Franz Schubert and His World

by Gibbs, Christopher H. , Solvik, Morten

  Figure 8. Play with Double Glasses. Carl Zimmermann (as Schubert) and Leopold Kupelwieser, 31 December 1817. Watercolor by August Kloeber (Goliath Pinselstiel).

  Figure 9. Franz Schubert. Oil portrait attributed to Josef Abel, ca. 1814.

  I believe these valuable items were meant to parody Schubert as he was depicted in the oil portrait attributed to Josef Abel (1764–1818),44 which shows the nearsighted composer, gripped by inspiration while seated at a fortepiano, with a number of signet rings at his waist (Figure 9). The dress, the glasses, the hair reproduce the Abel portrait with stunning accuracy. Perhaps the pencil (Bleistift) placed so prominently on the piano even became an inside joke, associating Aaron Bleistift—whose father in Berlin was actually a “Holz-Inspector”—with Schubert, who as we have seen is often connected with wood in the newsletters. In the Abel portrait, a name is inscribed on the fortepiano with the decipherable letters reading “[?]enie.”45 I now believe that the artist, who was famed for incorporating symbolic attributes in his paintings, meant the nameplate to indicate: Genie, a designation that finds prominent mention in the newsletters in association with Schubert.

  Zimmermann, who painted four surviving pictures for the society, was a popular member, praised for his artistic talent and teased for his pursuit of women. One of the newsletter reports, titled “Psychologische Beobachtungen” (Psychological Observations) and dated 2 April 1818, begins with an obscene spoof on pretentious intellectual writing, using passages in pseudo-Yiddish, and then describes Zimmermann proudly riding a horse down the Rotenturmstrasse. The article ends with the following passage mentioning a shoemaker apprentice named “Hansel”—that is, Schubert:

  But let us consider a small group of shoemaker boys, full of innocence…. He [Zimmermann] stops suddenly in front of a house in the Rotenturmstrasse and his whistling mouth closes in silence. His eyes are directed upwards and he smiles gently. What is the object of his fixed gaze? It is a maid, washing the windows on the second floor. To balance herself, she has stretched out her right leg rather carelessly into the street. The shoemaker apprentice, absolutely delighted, calls to one of his comrades: Hansel, stop! Here you can see the whole city of Paris!

  The double mention here of shoemaker and Hansel, implying Ritter Juan, reinforces the connection made in the double portrait between Zimmermann and Schubert. The artist’s unexpected death in 1820 in a drowning accident, soon after he had married a member of the extended Mendelssohn family, was a tragic loss to art: his stunning illustrations of Goethe’s Faust are the visual counterpart to Schubert’s 1814 masterpiece in song: Gretchen am Spinnrade (D118).46

  Since Eduard and Gustav Anschütz have scarcely been mentioned previously in the Schubert literature, it is worth devoting a few lines to them here.47 Among the pictures in the Wienmuseum are individual portraits of the brothers, showing how they were dressed for each of the celebratory events. Figures 2 and 3 depict the younger brother, Eduard, the club’s leader and newsletter editor. In each portrait he holds a staff or scepter topped by a rooster. The club’s Stammlokal (regular haunt), where the members met every Thursday evening, was the inn called the Roter Hahn (Red Rooster)—still standing today as a hotel with that name—in the suburb of Landstrasse just southeast of the inner city. (Although Schubert was working at his father’s school in 1817, he would normally have had Thursday afternoons and evenings free.) Eduard was a poet—in 1816 the Vienna Theaterzeitung published a poem by him criticizing the Italian prima donna Angelica Catalani for her vanity—and he later pursued a career as an actor.

  Gustav Anschütz (1793–1839) used the code name Sebastian Haarpuder. In the portrait depicting his costume for the New Year’s Eve party, he wears a late Baroque outfit, including a wig from which a sign hangs reading “Extra fein Haarpuder” (Extra fine hair powder), and he is deep in discussion with a portrait of Pythagoras (see Figure 4). Since he grew up in Leipzig, his code name probably had some connection with Johann Sebastian Bach, especially since the “mathematical” Bach wore a powdered wig. It has also been argued that Bach composed the Art of the Fugue to display Pythagorean principles, including mirror images.48 Was Gustav aware of this inside information? Gustav later worked as a jeweler and was a passionate dancer. At his death in 1839 he was survived by his wife, who taught singing, and his two young children. Since his brother Eduard died unmarried, the question arises: Who inherited the still-missing Nonsense Society materials? Perhaps they will be found one day, owned by descendants of either Gustav or Heinrich Anschütz.

  In the context of this predominantly male society of close friendships it would be remiss to disregard the question of sexuality, especially in light of the plethora of contributions to this topic in recent Schubert literature. Indeed, even a casual glance at the newsletters and watercolors at times suggests feminine allures and cross-dressing among some of the members of the club. Closer inspection, however, reveals a rather more heterosexually oriented form of banter. A case in point is Smirsch, alias Nina Wutzerl (see Figure 10).49 Although this member took on a woman’s role in the club and was teased for his “tender” traits, the hat he wore decorated with peacock feathers represented his teaching specialty at the Polytechnical Institute: painting flowers and feathers. (Smirsch later sang with the Wiener Männergesangverein, amassed a huge fortune as a financier, and married his longtime cook at the age of seventy-seven.) He is featured in a picture, Nina’s Triumph, attached to the newsletter dated 12 November 1818. This sacrilegious triptych spoofs a barbershop scene in which Nina introduces an untutored new member to culture. This member, named “Alebrand,” as well as a witness to the scene named “Mordschlag” are still unidentified. The text describing the picture explains that it was painted by Rafaele van der Riso di Zaardam (Carl Peter Goebel, a prize-winning student at the Vienna Art Academy) as a form of penance for his having produced bad art for the society. In an earlier newsletter, Riso di Zaardam had been punished by Zeisig with a disciplining stick for being lazy in his creative efforts. The stick would seem to be an allusion to Schubert and his high artistic ideals.

  Figure 10. Nina Wutzerl. 31 December 1817. Watercolor by Johann Nepomuk Hoechle (Kratzeratti Klanwinzi).

  An earlier picture, attached to the newsletter dated 23 July 1818, shows another sacrilegious scene: a parody of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, with the club gathering for their Thursday meeting in a shed topped by a huge red rooster, thus representing their Stammtisch. This picture was painted by Goldhann, who included himself, his wife, and two young daughters as a family of golden chickens in the left foreground. A chicken in a fancy hat decorated with colorful feathers—Nina—stands in front of a music stand and sings. Goldhann, who also wrote the accompanying text, explains that we see in this pretty bird “the unfortunate capon [eunuch] whose single pleasure is in singing and whose only listener is the splendidly dressed-up gallus galinaceus or turkey.” This turkey, who judges the singer, is obviously meant to represent Schubert. He is placed right in the middle of the picture, directly under the huge red rooster, but faces in the opposite direction, thus suggesting a “verkehrte Welt” (topsy-turvy world), another favorite theme, in addition to the “ship of fools,” that characterized this society.

  There is also the case of the super-macho former soldier Ferdinand Dörflinger (1790–1818), the author of many unsavory articles in the newsletters about cooking and prostitutes.50 He had adopted the persona and dress of the notorious actress Elise Hahn, who had cuckolded her husband, the famous poet Gottfried August Bürger. Dörflinger’s hasty marriage on 14 September 1817—his bride was already pregnant—served as the butt of many jokes, including Schnautze’s literary parody of Schiller’s poem “Hektors Abschied” with the travestied title “Lisels Abschied, als sie Mariage machte” (Lizzy’s Farewell, as She Got Married), and Nina Wutzerl’s painting of a Parisian fashion plate of fancy hats dedicated to “her” disreputable girlfriend “Elise Gagarnadl von Antifi.” The Windhosen map (dated 20 November 1817) shows the voyage of a fish wear
ing eyeglasses—Schubert—swimming from Spittelberg, with its loose women, toward the Rossau with its piles of wood. The fish, with a piece of (dirty?) linen wrapped around its tail, is about to swallow the name “Antifi.” In December 1817 Schubert composed the original (longer) version of Das Dörfchen (The Little Village, D598) for four unaccompanied male voices in what I believe is the musical counterpart to the earlier literary and painterly jokes on “Elise.” Schubert must have chosen this text—the author of the poem is none other than Bürger—not only because of the connection to Elise Hahn, but also because of the wordplay (Dörfchen) on Dörflinger’s name. The absolute giveaway is Schubert’s selection of several verses mentioning “Elise”—for example, “Schön ist die Flur; / Allein Elise / Macht sie mir nur / Zum Paradiese”; that he omitted these humorous verses, with their private message, when he published the work later in 1822, in the shorter, better-known version of the work in Op. 11, No. 1 (D641) is itself revealing.

  Schubert likely composed other works “für Elise,” including the Lied fragment Entzückung eines Lauras Abschied (Delight at the Departure of Some Laura, D577), on a text by Schiller, in August 1817. The title is not a mistake, as Deutsch had thought, but a deliberate attempt to spoof “some kind of woman’s” pending farewell. The Schiller text “Elysium” (D584), which Schubert set in September 1817, ends with the celebration of an eternal wedding feast: the word ewig (eternal) is stretched out in an exaggerated word parody for an incredible ten bars. Since it is set for high tenor voice, I suspect that Schubert sang this himself at a wedding party for Dörflinger, hosted by the club.

  Johann Nepomuk Hoechle became famous as the painter of battle scenes for Emperor Franz—and is still remembered today for his Beethoven depictions: these include an ink wash drawing of the composer walking in the rain, the well-known music-studio scene painted on 30 March 1827 with the bust of Schubert in the window, and a quick sketch of Beethoven’s funeral procession.51 Under his code name Kratzeratti Klanwinzi, Hoechle drew eleven surviving pictures for the Nonsense Society, including the group scene Zur Unsinniade—2ter Gesang, an “action shot” of the New Year’s Eve party, and the illustration “Zebedäus” in His Studio in the newsletter dated 8 October 1818. This image makes fun of the extremely old director of the Vienna Art Academy, Martin Fischer (1741–1820), identified in the double wordplay: “Mr. Zebedäus from Fisher Alley.” The name of the biblical fisherman Zebedee is reinforced by the name of the street where he lives. A similar kind of wordplay points to Schubert: for example, in the reports about a musician who lives in the “ABC house” or a curly-headed “Jean” who lives at Erdberg (where Schubert stayed with the Watteroth family in 1816).52 Hoechle’s picture shows old Fischer making some anatomical investigations of a woman’s bottom, the same theme found in the tale about Chevalier Touchetout pulling out some socks. This in turn reflects the mention of Ritter Cimbala in the poem “Impromptu” about a sock, in the newsletter dated 12 February 1818. The poem follows immediately a tale about a fortepiano signed by Quanti Verdradi (whom I assume to be Franz von Schober), and which reads as follows (note the double wordplays):

  Fortepiano to play out. A completely new played-out Fortepianoforte, fitted with many notes and provided with a quantity of fine and coarse [grob] strings, as one would wish to have it, and which in addition has already been admired by many admirers, is to be had by a certain gentleman for playing purposes—because the drums and trumpets produce tones by themselves when one presses the so-called Turkish Turkish [!] music stops up and down with one’s foot. The beginning of this play is on the third of this [month] in the house of the person playing. Quanti verdradi.

  The mention of grob here was probably a deliberate reference to Therese Grob (1798–1875), Schubert’s beloved singer, whom he had hoped to marry in 1816.53

  In mid-November 1818, after Schubert returned to Vienna from his five-month stay in Zseliz, he abandoned his teaching position and moved into an apartment with the older poet Johann Mayrhofer (1787–1836).54 A lengthy account written by Josef Kupelwieser for the newsletter dated 26 November 1818 spoofs Mayrhofer’s daytime job with the government police office as a censor of books. Here are a few excerpts:

  Advertisement. The following prohibited and permitted works are on public sale at the editor’s publishing house:

  1. Prohibited

  Multiplication tables from 1 to 1000 and back again in reverse order.

  ABC book with pictures by a priest of the Jacobin order….

  2. Permitted Books

  Introduction to the art of revolution. Paris 1792….

  On the art of deceiving the course of nature, for the benefit of the population, by a misanthrope….

  Introduction to the art of defrauding people, along with thorough instructions on how to declare a false bankruptcy. Vienna, Police House, 1818.

  Among the clues pointing here to Schubert and his roommate are “ABC book” and “Jacobin order”—the house where Schubert now lived, Wipplingerstrasse 2, had originally been occupied by the Jacobins.55 In addition, there is the reference to a “misanthrope,” a word used to describe Mayrhofer’s character.56 There is no evidence that the poet himself belonged to the Nonsense Society—membership in such a secret society would have been extremely dangerous for someone working for the police—but his biographer, Ernst von Feuchtersleben, reported that “every morning [Mayrhofer] entered into his diary the jokes of one such instinctive, humorous, natural person [Schubert], who was the soul of wit of a merry evening society.”57

  Conclusion

  Although the episodes recounted in this overview point to the presence of the composer, one should keep in mind that there are many other passages where we are left, at best, to interpret. Certain words appear over and over again in what I believe are encoded references to Schubert. One of these is Schuh (shoe)—also found in combinations, such as Handschuh (glove)—as well as various appearances of Auge (eye), Brille (eyeglasses), or Glas. The words Fest (festival) or Festung (fortress/prostitute) also seem to be associated with the composer. I have already discussed such words as Holz (wood) and various items made of wood, including sticks—Stab, Stock, etc. I assume that the many references to music, to dance (especially the écossaise), and to musical instruments (especially the Posaune) refer to Schubert. Since he most likely composed the music for Feuergeist, the many jokes about Feuer (fire) probably involve him as well—as do the frequent occurrences of ABC (standing for the primary school class that he taught). A wonderful example of word combinations pointing to Schubert is the expression “handfester Holzhacker” used to describe the person who lives “beym goldnen A B C” (at the golden A B C) and who is studying Beethoven’s fantasies and variations (newsletter of 23 October 1817). I also believe that variants of the name Juan—for example, Johannis, Hans, Hansel, Jean, etc.—may as well refer to Schubert. Other members are also associated with particular words or concepts: Leopold Kupelwieser, for example, is represented by the draisine, swimming, and comets. And, if I am correct in assuming that Schubert’s close friend Franz von Schober was regarded as the enemy—or at least as a rival to Josef Kupelwieser (in writing librettos for the composer)—then he appears everywhere in the newsletters not only as the evil Turk, Arab, or Chinaman, but also as the stupid traveler to the topsy-turvy world, “Ulf Dalkensohn,” the dumbbell with a Swedish sounding name. Schober, who was born in Sweden, is thus the “Dummkopf” (blockhead) who leads the “Narr” (innocent fool), that is, Schubert, on sexually promiscuous adventures, for instance to Aqualine’s swamp, as told in the long tale about Musa and the transformed youths.

  We can only also guess at the extent of the direct impact of this social circle on Schubert’s musical output, although some works in particular suggest a strong connection to his participation in the Nonsense Society: Der Feuergeist, an early version of Die Zauberharfe (D644); Entzückung eines Lauras Abschied (D577); Elysium (D584); Das Dörfchen (D598); Auf der Riesenkoppe (D611); Variations on a French Song, Op. 10 (
D624).58 There is also much more to discover in the annals of the Nonsense Society beyond Schubert: how a young generation of Viennese artists understood their world in the late 1810s, their awareness of current events and scientific discoveries, their view of morality and sense of humor, their artistic talents and mutual admiration. That Schubert was an integral part of this circle only adds to the richness of this discovery in the history of art and social interaction. As I expressed in 1997 in “Schubert Through the Kaleidoscope,” my first English-language article describing this new material:

  This documentary find will not only open up new perspectives for research on the composer, it will also give new impetus to the fields of literature, art and theater, in particular as they relate to the sociological and cultural study of the Biedermeier period. I hope then that the future collegial work on this material by serious scholars in many fields will add innumerable splendid colors—kaleidoscope-like—to our current picture of Schubert and his Viennese circle of friends.59

  The time is still ripe for other scholars to be enticed by this rich and fascinating material and award it serious attention.

  NOTES

  This is a heavily edited version of the article I wrote in November 2012 for the Bard Music Festival of 2014. That article provided a more detailed account of how my research progressed and highlighted my new, unpublished ideas on this topic and was published, in its original form, in late 2013 as “New Thoughts on Schubert’s Role in the Unsinnsgesellschaft,” Schubert: Perspektiven 10/2 (2010): 191–223. It can be consulted there for comparative purposes.