Preface
I never stop loving Schubert. I think I love him more than any of the others. All the great composers are in some sense heavenly. Bach’s compositions are enthroned in heaven; Mozart is inspired by heaven; Beethoven reaches up to heaven. But Schubert is exiled from heaven. The paradise portrayed in his music is removed, inaccessible. A line from one of his most famous songs, Der Wanderer, sums it up: “Where you are not, there is happiness”. No wonder he is supposed to have said that there is no such thing as happy music.
Many modern writers have tried to capture the inherently elusive quality in Schubert. I quote one of two of them in this essay. It is a characteristic all the more touching when set alongside another: the quite terrifying nightmare which occurs and recurs in his late music. This is frightening music indeed, but also – which is worse – it is frightened. And this terror is all the more unbearable when set alongside (as Schubert sets it alongside) his blessed vision of the garden the door to which is always locked. Our love for Schubert has something to do with the sense we have of his utter loneliness. How such a thing is conveyed by music is a mystery. But there is nothing more certain than that it is.
This essay was published in The Browser in January 2021.