Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, D. 485
Performances: Jan 19/20, 2008

 

Music is the product of my genius and my misery. –Franz Schubert.

The neglect that Franz Schubert (1797-1828) suffered for most of the 19^th century now seems incredible.  None of his symphonies was performed during his lifetime (except, perhaps, for readings at private concerts Schubert held himself) and not one was published until some fifty years after his death.  In 1827, a music dictionary was published in which Schubert’s name did not even appear.  Part of the problem, perhaps, was that Schubert (unlike Mozart or Beethoven) was not a virtuoso performer on any instrument, and he found no other means of promoting himself.  And despite the fact that Schubert is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, writer of melodies, most of Europe was already headed toward the complexity and ambiguity of the high Romantic era.

Schubert was born in Lichtenthal, a suburb of Vienna, and at the age of ten was sent to study with the local church organist, Michael Holzer, who later wrote, “If I wished to instruct him in anything fresh, the boy already knew it.  So I gave him no actual tuition but merely talked to him and watched him with silent astonishment.”  Every moment Schubert had to himself was spent composing, and in 1812 Salieri accepted him as a student.  Two years later, to Salieri’s astonishment, the 17-year-old presented him with the 341 pages of his fully orchestrated first opera.  Unlike Beethoven, composing came completely natural to Schubert, which may be why he, like Saint-Saëns, is commonly regarded as having an incredible output of music, but no revolutionary effect.

From 1814 to 1817, Schubert worked in his father’s school, spending all his spare time composing.  He gathered around him a close and influential circle of friends, including the rich and rather disreputable Franz von Schober, the melancholy poet Johann Mayrhofer, and the operatic baritone Michael Vogl, for whom Schubert composed many of his more than 600 songs.  Receiving only sporadic performances in concert halls, Schubert and his friends held private “Schubertiads” to raise money, which Schubert desperately needed.

In the summer of 1818, he moved to Zseliz in Hungary to take up the position of music tutor to the daughters of Count Johann Esterházy.  He returned to Vienna a year later, receiving two opera commissions from the Court Theatre.  He received his first publishing agreement for his Erlkönig, but these better fortunes soon fell apart.

In 1822, the Court Theatre came under Italian management as all Vienna was in frenzy for Rossini.  Schubert immediately lost two commissions.  Around this time, he also contracted syphilis, then rife in Vienna , and began to decline in 1823.  Despite his illness and subsequent depression, he continued on creatively until his death in 1828 at the age of 31.  He received, however, his dying wish:  he was buried next to Beethoven.

Schubert began his Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major, D485, in September, 1816.  If Schubert’s symphonies are to be divided into his Classically-influenced early symphonies and his later, Romantic ones, the Fifth Symphony is probably the best of his Classical works.  It avoids the mechanical repetition and sequence found in Schubert’s earlier symphonies while maintaining his lyricism and wit.  Possibly in direct contrast to the Fourth Symphony, the “Tragic,” this is an optimistic work.  Schubert foregoes the trumpets and timpani, opting for Mozartian refinement.  The third movement, particularly, is a not-so-subtle tribute to Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.  The final movement bubbles over in a style typical of Schubert, but strongly reminiscent of Haydn.