A missed opportunity...

It might seem odd that I should write about Franz Schubert, who really had no great connection with Weimar. Schubert's connection, however, lies with Goethe. I must explain that I've never read anything by Goethe – though that isn't to say I haven't tried. After living three years in a town and area that idolizes him, it becomes tiring to hear the name. So I am less inclined, really, to talk about Goethe, as I know little about him and I honestly haven't become very interested. (Hopefully I'm just saving a great artist to appreciate later in life.) Goethe only, perhaps unfortunately, has meaning for me in that his poems have been set to music, and this music has been set by some of my favorite composers, namely Schubert. And even here, the Goethe poems that Schubert set to songs are not as interesting to me as other songs (such as Der Tod und das Mädchen or Der Hirt auf dem Felsen). So why write about Schubert and Goethe in a blog about Weimar?

Imagine this: Schubert is a teenager, and quite in love with a girl named Therese Grob. He is, however, unable to marry his love – at his young age he is not reputable enough as a composer or musician to have financial stability or the status needed to be granted a marriage license in Vienna. So Schubert's dear friend Josef von Spaun takes it upon himself – with a great admiration for his friend's music – to present the composer to a famous poet, that is Goethe, with whose recognition, Schubert could gain the regard needed to succeed professionally and thus personally. Spaun puts together a compilation of Schubert's setting of Goethe's poems (including such songs as "Gretchen am Spinnrade" and "Erlkönig"), and sends it with a letter to Goethe on April 17, 1816. This letter was ignored.

There are other "what if" instances – Goethe had an affair that reached its height in 1815 with a singer named Marianne von Willemer. 10 years later in 1825 she wrote a letter to him saying how she requested Beethoven songs from a music store and was also sent a song set to Geheimes from Goethe's West-oestlicher Divan. Schubert had set Geheimes (op. 14) to music in 1821 and was the only major composer to every do so. Unfortunately, though, Marianne didn't mention the name of the composer – was this a lost chance for Goethe to be confronted again with Schubert's name? Interestingly too, is that Marianne was a friend of Anna Milder-Hauptmann, who was a famous singer and sang a song from the same set (Suleika II, op. 31) in Berlin in 1825 – she was also a friend of Schubert's.

Schubert tried, though, to have another attempt at gaining Goethe's recognition. It seemed to be important to him. He wrote himself then to Goethe in June 1825. This letter was also ignored.

If Goethe had only taken the time to hear Schubert's songs, and ultimately recognized him, perhaps Schubert would have had a more prosperous, happy, healthful life. If he could have married his first love, perhaps he wouldn't have succumbed to seeking satisfaction in brothels, and wouldn't have contracted syphilis, which led him to his untimely death. He could have perhaps lived far longer than the 31 years he was granted, if only Goethe had paid some attention.

Kenneth Whitton's book Goethe and Schubert: The Unseen Bond sums this up well.