Franz Schubert (1797-1828) composed beautiful music set to the textual ode to the Fine Arts written by Franz von Schober, "To Music." That very song I didn't hear at the world-renowned Schubertiade in the quiet Austrian mountain village of Hohenems, where exactly 50 years ago the first Schubertiade there was organized.
Schubertiades were already being held during Schubert's lifetime. Musicians, artists, enthusiasts and friends would gather around the piano, with the amiable, good-natured, friendly, unpretentious fellow with his spectacles and curly hair – the bachelor Franz Schubert – playing and singing in a cozy atmosphere.
Only 31 years, he was given no more time to be born, grow up, master music and write hundreds and hundreds of scores at a record pace, while still teaching, taking long walks to draw inspiration from Mother Nature, reading masses of poetry, improvising for hours and falling in love. Just 31 years, hardly anything and yet a life so full that an average person would probably need not 31 but 310 years to pass on to the world what we still possess today in Schubert's musical legacy. And yet much was lost along the way, so what we have today isn't even everything. Perhaps all manner of things were lost with 'Die Taubenpost'? Who can say…
Hohenems, small yet oh so mighty
Hohenems, it would be better written as Hohen Ems, but place names do change over the centuries, is a small town, not far from Lake Constance, a stone's throw from the German border to the north and the Swiss border to the west. Mighty rocky mountains densely covered with trees surround the little town, which is crossed by a small river where you half-expect to see some Schubertiesque trout leap from the clear, fast-flowing water. It babbles along as in the song and the string quintet, but the trout? It's not there. It doesn't appear on any menu in the handful of restaurants the town has. Why should it? The hundreds of tourists who come when I'm there don't come to try their luck catching a river fish, but to listen to a song about that fish and to much more Schubert music besides. And what music there is to hear! Days on end of Schubert and nothing but Schubert. You might think it could get tedious? Then you'd be mistaken. You can never get bored listening to Schubert, quite the opposite. For some reason he captivates you more and more and more each time…
Ever since I was a little child, I loved Schubert among other things. As far as I can remember, my sisters and brothers and I got to know his music through a small LP of 'Das Dreimaidelhaus,' an operetta filled with Schubert's songs, and through an LP by the Vienna Boys' Choir on which some of Schubert's greatest hits were sung alongside other pieces. I could listen to it for hours and always sang along. Such inviting music – what more could you want? My artistic mother, God rest her soul – she passed away a year ago – was always talking about the Schubertiades of that composer who died far too young.
Our Mum – everyone called her 'our Mum' – never went to music school, but she read a lot about Mozart, Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Chopin, Renaissance music and what a good man Haydn must have been with those beautiful Seasons and yes, of course also about Schubert. She'd say those four really belonged together: "You can hear that, can't you boy?" – "Yes, Mum, it's so beautiful, isn't it?". Those four were Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. "Schubert, my boy, he held Schubertiades, if only we could go to something like that, it must have been quite something, those gatherings, all such good singers and all"…"Yes, Mum"…
It didn't happen, Mum, that we experienced it together, but during that weekend when I breathed Schubert in and out in the Austrian mountains, I thought of you constantly and I'm certain you were there with us and enjoyed it too. Do you remember when I told you about that CD by that Turkish tenor who grew up in Vienna? I not only heard that singer, I had a chat with him too – what a pleasant fellow and what great talent he has."
So I was finally at the Schubertiade. And I can assure you, dear readers, the music echoes on and will continue to echo, because the delights for the ear came one after another. What bliss it all was, and all delivered in acoustically perfect spaces that pleased the eye as well. Good food and accommodation before and after in a typical local house made it all complete and made me forget the exhausting ordeal of a chaotic train journey – the Deutsche Bundesbahn is so disorganized with hours of delays and cancelled trains! – Oh yes, a sweet consolation too was the thought that Schubert never enjoyed the comfort of an ICE train. The young man never rode a train; he did it on foot and perhaps occasionally by horse and cart. What would he have composed had he experienced the kind of journey I had to endure? Something full of dissonance?
50 Years of Schubertiade – the historic program with new performers
The founders of the Schubertiade in Hohenems, later expanded to include the nearby village of Schwarzenberg, were none other than the then world-renowned tenor Hermann Prey and especially Gerd Nachbauer, who set up the "Mozart Society Vorarlberg" as early as 1972. Thanks to the efforts of the singer, who especially wanted to honor Schubert, it eventually became the Schubertiade, for the first time in 1976. Prey withdrew from the organization fairly quickly for various reasons, but to this day the driving force behind it all remains the same Gerd Nachbauer. He developed the Schubertiade from then into a true arts enterprise that places Schubert at the center in a location no one would expect.
What was once an obscure, small town with one grand building – the palace – has grown into the world's most important center for chamber music around and about Schubert. Concert series are held twice a year in Hohenems and twice a year in Schwarzenberg. This attracts world music lovers who come to enjoy established great names and emerging world talent. Whoever is invited to Hohenems immediately has a credential that opens doors everywhere. An enormous achievement by Gerd Nachbauer and his many collaborators. This must endure, though there is the quiet fear that Nachbauer may not have a successor waiting – the Schubertiade is somewhat of a one-man operation – and then what? All the musicians, the staff, the audience, the halls, the museums the town has… That must never disappear or slowly fade away.
I couldn't follow the complete program; there simply wasn't time. Two days and four concerts and visits to the various museums filled those few days more than adequately. So what did I hear and why do I think you too should be there next time or times? Read more about it with a click on this, and this and this link and convince yourself that you need to be there.
