“To Reach The Star”

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I have been long inquiring the source of my love for Franz Schubert. He is a white European male from the 18th century, although none of his qualities or his genius falls into any of those pigeonhole. Schubert is, in fact, a melancholy gay. FYI, unlike Brahms or Beethoven or Schumann, I have never consulted any biographical source of Schubert. His gayness nonetheless stays apparent to me.

Christian Spuck’s production of Winterreise (revised by Hans Zender) with Ballett Zürich

https://www.opernhaus.ch/en/spielplan/calendar/winterreise/season_50348/

I once said to a friend that usual male composers prefer the sense of conquest, say, Beethoven’s reconciliation with his illness, or climbing over the monstrous mountain. In Schubert’s music, we rarely hear similar macho wishes. Schubert is a homosexual who is not ashamed of being vulnerable or sad. Schubert is a lovely, fragile, and sensitive gay whose music centers around loss of love, yearning for love, and mourning for love.

It takes me ages to figure out the source of my attraction toward him. His music tends to follow a very basic progression of harmonic structure. He is superbly good at melodies, a quality that enables his instrumental works to become a human chorale. His compositional structure is also unusually simplistic. He prefers a sonata form that modulates to the relative minor/major key. He is an old faithful of the classical era, where form supersedes everything else; yet the messages his music sends are more personal and more romantic-era. This individualism arises from his sexual identity.

It is also imperative to bear in mind that Schubert dies at 31. With his enormous fecundity in Lieds and instrumental works, it is a true pity that he didn’t live long enough to produce more masterpieces. For a one-and-only genius like Schubert, one should never make assumptions about his works. The mental age of his music is far older than his actual physical age. Musicianship-wise, his music is surprisingly hard to navigate -- only a true musician can play Schubert.

(Speak like an oracle.)

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In Schubert’s music, the hero is always alone. The exchange of communication happens in the way of a monologue, or a soliloquy:

D. 899/1 in c minor is a perfect example of soliloquy in Schubert. The hero starts a dialectical conversation with himself, combats with his alter ego, and forces himself to submit to reality.

In Lieds, when the object of communication can no longer hide behind the abstract instrumental sound, the hero tends to dialogue with a non-human creature. The non-human creature in return would answer Schubert’s character. In Die schöne Müllerin: 19. Der Müller und der Bach, the beautiful Miller speaks to the Brook in g minor:

And the angels
cut off their wings,
and every morning
descend to earth.

Und die Engelein schneiden
Die Flügel sich ab,
Und gehn alle Morgen
Zur Erde herab.

Schubert analogizes human souls to water. In Gesang der Geister über den Wassern (Souls of the Spirits over the Waters), a chorale sings to the water:

Strömt von der hohen,
Steilen Felswand
Der reine Strahl,
Dann stäubt er lieblich
In Wolkenwellen
Zum glatten Fels,
Und leicht empfangen,
Wallt er verschleiernd,
Leisrauschend
Zur Tiefe nieder.

When the pure jet
gushes from the high,
steep rock-face,
it sprays gratefully
its misty waves
against the smooth rock,
and when lightly gathered
surges like a veil,
softly hissing,
down into the depths.

Night represents the unleash of desires, but when the object of desire is absent, we have to converse with ourselves again. Schubert sings to Die Nacht:

Wie schön bist du,
Freundliche Stille, himmlische Ruh! -
Sehet, wie die klaren Sterne
Wandeln in des Himmels Auen,
Und auf uns hernieder schauen,
Schweigend aus der blauen Ferne.

How beautiful you are,
Friendly silence, heavenly calm! –
Look at how the bright stars
Are moving across the meadows of heaven,
And how they are looking down on us
In silence out of the blue distance.

(I want to thank Schubert for wie shön bist du…)

When a guy is talented, poetic, and genuine, what could be the reason that he is not loved? I would love to hang with a guy like that. If he really exists.