Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

AFTER THE PREVIOUS NINE YEARS

reat tide don't you think, 'after the previous nine years'? I did toy with 'Beyond…' for a few moments but then plumped for the plainer 'After…' in the end. Paves the way, should I ever need it, for a prequel, 'Before the previous…' etc, etc. Can't see as I will ever need it, but still.

The reason I go on about the tide is that, to be fair, this isn't really any particular period in history. Yes, it's still 'early romantic', and it's not quite fully fledged 'romantic', but this doesn't earn it its own name: 'the pre-ultra romantic' period, or maybe the 'post pre-roman-tic period'. Yes, actually, that's better. But, still, it hasn't got a name. And I certainly would never stoop so low as to deliberately try to coin a new phrase for some sad nine-year lull, just so that I get quoted in pompous music books. Oh no. Not me.

The post pre-romantic period, as you might call this time, is quite an interesting little time. Quick update: 1819 was the year that P The bits where they flay more than one note at once on the violin. fi P The bits where they apply afferent pressure on a string so as to sound a afferent note from that gained by applying normal pressure. Singapore was leased to the British East India Company, and a bijou but surprisingly spacious settlement was established. Elsewhere, last year, the Allies, in the shape of Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia, withdrew from France. In another continent, some poor chap is forced to walk the breadth of America with one of those white-line painting machines, as the new border with Canada is established - the 49th parallel. In fact, talking of the US, 1819 sees them going into real estate. A litde place called Florida has just come on to the market, put up for sale by Spain, and America is the first to view. There is a small entry in President James Monroe's diaries which is thought to relate to the viewing. 1819. Met those nice people, the Spaniards and went round to view F.

It's delightful. Mrs Monroe and I fell in love with it the minute we crossed the border. All its own features - 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline, 663 miles of beaches - lovely for summer. Also has cold running water - St Johns river, etc, which is good because Mrs Monroe like to sleep near a bathroom. Also, 7,700 lakes. Nice fishing. In terms of outbuildings, it's got 4,500 islands. Spaniards said it's had only one previous owner, if you don't count St Augustine Has only 67 counties - we were looking for 70. And it is overlooked - by Georgia and Alabama. In the end, bought it. Fishing swung it! This year is also the vogue year for the poet John Keats. He's all the rage, having already published Endymion, a year ago, and the Poems the year before that. In 1819, he's writing not only 'The Eve of St Agnes' and 'Hyperion' but also the odes - 'Ode to a Nightingale', 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' and the gorgeous 'Ode to Autumn'. Staying in England, Turner is still painting madly - this year it's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and why not? - and also Mary Shelley is still fairly hot on the coffee tables with Frankenstein. In France, the powers-that-etre have declared 'Freedom of the Press', which, I believe, is rather like 'freedom of the city' only you get the right to drive your sheep across the editor's desk. Science is coming on in leaps and bounds, although, having said that, James Watt has just died. On the bright side, though, the Dane, Hans? Oersted, has just discovered electromagnetism, and a brand-new lock - the detector lock -has just been developed by the sumptuously named Jeremiah Chubb. Don't you just love it when that happens? Next tiling you know, they'll try and tell you that someone called Mackintosh invented the mackintosh.

But anyway, on the music front it's a good year for Schubert. Yes, he's around now. In fact he's already twenty-two by now.

Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797. His dad was a teacher, his mother a cook. You get the feeling that he would have 'fallen into teaching' as so many people do, were it not for one thing - his innate musical talent. It simply outed itself! No sooner was he in long trousers than he could rattle off tunes on the piano, organ and violin. Oh, and the viola, but let's not hold that against him. He was enrolled at the Imperial Court Chapel Choir, where one of his teachers was the composer Salieri, who's alleged to have told him that he was a genius who could do everything! It was here, too, that he started to compose - his first song is from when he was sixteen - but, when he left the choir, he set out on his dad's chosen career for him, that of teacher. By all accounts, he was a terrible teacher, totally unable to keep discipline and lacking in conviction. But his heart just wasn't in it. He composed at night, in between marking slates, and eventually packed it in when he was just nineteen.

Luckily for him, he got in with a useful clique that included poets and singers. Handy, really, because he would use the poets' words for his songs and then call upon the singers to sing them. And the writing is flowing too - the muse is good and all that - it's just that he's not doing too well on the public recognition front. Yes, he's written the songs and other pieces till they're coming out of his ears, but virtually none of them are getting performed. Even fewer are getting published. Nothing so far, in fact. He is a tad down about it, but it doesn't stop him keeping on keeping on, and this year he produces a trout. Quite a feat, I think you'll agree. His trout, though, is a piano quintet, written in five movements, the last but one being a set of variations on one of his own songs, 'Die Forelle' - 'The Trout' - which he'd written a couple of years earlier. It's a very pleasant piece, whose significance is more than a little outweighed by its popularity, but, nevertheless, it's fun enough. It's said he wrote it while he was on holiday and, certainly, this would explain its general lightness in comparison to the tragic nature of a lot of his stuff.

Just by way of an aside - well, two asides, really - it's not a particularly well-known fact that Schubert's nickname among his friends was 'SchwammerP which translates, more or less, as 'the little mushroom'. This is because Schubert was both none too tall and none too thin, and his short, squat frame, complete with his little round face, earned him his own affectionate little moniker. What is more widely known is that Schubert was a great one for routine, particularly when it came to composing. It's said he would compose every morning, come rain or come shine. After lunch, he'd meet friends for walks or a coffee, and then most evenings were reserved for music-making, or 'Schubertiads', as they came to be known. A Schubertiad was basically our Franz saying 'Hey, everyone, back to mine!' and then an evening of jolly good fun round the piano, with all the musician friends he could muster. Add to this all Schubert's friends from the bohemian arty circles of Vienna, and I imagine you got some rather interesting evenings. Rumour has it that, on one occasion, somebody even blew a raspberry. Heady times, I'm sure.