Schubertiade

For music-lovers, “Schubertiade” has become a winged word that evokes recitals featuring Romantic Lieder and chamber music. That was already the case on a December evening in 1826. The law student Franz Hartmann, originally from Wurzburg, wrote in his Vienna diary: „I went to Spaun’s, where a truly great Schubertiade took place! The list of guests was quite impressive: the Arnets, the Witteczeks, the Kurzrocks, the Pomps, the mother-in-law of state chancellery clerk Witteczek, then Frau Watteroth, Betty Wanderer, Kuppelwieser the painter and his wife, Grillparzer, Schober, Schwind, Mayrhofer along with his landlord Huber, then the tall Huber as well, Derffel, Bauernfeld, Gahy (who splendidly played piano four hands with Schubert), Vogl (who sang almost 30 wonderful songs), Baron Schlechta and a number of Imperial court clerks and secretaries were all present. Finding myself in a particularly agitated mood, I was almost moved to tears by the trio in the 5th March, which invariably reminds me of my dear, dear mother. After the music was over, we all enjoyed splendid conversation, then we danced.”Quite early on, a circle of art-loving friends had gathered around Franz Schubert, the former Vienna boarding pupil and trained schoolteacher who – unlike his father and his brother – had chosen to flee the daily pedagogical grind and its inevitable disenchantments under the Austrian Restauration to find his vocation as a freelance musician.