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CHAPTER VIII. HARD AT WORK. BEETHOVEN. One Sunday during the summer of 1826, Schubert, with several of his companions, was returning from Potzleinsdorf to the city, and chanced, on the way, to stroll through Wiihring, where he espied his old friend Tieze quietly napping at a table in the garden " Zum Biersack." A few moments later the whole party were seated; and then followed a clinking of glasses and a drinking of beer. Tieze had a book lying open before him ; and, amid the general jollity and conversation, Schubert began to turn over the leaves. Suddenly he stopped ; and rising from his chair, with his finger pointing to a well-known poem of Franz Grillparzer, he exclaimed, "Oh, such a beautiful melody as has just now crept into my head! If I only had a sheet of music-paper!" One of the party came to his assistance, and, suatching up the bill of fare, drew a few music-lines on the back of it. Schubert then, while a real German hubbub was going on all around him, wrote down that melody, that has been pronounced by thousands since his day to be of uncommon and delicious beauty, —the Standchen." The " Standchen " was originally composed as an alto solo, and a chorus for male voices, but was afterwards re-arranged for female voices only. On the first arrangement, in Schubert's own handwriting appear the words, "Composed at Wiihring, July, 1826." The same date is written also on the manuscript of the " Trinklied," — a chorus for male voices, with piano accompaniment ad libitum, — the words of which were borrowed from " Antony and Cleopatra." The famed cycle of the " Winterreise " was first begun in this year, — a set of Lieder, perhaps the most beautiful andhighly finished of all his song-efforts, but, as has been aptly written, " a singular contrast to the gay s...
