The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-06-26
BY DR. ". E. EVANS.

l was an ingredient in the cup of bit terness from which Schubert was con- pelled to drink so often. The great world had little kindness for Schubert and life went hard with him. His sensitive nature, like that of the poet Keats, would be crushed by harsh ness, and by unkindness he would be driven from moods of merriment into the sadness of melancholy where he would brood like King Saul in the darkness of his own soul.
 Such a nature as his could not stand the rough usage of the world very long. He could not; and so in the month of November, 1928, the young music masters spirit fled from earth into eternity. He died of weariness and a broken heart intensified by his poverty. Toward the last his brain be- came affected. He thought that he had been put under the earth and |-would pathetically ask his attendants Don't deserve place above ground" ?" Later he threw himself against the wall and exclaimed wildly: Here here is my end" It was.
 | wonderful genius was extinguished forever He was only 31 years old at his death. He had lived life of suffering alongside of his life of song His worldly effects after his death were valued at about $10 or SIP and this included a stack of his manuscripts now almost priceless. His body was laid to rest very near the grave of Beethoven.
 I have thus given the merest sketch of the famous music masters life; l shall now refer to two or three fea- lures of his genius that most certain ly impress the reader of his blog- raphy.
 That Schubert was an extraordinary genius no one can deny. AS child he was a musical composer. He was only IA years old when he wrote Ha- gars Lament, composition that re- lquired fifteen printed pages and con taining many changes of time and rhythm, with many different move ments. As a boy of IT he was writ ing melodies that are as fresh today as when they were first sung that shall live always. At about this age he wrote Margaret at the Spinning Wheel" the Wanderers Night Song and "The Erlking." The latter was writ ten at one sitting, and under th ese circumstances: Some friends went 70 see Schubert and found him in some excitement walking the floor with Goethe's poems in his hand. He was i'm Tba Erll and wrote his wonderful composition before his friends as rapidly as his pen could move. He had no piano and upon his concluding "The Erik ing" the manuscript was taken to the old court organist who played 1t over and lover. When some one objected to the disconance in the composition the old lorganist replied that the discord was essential and that the composition was perfect
 The discord to which objection was made is this, Schubert combined c, D land E flat: later occur D. E and F.; land near the close we have F. c and E flat. All musical people know that such combinations create terrible discord.
 (Just here I left my desk and went to the piano and struck these groups of notes as a mere matter of interest and to confirm my former impressions. They sounded as If the piano were sadly out of tune, SO dlscor dant are the combinations. But they are re- quired by the poetic text of Goethe, and the dramatic composer dared to express them.)
 The first combination occurs when the child asks the father If he does not see the Erlking; the second when the terrified child sees the Erlklng's S daughters; and the last when the child, with a shriek of horror, exclaims My father. my father. he clutches me now" The last dissonance Is high and shrill, and in expressing the voice of the child it Is perfect
 The pictorial genius of Schubert is H.
 ustrated also in the marvellous quaver- triplet tones in the same composition. One can see the excited horse with his eyes flashing, his nostrils swollen, his neck extended and his mane and tail flying in the air, as he hears these quaver tones initiating the sound of the hoofs dashing over the road. do not recall anything
 in Wagner, Gluck, Mozart or Beethoven of equal picturesqueness. It Is realistic
 in the highest degree. One not only hears the horse, but sees the picture before him. There have been about 40 musical render ings of the Erlking, but 1t is safe to say that not one of them can approach the terribly real rendition given by Schu- bert.
 Yet Schuberts genius was of varied quality. It could give us the truest con- captions of the widest imaginations of storms and hob-gobblins, and yet could quiet the soul with the softest tones of lovers signs and longings. What can be more tender than his famous Serenade? So beautifully pathetic Is it that thought it worthy to be used in description of the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, and therefore wrote out that scene in metre, as the evangelists have given 1t to us. It was sung by a splendid soprano before a large audience with violin ob- ligato in a concert. The aria melted into the tender story of the sufferings of the Christ, and it was not strange that hearts and tears were stirred.
 But see the genius of Schubert in his sonatas so warm and tender; his Or pheus, the Fragment aus dem Aeschy- lus," "An Schwager Kronos," and the romantic Ritter Toggenburg." these and | s,oras of otbor 6raly DOlishad copnpo~i-