# Why did Schubert never tackle a concerto?



## Kieran

Is there any record of why he didn't compose any concertos?


----------



## joen_cph

There are a few concerto pieces - early ones for piano ("Adagio & rondo concertante" is being recorded in an orchestral version more often nowadays) and for violin ("Rondo", "Polonaise" & a "Concerto Piece"), all from 1818 or before that. But overall you are right, he didn´t embark on any really ambitious concerto works, and it is an interesting question why.

A very far shot, but: perhaps-perhaps the intense occupation with lieder somehow fulfilled his needs as regards composing for an elaborated, accompanied solo voice. Also, his general style tends to be less outwardly virtuoso than what was the habit of his times. But specific sources on the subject would be good reading ...


----------



## KenOC

I don't know of any record why this was so. But Schubert wasn't himself a virtuoso performer, so that might have had something to do with it (coming in on Beethoven's coattails as it were...)


----------



## Ukko

He wasn't a Big Name. Probably figured he couldn't find a soloist to play it.


----------



## Hausmusik

KenOC said:


> I don't know of any record why this was so. But Schubert wasn't himself a virtuoso performer, so that might have had something to do with it


Ken, that seems pretty plausible to me. Taking a stab/thinking aloud: Beethoven, perhaps because he started out in an aristocratic music culture in which they were not yet differentiated, successfully straddled the domestic music/public concert divide, producing intimate and public works in various genres (as Mozart and Haydn had). But Schubert's heart was in intimate genres--chamber music/lieder/piano music--(despite 1 1/2 great symphonies), and perhaps the concerto, public, rhetorical, and given to virtuosic tours de force as it was becoming under Beethoven, just didn't strike a responsive chord in him. Again, just thinking aloud. . .


----------



## Novelette

I truly wish there was a concerto by Schubert--and there's no reason to suppose that he wouldn't have come to it had he lived longer.

We can dream, though.


----------



## Hausmusik

Novelette said:


> I truly wish there was a concerto by Schubert--and there's no reason to suppose that he wouldn't have come to it had he lived longer.
> 
> We can dream, though.


Novelette, weren't you dreaming about a viola and flute concerto from Schubert in another thread? What a beautiful thought.

I suspect an honest-to-goodness concerto from Schubert would have been rather introverted, like Schumann's cello concerto or much of Beethoven's 4th p.c.


----------



## DavidA

Most composers of that age would have written concertos for themselves or for some friend to perform. Schubert was not a virtuoso himself so it is doubtful whether he would have written the music required for a Concerto as he himself would not be able to perform it. Of course he did write the Wanderer Fantasy but he apparently could not get through it himself. Was that what put him off a concerto? Never know for sure.


----------



## Arsakes

Assumption: Because he thought that the age of Concertos has passed and It's the age of symphonies.
I can't think of better excuse for Schubert!


----------



## superhorn

I suppose he might have written some concertos oif he had lived longer and gotten more of a reputation during his lifetime . But unfortunately, he didn't. But we must still be grateful for all the wonderful music he did write in his tragically short lifetime .


----------



## Kieran

Thanks for the replies! Seems like concerto was a genre he deliberately steered clear of, for any number of reasons. Our loss, as they say... :tiphat:


----------



## DavidA

Kieran said:


> Thanks for the replies! Seems like concerto was a genre he deliberately steered clear of, for any number of reasons. Our loss, as they say... :tiphat:


Yes but then the concerto might have suffered the doomed fate as his attempts at opera.


----------



## Vaneyes

Writer's block.


----------



## Schubussy

Probably because he didn't have me there constantly hassling him to do a piano concerto.


----------



## Novelette

Hausmusik said:


> Novelette, weren't you dreaming about a viola and flute concerto from Schubert in another thread? What a beautiful thought.
> 
> I suspect an honest-to-goodness concerto from Schubert would have been rather introverted, like Schumann's cello concerto or much of Beethoven's 4th p.c.


I do dream about a concerto for flute and viola! A Schubert concerto of that arrangement would be... my fantasy.


----------



## neoshredder

Not talented enough.


----------



## peeyaj

I agree with all of you said.

Schubert did not wrote a concerto because he is not a virtuoso pianist. Also he was busy writing failed operas to tackle the concerto genre. He thought that opera is the road for success on his time. If he did not wrote any of them, perhaps he would create more heavenly music! 

Liszt wrote a sort-of-piano concerto. His transcription of Wanderer Fantasy for piano and orchestra is good, if not great. Liszt has a sort of obsession on this piece. The orchestral passages of Wanderer Fantasy is perfect for the orchestra.

I admit.. My greatest fantasy is that Schubert would wrote a* "Trout concerto"* for piano and orchestra utilizing the theme of Die Forelle. It would be really lovely. Also, a* Trombone concerto*. Seeing that how Schubert expanded the roles of trombones (melody) on his last two symphonies and masses (innovative), it would be great if he would wrote one!  One can dream..


----------



## TudorMihai

neoshredder said:


> Not talented enough.


I do not believe that would be a reason. George Enescu was also a very talented violinist and a very good pianist and yet he never managed to complete a Violin or a Piano Concerto. He tried to compose but he abandoned these works.


----------



## Guest

Because a Trout told him not to. Seems just as plausible a reason as any other - we simply don't know.


----------



## neoshredder

I guess he figured why make a Concerto when you can make a Symphony?


----------



## Xaltotun

I'll offer a wild psychological theory. If lieder represented to him his "inner reality", and symphonies and masses an "outer reality", perhaps ultimately benevolent but one that he could not really parttake of, shyness and introvertedness and all. He could describe both realities all right, but maybe he couldn't combine them: he could not see himself as an individual in his place in the greater scheme of things. Maybe as a member in a small circle of friends: that would be described musically as string quartets and other chamber music. But concertoes would represent an individual set against the large backdrop of society or cosmos, and maybe Schubert was too insecure and conformist for that kind of representation.


----------



## Kieran

peeyaj said:


> I admit.. My greatest fantasy is that Schubert would wrote a* "Trout concerto"* for piano and orchestra


He'd have fairly flogged the trout by then, wouldn't he? A Trout song, becomes a Piano Quintet, and now a concerto? He'd be a Romantic period Disney:

"Roll up folks, it began life as a simple fish, but today it's a concerto - come back next year and witness...ta-dum! _Trout the Symphonic Tone-Poem_, _Trout the Musical _and for kids _Trout on Ice!"_  

By the way it would also be the ultimate musical variation if he had done this, too! :tiphat:


----------



## Guest

Kieran said:


> He'd have fairly flogged the trout by then, wouldn't he? A Trout song, becomes a Piano Quintet, and now a concerto? He'd be a Romantic period Disney:
> 
> "Roll up folks, it began life as a simple fish, but today it's a concerto - come back next year and witness...ta-dum! _Trout the Symphonic Tone-Poem_, _Trout the Musical _and for kids _Trout on Ice!"_
> 
> By the way it would also be the ultimate musical variation if he had done this, too! :tiphat:


Little known fact - Wagner was originally considering calling his epic 4-part opera cycle "The Trout of the Nibelung," with the plotline focusing on a magical trout stolen from the Rhine, which brings a family of fishermen to ruin. Wagner didn't know, though, whether the audience would pay to see fish gutted on stage, so he opted for a lame alternative - a magic ring.

Then of course we are all familiar with Messiaen's obsession with birdsong. But in reality, his first love was Trout song - he just did not feel that any of the instruments that existed at the time could accurately reproduce the lovely singing voice of the Trout, so he opted for birds - a much easier subject.


----------



## Kieran

I know Gunther Grass was originally to name his novel The Trout instead of The Flounder, but the Schubert estate contacted him and said it would conflict with their plans to build a Trout Museum, with a possible Trout TV series in the pipeline.


----------



## KenOC

Kieran said:


> I know Gunther Grass was originally to name his novel The Trout instead of The Flounder, but the Schubert estate contacted him and said it would conflict with their plans to build a Trout Museum, with a possible Trout TV series in the pipeline.


None of which came to pass of course. But the estate did proceed with their line of trout-flavored intimate wear.


----------



## Kieran

KenOC said:


> None of which came to pass of course. But the estate did proceed with their line of trout-flavored intimate wear.


It was more of a scent than a flavour, but yes, they did!


----------



## KenOC

Kieran said:


> It was more of a scent than a flavour, but yes, they did!


Actually I was thinking of the proposed "Saveur de la Truite" line of edible underwear. Perhaps it never made it to market. But such things do seem popular.


----------



## Otter

Herman Melville's incomparable Moby-Dick was originally going to be called _Moby-Dick, or, The Trout_. There are only a couple surviving paragraphs of the first draft:

'Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck there! -- brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye! There he blows, across the gentle clear brook! He's an arrow, man! Man the harpoons! He swims to and fro in the sun's golden fountain! With my whole being I strike at thee, trout!'

Ahab was originally going to be called Ludwig Forelleschnitzel, and in the first draft, he only lost a fingertip as opposed to an entire leg.


----------



## MrCello

I would have to say that it might be because he spent much of his time writing lieder or chamber music. It may also be that he did but they did not please him.


----------



## Kieran

I wonder if the great piano concerto composers weren't so virtuoso on piano that actually they were composing a whole drama that surrounded them on the stool? It was their moment of absolute creativity. And Schubert, as a non virtuoso pianist, didn't see himself this way?


----------



## PetrB

Plenty of virtuoso concerti have been composed by people who did not even play the instrument the concerto was written for, so let us please discount the idea that because Schubert was not himself a virtuoso he shied away from composing a concerto, for anything.

Rather, that sort of writing was simply not to his taste or interest. We have a handful of large 'extrovert' works from Schubert, while none of them have anything near like that over-the-top dramatic protagonist kind of pull.

Schubert's persona had him more 'interior' than 'exterior.' Even when commissioned, a piece such as "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen," composed as a concert display piece for a well-known soprano of the day, retains most an interior and chamber-music like character and dimension than the bravura flights of a concert aria by, say, Mozart, or many another concertante work by many another composer.

Plain, simple and evidential -- Schubert had no innate interest in the more aggressive sort of display virtuosity.


----------



## peeyaj

"What's the Trout?"

"I don't know. But the Trout will set you free!"


----------



## Janspe

Oh man, I wish that Schubert had written a piano concerto - or any concerto. I find myself thinking about this quite often, along with the painful thoughts concerning all the unfinished concertos that could have been - the Grieg second and the Prokofiev sixth, for example.

I sometimes catch myself thinking that maybe it would have been better if Mozart had written fewer piano concertos and some other composers more, but then I usually realize what blasphemous thoughts have taken over my mind. 

Luckily we have plenty of Schubert symphonies and sonatas.


----------



## Kieran

Looking at the idea that Schubert didn't compose a piano concerto because the concerto requires more flamboyance or an 'aggressive sort of display virtuosity', it doesn't necessarily have to, does it? I mean, he could have done something less extrovert. Not all piano concertos are grandiloquent studies in virtuosity, and although the piano has to combat the forces of an orchestra, even this doesn't imply necessary bombast. 

Just wondering still why Franz didn't tackle the old concerto!


----------



## Guest

Kieran said:


> Looking at the idea that Schubert didn't compose a piano concerto because the concerto requires more flamboyance or an 'aggressive sort of display virtuosity', it doesn't necessarily have to, does it? I mean, he could have done something less extrovert. Not all piano concertos are grandiloquent studies in virtuosity, and although the piano has to combat the forces of an orchestra, even this doesn't imply necessary bombast.
> 
> Just wondering still why Franz didn't tackle the old concerto!


I agree with PetrB on this. And the poor darling was merely 31 years old when he died!! Rameau wrote no operas until he was 50+ and these are considered his greatest works. They just have to live long enough.


----------



## Guest

Kieran said:


> Looking at the idea that Schubert didn't compose a piano concerto because the concerto requires more flamboyance or an 'aggressive sort of display virtuosity', it doesn't necessarily have to, does it? I mean, he could have done something less extrovert. Not all piano concertos are grandiloquent studies in virtuosity, and although the piano has to combat the forces of an orchestra, even this doesn't imply necessary bombast.
> 
> Just wondering still why Franz didn't tackle the old concerto!


I agree with PetrB on this. And the poor darling was merely 31 years old when he died!! Rameau wrote no operas until he was 50+ and these are considered his greatest works. They just have to live long enough.


----------



## Kieran

I think that sounds more correct to me, that he just hadn't gotten round to it, than any qualms about the concerto form. Not that I would totally disagree with Petr! It's just that this one is evidently true. He didn't get there yet!


----------



## PetrB

Kieran said:


> Looking at the idea that Schubert didn't compose a piano concerto because the concerto requires more flamboyance or an 'aggressive sort of display virtuosity', it doesn't necessarily have to, does it? I mean, he could have done something less extrovert. Not all piano concertos are grandiloquent studies in virtuosity, and although the piano has to combat the forces of an orchestra, even this doesn't imply necessary bombast.
> 
> Just wondering still why Franz didn't tackle the old concerto!


Any commissions would have expected exactly that grandiloquent virtuoso showcase you mentioned.

Since that was the taste of the era, even if he had written a concertante work less overtly about display, or with the soloist as less than prominent hero, it would have more than likely had no takers.


----------



## elgar's ghost

By the time of his death Schubert had pretty much mastered all the different sorts of instrumental composition he'd turned his hand to. Therefore, I find it hard to understand why not being a virtuoso pianist would put him off writing a concerto - after all, isn't it what he could hear in his head rather than what he could physically play that matters? 

If he did feel intimidated about what people may think about his writing for piano then why did he bother writing those great final sonatas? Or was he anxious about writing a work which might be evaluated on its showmanship potential rather than its innate musical qualities?


----------



## PetrB

elgars ghost said:


> By the time of his death Schubert had pretty much mastered all the different sorts of instrumental composition he'd turned his hand to. Therefore, I find it hard to understand why not being a virtuoso pianist would put him off writing a concerto - after all, isn't it what he could hear in his head rather than what he could physically play that matters?
> 
> If he did feel intimidated about what people may think about his writing for piano then why did he bother writing those great final sonatas? Or was he anxious about writing a work which might be evaluated on its showmanship potential rather than its innate musical qualities?


Clues: Not his temperament, not his taste, not his personal interest.


----------



## Novelette

PetrB said:


> Clues: Not his temperament, not his taste, not his personal interest.


While I want to say that this fact is a great pity, I would not wish to risk losing the great works of his that we have! Wishing a more "showmanship-driven" temperament, if that is even a relevant descriptor, might have caused him to indulge hollow bravura [a la Herz] works instead of the great, impactful output.


----------



## PetrB

Novelette said:


> While I want to say that this fact is a great pity, I would not wish to risk losing the great works of his that we have! Wishing a more "showmanship-driven" temperament, if that is even a relevant descriptor, might have caused him to indulge hollow bravura [a la Herz] works instead of the great, impactful output.


They are as they are because the virtuoso display piece, the heroic protagonist / antagonist scheme, was
"Not his temperament, not his taste, not to his personal interest." -- this was part of his nature, which is why what we have from him is as it is.

"Be careful of what you wish for," comes to mind


----------



## DavidA

It's probably boils down to the fact that Schubert was not a Virtuoso musician himself. Hence the concerto was not high on the list of priorities for him. He sadly tried to make an opera composer out of himself which was a failure. His genius lay in the writing of songs - They are his main contribution to the musical genre. Along with those piano sonatas and some sublime chamber music. For a man who died before he was 31 that is not bad going! What might have been?


----------



## Novelette

PetrB said:


> They are as they are because the virtuoso display piece, the heroic protagonist / antagonist scheme, was
> "Not his temperament, not his taste, not to his personal interest." -- this was part of his nature, which is why what we have from his is as it is.
> 
> "Be careful of what you wish for," comes to mind


I think I'll be all right unless someone "discovers" Schubert concerto fragments and attempts to "reconstruct" a whole work from a few scraps. Beethoven's "Tenth" definitely comes to mind, although there are even worse examples out there!

That said, we should also be grateful that no one, to my knowledge, has attempted to complete the dozens of variation fragments from Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Beethoven frequently composed short lines, several-measure ideas, to return to later. Many of them were left unfinished. The day I see an album of Beethoven's _66_ Diabelli Variations [the remainder being "completed" by some overly exuberant musicologist]... I would weep.


----------



## PetrB

Novelette said:


> I think I'll be all right unless someone "discovers" Schubert concerto fragments and attempts to "reconstruct" a whole work from a few scraps. Beethoven's "Tenth" definitely comes to mind, although there are even worse examples out there!
> 
> That said, we should also be grateful that no one, to my knowledge, has attempted to complete the dozens of variation fragments from Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Beethoven frequently composed short lines, several-measure ideas, to return to later. Many of them were left unfinished. The day I see an album of Beethoven's _66_ Diabelli Variations [the remainder being "completed" by some overly exuberant musicologist]... I would weep.


Beethoven wrested in sketches, dozens of sketches, in shaping a simple four-note motif, for example, and he made many of them along the way, for one piece, or other ideas he had.

Because he really did extract his musical materials with as much difficulty as a sculptor chipping away at a block of marble until the right form begins to emerge, to make reconstructions or extrapolations from those sketches, not at all the right idea, mis-shapen, mistaken, would be a huge mistake.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> ...to make reconstructions or extrapolations from those sketches, not at all the right idea, mis-shapen, mistaken, would be a huge mistake.


And yet some (like the fine author Cooper!) do forge ahead, seeking a measure of shameful notoriety.


----------



## PetrB

DavidA said:


> It's probably boils down to the fact that Schubert was not a Virtuoso musician himself. Hence the concerto was not high on the list of priorities for him. He sadly tried to make an opera composer out of himself which was a failure. His genius lay in the writing of songs - They are his main contribution to the musical genre. Along with those piano sonatas and some sublime chamber music. For a man who died before he was 31 that is not bad going! What might have been?


"Boiling down" is reductive by definition, and I think reductive is what your statement is.

He composed the heavy-duty Fantasie in C major, Op. 15, D. 760, "The Wanderer" which he is on record as not being enough up to snuff to present in concert himself. There is no doubt in my mind that he could have composed a virtuoso piano concerto -- if he had cared to do so.

Three of the greatest of violin concerti have come from composers who were not Paganini, nor played much, or any, violin: none of them played, at least as fluidly as would be expected, at the level of the concerti they wrote for the instrument.
Beethoven
Berg
Stravinsky

There are the Schubert Symphonies, including the big and great ones, which make full use of instruments he clearly knew to write for, and which had no personal association of his 'inability to play them at a virtuoso level.'

Schubert's failure as an opera composer -- Schubert lieder are often perfectly contained and complete mini psycho-dramas, compressed. When he turned to opera, there is an irony, there. Often enough, composer's whose works are already innately theatrical, Schubert, Barber, have the worst sense of musical theater with its far-greater extended time-scale.

P.s. relative point of interest: I have yet to think of a piano concerto not written by a composer who was known to be a pretty hot-dog pianist.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> P.s. relative point of interest: I have yet to think of a piano concerto not written by a composer who was known to be a pretty hot-dog pianist.


An interesting challenge! None come immediately to mind here. I want to noodle on this.


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> An interesting challenge! None come immediately to mind here. I want to noodle on this.


How odd, I thought, to have not thought of that question a number of decades ago 

There are 'lighter load' concerti where you feel the composer was not a high-level pianist, like the Hovhaness pieces - but those, one could give a matter just like the matter of Schubert as the answer, just following the path of a different drummer.

Let me know if you find -- piano concerti clearly requiring a full basic virtuoso soloist, _any!_ not written by a composer with similar chops.


----------



## DavidA

PetrB said:


> "Boiling down" is reductive by definition, and I think reductive is what your statement is.
> 
> He composed the heavy-duty Fantasie in C major, Op. 15, D. 760, "The Wanderer" which he is on record as not being enough up to snuff to present in concert himself. There is no doubt in my mind that he could have composed a virtuoso piano concerto -- if he had cared to do so.
> 
> P.s. relative point of interest: I have yet to think of a piano concerto not written by a composer who was known to be a pretty hot-dog pianist.


Please note that I am not saying Schubert couldn't have done it. But not being a noted Virtuoso pianist it was not on the list of his priorities. Note he never wrote another piece like the Wanderer Fantasy.

I think your last point is telling. Most concertos appear to be written for the composer to play.
How good a pianist was Ravel? do we know? I know he conducted his own concerti but did he also play them?
Of course, Schumann had a hand injury - but wrote for his wife.
Dvorak was not a pianist but his concerto is considered unpianistic.


----------



## PetrB

DavidA said:


> Please note that I am not saying Schubert couldn't have done it. But not being a noted Virtuoso pianist it was not on the list of his priorities. Note he never wrote another piece like the Wanderer Fantasy.


This is one of those chicken, or egg? sort of conjectures, rather fun. Not being known for the more virtuoso pieces, maybe no virtuoso pianist ever thought to want to commission Schubert for a concerto. Maybe he was approached and rejected the proposal. Not inclined, not known for, etc.



DavidA said:


> I think your last point is telling. Most concertos appear to be written for the composer to play.
> How good a pianist was Ravel? do we know?


Ravel was more than an adequate pianist, he was a virtuoso. However, I think he was not 100 percent consistent in performance -- sometimes a handful of very noticeably incorrect notes -- and his playing, for many, was excruciatingly dry, using almost no damper pedal, ever, for example. Next, many a pianist / composer will play their piano solo music far too fast -- so used to it they forget that their listeners need more real 'listening time' to take in the events. Ravel did not, that I know, give public performances of either of his piano concerti.


----------



## Selby

Xaltotun said:


> I'll offer a wild psychological theory. If lieder represented to him his "inner reality", and symphonies and masses an "outer reality", perhaps ultimately benevolent but one that he could not really parttake of, shyness and introvertedness and all. He could describe both realities all right, but maybe he couldn't combine them: he could not see himself as an individual in his place in the greater scheme of things. Maybe as a member in a small circle of friends: that would be described musically as string quartets and other chamber music. But concertoes would represent an individual set against the large backdrop of society or cosmos, and maybe Schubert was too insecure and conformist for that kind of representation.


Fantastic post. Smile from ear to ear.


----------



## Selby

I am curious: if given the choice would you rather have a Schubert concerto for piano or a Mahler concerto for violin?


----------



## PetrB

Mitchell said:


> I am curious: if given the choice would you rather have a Schubert concerto for piano or a Mahler concerto for violin?
> 
> View attachment 20109


Neither, thanks. Happy enough with what they did complete without grabbing through their garbage cans for a bit of dna to try and clone a new bit 'o' them


----------



## Mahlerian

Mitchell said:


> I am curious: if given the choice would you rather have a Schubert concerto for piano or a Mahler concerto for violin?
> 
> View attachment 20109


Given that even in his concertante movements (Scherzos of the 4th and 5th symphonies come to mind) the solo part is not particularly flashy, I'd say the genre as a whole, with its attendant notions of show-off vehicle and so forth, didn't appeal to him much at all.


----------



## Selby

Pshhhhhhh PetrB. When Mahler's genuine manuscript is discovered you are neither allowed to see it nor listen to any of the recordings thereafter. I talked to God about it, it's official.


----------



## PetrB

Mitchell said:


> Pshhhhhhh PetrB. When Mahler's genuine manuscript is discovered you are neither allowed to see it nor listen to any of the recordings thereafter. I talked to God about it, it's official.


What if it is discovered, and like Chopin's Fantasie-Impromtu, a thing the composer clearly decided should never see the light of day, be in print, never to be heard.

Who do you go with then, the thing as released by the unscrupulous to make more money (Chopin's publisher) or with the composer, opting for the composer's judgement? Hmmmm.


----------



## Selby

PetrB said:


> What if it is discovered, and like Chopin's Fantasie-Impromtu, a thing the composer clearly decided should never see the light of day, be in print, never to be heard.
> 
> Who do you go with then, the thing as released by the unscrupulous to make more money (Chopin's publisher) or with the composer, opting for the composer's judgement? Hmmmm.


Reminds me a little bit of the dilemma Max Brod faced with his friend Franz Kafka's works. I'm not sure it was the _right _decision, ethically speaking, but I am not complaining about it.


----------

