Franz Schubert set 80 of Goethe's poems to music; the resulting lieder are masterpieces of the song literature. Whitton discusses the cultural background of the era, describing Goethe's interest in music and musicians, and Schubert's surprisingly wide knowledge of contemporary literature. Each of the songs is treated, with translation and discussion of the background of both text and music. HARDCOVER.
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"In every age there exists a secret bond between kindred spirits," said Robert Schumann. This book postulates such a bond of kinship between Goethe and Schubert, though they never met or communicated. Kenneth Whitton, a professor emeritus of European Studies at Bradford University, has written extensively on the German Lied; his knowledge about the two men's lives and works, and about German political and literary history, is encyclopedic. Whitton's first chapter is an account of the Lied before Schubert. The second deals with every aspect of Goethe's life, focusing on his relationship with the musicians of his time, notably his favorite song composers Zelter and Reichart, who allegedly most influenced his musical taste. The chapter also looks at Goethe's lifelong relationships with women, which, though egotistical, irresponsible, and reckless, led to exquisite love poems and guilt-inspired "self-confessional" writings.
The chapter on Schubert, quoting both earlier "imaginative recreations" and recent scholarship, similarly dwells extensively on his amorous adventures, his drinking and smoking in bad company. However, Whitton also refutes some popular misconceptions, citing letters and contemporary accounts: Schubert, far from being an untutored rustic willing to compose any text regardless of quality, was well-read and discriminating in his literary tastes; and Goethe, far from being unmusical or insensitive to music, felt that music was indispensable to life and to poetry. Despite the artists' vast differences in social, financial, and personal circumstances, Whitton discovers factors that could, and should, have brought them together. For example, Goethe, who surprisingly wrote texts for several Singspiele, never found a composer to provide suitable music; Schubert, who always dreamed of writing an opera, never found a good librettist.
Above all, Goethe's poetry had a profound influence on Schubert. It inspired his earliest and some of his best songs. He returned to it throughout his life, setting 80 poems to music, many of them several times. He was probably the first composer who truly understood them. Indeed, Whitton claims that Schubert's music made Goethe immortal--at least in non-German-speaking countries. Thus, Whitton's ultimate leitmotifs are "if only" and "what if." "What if" they had met? What would Goethe have made of Schubert's Lieder "if only" he had heard any of them? Much has been made of his returning a packet of them unopened, but few people seem to know that when Schumann visited Hamburg, Brahms, aged 17, sent him a package of his compositions, which was also returned unopened.
The book's last and most arresting part is a detailed, critical analysis of all Goethe-Schubert Lieder, giving the background, as well as the often far-fetched subtext of the poems, and the dates and circumstances of composition. The English translations, like many others in the earlier chapters, are not always felicitous and are sometimes inaccurate, illustrating the problems faced by anyone who writes in one language about the literature of another.
Since songs are meant to be heard rather than read about, the best way to compare various composers' Goethe settings is to listen to them. There are, of course, innumerable recordings of Schubert's Goethe settings (try Naxos's Schubert Lied Edition). Even many by Zelter, who has become famous mostly as Goethe's friend and Mendelssohn's teacher, are available on disc. Listen, and it soon becomes obvious that Schubert learned a lot from studying Zelter's songs (it is striking that Zelter used many inferior poems, while Schubert chose only the best). Of course, you can't go wrong with baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the dean of German Lieder singers. --Edith Eisler
From Library Journal
During his short life, Schubert set 80 of Goethe's texts to music. Many of these songs, for example, "Gretchen am Spinnrade" and "Erlk?nig," have remained among the best loved in the lieder repertory and are largely responsible for Schubert's continuing popularity. But whereas Schubert readily admitted his debt to Goethe, there was no reciprocity. In fact, Goethe all but ignored the composer. In his exposition of the relationship, Whitton (emeritus, European studies, Univ. of Bradford) presents an overview of German lied, biographical studies of both men, and a chapter discussing the reasons they never met. The second half of the book presents each of the 80 songs in chronological order, with a translation and discussion of text and setting. The writing is a bit stiff and somewhat uncritical, but it does serve well as an introduction to the subject. Recommended for public and academic libraries.ATimothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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This review is from: Goethe and Schubert: The Unseen Bond (Hardcover)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is considered by many German speakers as the greatest of all writers in their language, the equal of Shakespeare in English, Dante in Italian, Cervantes in Spanish, Tolstoy in Russian, and so forth. It is ironical that for many English speakers, the only Goethe poems they know are those set to music by Franz Schubert, none of which would exist if Goethe's permission had been necessary (as it would be under today's copyright laws). For at the time, Goethe was the most famous German writer while Schubert was an impecunious Austrian teenager who taught (badly, by all accounts) in his father's primary school. When Schubert sent Goethe the ms of his setting of Erlkönig, the great man didn't even deign to respond. This book follows Goethe's inspiration of Schubert and other composers, and Schubert's place in the hierarchy of German Lieder composers. The first half of the book is in narrative form, the second half considers each of Schubert's 80 Goethe Lieder, in some instances with a page or so of the music. You don't have to be able to read music, though, to derive much information and pleasure from this book, written by a leading scholar of this music, Kenneth Whitton, who also serves as a translator from German (he translated the autobiography of the great German baritone, and Whitton's personal friend, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). Whitton's knowledge of German Lieder is unsurpassed, but his style is rather stilted, which is why I give this book only 4 stars.
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