedicatee of Die schöne Müllerin, was not in the inner Schubert circle, and (for reasons of class, if nothing else) did not sing at the essentially private Schubertiads, as Vogl and some others did, or go on holiday with Schubert, as Vogl did. On Schönstein, see Schubert's letter of 25 Sep 1828 to J. B. Jenger, Documentary biography, p.807 (the only comment known to me which Schubert made about any singer besides Vogl)
16. Such as Schönstein and Anna Hartmann-Revertera. Schönstein explicitly acknowledges his debt to Vogl, 'my unforgettable friend and master in the interpretation of Schubert's songs': Memoirs, p.101
17. See P. Clive, Schubert and his world: a biographical dictionary (Oxford, 1997)
18. s.vv. Enderes, Hartmann, Koller, Schönstein. (I am grateful to Bruce Phillips of Oxford University Press for allowing me to see advance proofs of Clive's book, which will be an indispensable resource for all future Schubert studies.) J. W. Witteczek and Franziska von Tremier (née von Pratobevera) apparently received embellished copies of Schubert songs from Vogl: see Dürr, 'Schubert and Johann Michael Vogl', pp.137f
19. and S. Youens, Schubert: 'Die schöne Müllerin' (Cambridge, 1992), p.115, n.13
20. Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung (Vienna), on Vogl's performance of Erlkönig at the Kärntnertor concert of 7 March 1821: Documentary biography, p.166. On the same occasion, the critic of Der Sammler observed that Vogl 'excels at this kind of musical declamation': Clive, Schubert and his world, s.v. Vogl. Cf. also Franz von Hartmann, cited in n.62 below
21. Sonnleithner discusses Vogl in a memorandum to Ferdinand Luib in 1857 (Memoirs, pp.112, 116f
22. Erinnerungen, pp.130f, 135ff)
23. his 'Lieder method', 'On the performance of Schubert's songs', was published in i860: Memoirs, pp.336ff
24. Erinnerungen, pp.387-90. (The extract from the latter in Memoirs/Erinnerungen originally appeared as 'Über den Vortrag des Liedes, mit besonderer Beziehung auf Franz Schubert', the fourth article (7 Nov 1860) in a series published under the overall title 'Bemerkungen zur Gesangskunst' in the Viennese periodical Rezensionen und Mitteilungen über Theater und Musik.) The sense of the two documents is so consistent that in the following paragraphs I quote from both without always distinguishing between them
25. Sources: Ferdinand Hiller (1877 and 1879), Memoirs, pp.282ff
26. (Erinnerungen, pp.324ff)
27. Spaun (1858, 1864), Memoirs, pp.132f, 351, 364f
28. (Erinnerungen, pp.154f, 405, 419f)
29. Sources: Spaun (1864), Memoirs, pp.364f
30. (Erinnerungen, pp.419f)
31. Hüttenbrenner (1854), Memoirs, p.179
32. (Erinnerungen, p.206)
33. In fact, Sonnleithner is almost alone. Maria Mitterbacher writes that Vogl 'never appealed to me' (1877: Memoirs, p.298)
34. J. L. Ebner alludes to interpretative disagreements between Schubert and Vogl, but he never heard them himself and only reports his late wife's recollections (1858: Memoirs, p.48)
35. It is not easy to find shorthand labels for the two camps. The terms I use here, such as 'purists'/'liberals', 'strict'/'free', are not meant to imply a value judgement on my part
36. P. Williams, 'General preface' to the series Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice (Cambridge University Press)
37. Memoirs, p.337
38. A. Liess, Johann Michael Vogl: Hofoperist und Schubertsänger (Graz and Cologne, 1954), p.86
39. Bauernfeld did not yet know Vogl well when, in March 1825, he recorded in his diary a 'Visit [with Schwind and Schubert] to the singer Vogl. An odd old bachelor [Merkwürdiger alter Junggeselle]. He reads Epictetus and is a treasury of pleasant dandyism [ein Schatz angenehmer Geckerei].' Dokumente, p.281
40. Documentary biography, p.410. (Vogl married in June of the following year, at the age of 57.)
41. At all events, Bauernfeld admired Vogl enough to write a memoir after his death: Memoirs, pp.226f
42. (Erinnerungen, pp.258ff)
43. Liess, Vogl, p.87
44. Diary, 15 Dec 1826: Documentary biography, p.573
45. Dokumente, p.389
46. Cf. Hartmann's diary entry on the same occasion: Documentary biography, p.571
47. Cf. Graham Johnson's notes to Hyperion CDJ 33014, esp. p.8, with reference to Dürr, 'Schubert and Johann Michael Vogl'. The ideas in this paragraph arose out of a conversation with Johnson in 1996, but he bears no responsibility for anything suggested here
48. Sonnleithner met Schubert in July 1816 - less than a year before Schubert and Vogl were introduced - but had known his music earlier, through some of Schubert's school friends. Clive, Schubert and his world, s.v. Sonnleithner
49. Johnson (notes to Hyperion Schubert Edition, xiv, p.5) suggests that Vogl's 'much vaunted taste for classical subjects might have played its part in influencing Schubert and [Johann] Mayrhofer to collaborate on a number of songs on classical themes'. Schubert and Vogl first met in March 1817; it was also in 1817 (for whatever the information may be worth) that Schubert formed a closer friendship with Mayrhofer, who was probably homosexual. See Johnson, notes to Hyperion CDJ 33005, pp.12f
50. Sonnleithner, obituary of Schubert, February 1829: Documentary biography, p.856 (= Memoirs, p.11)
51. quoted D. Gramit, '"The passion for friendship": music, cultivation, and identity in Schubert's circle', The Cambridge companion to Schubert, ed. C. H. Gibbs (Cambridge, 1997), pp.56-71, here p.60
52. Cf. Memoirs, p.112
53. Spaun took a very different view (see Clive, Schubert and his world, s.v. Schober)
54. and Anton Ottenwalt, Spaun's brother-in-law, was impressed by the breadth of Schubert's interests and intellect: see Documentary biography, p.442 (1825)
55. (= Memoirs, p.11)
56. See also C. H. Gibbs, '"Poor Schubert": images and legends of the composer', Cambridge companion, pp.36-55, here pp.48f
57. Sonnleithner, 1860: Memoirs, p.337
58. Hiller remembered that he 'had but little voice' when he sang with Schubert in 1827 (Memoirs, p.283)
59. Bauernfeld admitted that in his later years 'his spirit and cultured manner of performance were not always adequate to compensate for the complete lack of voice' (Memoirs, p.240)
60. Anna Schechner made a powerful impression on Mendelssohn even after her once-beautiful voice had begun to decay: see J. Warrack, New Grove, s.v. Schechner
61. See E. Newman, The life of Richard Wagner, i (London, 1933), pp.72f
62. Richard Wagner, My life, trans. M. Whittall (Cambridge, 1983), p.37
63. cf. Newman, Life, i, p.71
64. E. F. Genast, quoted J. Markowsky, notes to Goethe-Lieder (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 05472 77342 2) (my translation)
65. Here 'it is stated' refers to Kreissle von Hellborn's biography (Deutsch's note, Memoirs, p.371); but Kreissle was transmitting Sonnleithner's ad hominem comment about Vogl's last years, quoted above
66. See Liess, Vogl, p.86
67. Liess, Vogl, pp.86f
68. This important point is elaborated by Liess, Vogl, ch.11 ('Vogl, der Schubertinterpret'), esp. pp.139-42
69. 1858: Memoirs, p.140
70. (Erinnerungen, p.163)
71. Spaun (revised by Ottenwalt), obituary of Schubert, April 1829: Documentary biography, p.875 (my emphasis)
72. cf. Dokumente, p.580
73. Youens points to a diary entry of 13 June 1816, in which 'Schubert modestly ascribed the success of Rastlose Liebe to the musicality of Goethe's poetic genius': S. Youens, 'Schubert and his poets: issues and conundrums', Cambridge companion, pp.99-117, here p.305, n.10
74. (where the citation should be Documentary biography, p.60)
75. For examples of Schubert's shrewd manipulation of texts that he set, see Youens, 'Schubert and his poets', p.114
76. and Katrina Muxfeldt's valuable 'Schubert's songs: the transformation of a genre', Cambridge companion, pp.121-37
77. From Vogl's diaries, quoted by Bauernfeld, 1841: Memoirs, p.226
78. (the syntax is odd, but the 'poet' is clearly Goethe: see Erinnerungen, p.259
79. Liess, Vogl, p.153)
80. Johann Vesque von Püttlingen, 1876: Memoirs, pp.215f. This 'motto' stands in striking contrast to Beaumarchais's 'Aujourd'hui ce que ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante' and Voltaire's 'Ce qui est trop bête pour être dit, on le chante.' (I thank Robert Adelson and other contributors to the Internet group AMSList for the French quotations and their attributions.)
81. Spaun, 1858: Erinnerungen, p.154 (my translation)
82. Cf. Memoirs, p.132
83. and on the term Charlatan, see also Liess, Vogl, pp.61, 131
84. S. Youens, Schubert's poets and the making of Lieder (Cambridge, 1996), passim
85. On readings as social events, and on literary tastes and interests in Schubert's circle, see Gramit, '"The passion for friendship"', pp.62ff
86. Vivian Ramalingam has kindly described to me the various styles of declamation in use on the German-speaking stage in Schubert's time, on which she reported in 'Patrik Peal's Erlkönig' (paper read at the national meeting of the American Musicological Society, Baltimore, 1996)
87. According to Kreissle, Vogl guided Schubert's choice of poems to set, and sometimes declaimed a poem to him before he set it to music: cited Liess, Vogl, p.63, and see p.141
88. Musikalische Dynamik (1843)
89. quoted Dürr, 'Schubert and Johann Michael Vogl', p.133
90. Cf. also R. Schollum, cited Youens, Schubert: 'Die schöne Müllerin', p.19
91. Vesque, 1876: Memoirs, p.215; and see n.69 below, on Mosel's praise for 'our Vogl'
92. Rudyard Kipling, 'In the Neolithic Age'
93. cf. Erinnerungen, p.338
94. In Styria Schubert also accompanied fine amateur singers such as Anna Hartmann-Revertera (about whom Vogl was highly complimentary) and Countess Weissenwolf: McKay, Franz Schubert, pp.177f, 228
95. Cf. Clive, Schubert and his world, s.vv. Hartmann, Weissenwolf
96. In the 1870s Franz von Hartmann recalls Vogl as 'the first to introduce us to the declamatory style of singing, to make us intellectually and emotionally aware of it': Memoirs, p.273
97. Thus S. Kagan, response to a letter from B. D. Sherman, Fanfare, xx/2 (Nov/Dec 1996), pp.9f
98. D. Montgomery, 'Franz Schubert's music in performance: a brief history of people, events, and issues', Cambridge compan ion, pp.270-83, here pp.273f
99. N. Toller, 'Schubert in a new light' (recording review), Early music, xxiii (1995), p.523
100. While John Reed also quotes Hiller (1877), he does so only on Vogl's 'lack of voice', for he is convinced that the 'legendary combination of Schubert and Vogl' would strike us as 'mannered, quirky, and over-dramatic' (Schubert: the final years (London, 1972), p.131)
101. Though Youens tries to be fair to Vogl, she too cites no testimony but Sonnleithner's (Youens, Schubert: 'Die schöne Müllerin', p.19)
102. Liess (Vogl, pp.130ff) quotes Spaun et al. generously and puts Sonnleithner in (as I see it) his context, though I believe he errs in accepting Sonnleithner's characterization of Schönstein as Vogl's complete antithesis and the epitome of the 'lyrical' style
103. That, at least, is how I interpret the puzzling (and tendentious) wording of Montgomery, 'Modern Schubert interpretation', p.104: 'Standard Schubert wisdom maintains that the problem of fidelity versus personal inventiveness ... has its historical genesis in an apparent dichotomy of Schubert's own time' - where 'fidelity' must refer to those I call 'purists', and 'personal inventiveness' to my 'liberals'
104. 'Franz Schubert's music in performance', p.270
105. Youens, Schubert: 'Die schöne Müllerin', pp.19ff
106. Mosel urged aspiring dramatic singers to learn 'sensibility and taste' in embellishment by taking 'our Vogl' as their model: Liess, Vogl, pp.112ff
107. Youens describes (with examples) the alterations, plausibly attributed to Vogl, which appeared in the 1830 Diabelli edition of Die schöne Müllerin: Youens, Schubert: 'Die schöne Müllerin', pp.18-25. The Neue Schubert-Ausgabe, Series IV, includes examples of Vogl's modified versions of Lieder in vols, 1b (D368, 225, 542), 2b (D795), 3b (D113, 852), etc
108. Sonnleithner seems to imply as much, regarding Vogl's use of falsetto, speech, etc.: 1857 (Memoirs, p.112)
109. The reference is to Julius Stockhausen (1826-1906): compare Sonnleithner's qualified praise for him with Spaun, 1864 (Memoirs, p.365)
110. For instance, Sonnleithner emphasizes Schubert's absolute insistence on maintaining 'the most strict and even time', from which he claims even Vogl deviated only where the score carries an explicit written instruction (Memoirs, pp.116f. (1858), 337f. (1860)). But (as I shall argue in part 2 of this essay) a metronomically unvarying performance of any of the numerous Schubert songs which have no written tempo modifications would be at best lifeless, at worst simply monstrous
111. R. Philip, Early recordings and musical style: changing tastes in instrumental performance, 1900-1950 (Cambridge, 1992), ch.9 et passim. The paragraphs that follow were drafted before I had read this book, whose value even for the period before 1900 I cannot stress too highly
112. Youens, Schubert: 'Die schöne Müllerin', pp.21f
113. On the late 19th-century enthusiasm for Denkmäler, see P. Brett, 'Text, context, and the early music editor', in Authenticity and early music, ed. N. Kenyon (Oxford, 1988), pp.85ff
114. Vogl, quoted by Albert Stadler, 1858: Memoirs, p.146
115. For Vogl's letter to Stadler (15 Nov 1831), see Liess, Vogl, p.143
116. Gibbs, '"Poor Schubert"', pp.48-51
117. 'There is no "lost tradition" separating the modern performer from the music of Haydn, Mozart, and their successors comparable with that which separates him from Machaut, or even from Monteverdi': H. M. Brown, New Grove, s.v. 'Performing practice', §6 'After 1750'. R. Taruskin, 'Tradition and authority', Text and act (New York, 1995), pp.173-97. here p.181
118. (from Early music, xx (1991), pp.311-25, here p.314)
119. notes that the revision by Robert Winter, in The New Grove dictionary of musical instruments (London, 1994), iii, p.53, effectively reverses the sense of Brown's observation
120. Richard Taruskin has apparently wavered on whether performers can, or should, learn about 19th-century style from early recordings. 'To our modern taste', the 'scoops and slides' of 1914-vintage Tchaikovsky would 'sound like caricatures' which no one could take seriously (Text and act, pp.151 (1988), 168f (1990))
121. And he now calls it 'refreshing' that 'a group of "early" musicians' are rediscovering early 20th-century style as exemplified in pre-war recordings by Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw ('Making a stand against sterility', New York times, 2 Feb 1997: I am grateful to Bernard D. Sherman for bringing this last to my attention)
122. Both in Schubert Lieder on record, i: EMI 5 66150 2 (3 CDs)
123. Cf. Philip, Early recordings, pp.230f. Tape technology, by allowing the studio editor to compile a note-perfect recorded 'performance', has tightened the notentreu screws further: few things could discourage risk-taking more effectively than the listener's expectation that every performance will be faultlessly accurate
124. Under the opposing pressures of an international language (modernism) and musical localism (e.g. Bartók, Debussy), even a Viennese- or German-born singer, once embarked upon an international career, will have had difficulty in believing himself the intuitive, unselfconscious carrier of a unitary performance tradition in Lieder
125. Characteristic recordings: Hüsch 1930s, Lebendige Vergangenheit 89202 (2 CDs: D795, D911)
126. Hotter 1942-3, DG 437 351-2 (D911)
127. Hotter 1950s, EMI CDH 5 65196 2 (D957 etc.)
128. Johnson, interview with Fischer-Dieskau, BBC Radio 3, 1995
129. Characteristic recordings: 1950s, EMI CMS 7 63559 2 (3 CDs: D795, D911, D957 etc.); 1966-72, DG 437 215-2, 225-2, 235-2 (22 CDs in all)
130. Song on record, i: Lieder, ed. A. Blyth (Cambridge, 1986), pp.31-5
131. Interview with Graham Johnson, BBC Radio 3, 1995
132. Fischer-Dieskau, Schubert: a biographical study of his songs (first published in German 1971), trans. K. S. Whitton (London, 1976), pp.305, 307, 312