Was Schubert fruity? And other such questions

Some Context...

Last semester, as part of the compulsory 'Writing Workshop' module for Master's students, I wrote a reflection on Schubert's Variations on Trockne Blumen, which is one of my favourite pieces in the flute's repertoire. Since Schubert is a more widely-known composer than many others who have contributed gems to the canon of flute repertoire, there is quite a wealth of resources available to draw on in researching this piece. I therefore started out with quite general research, but always had in the back of my mind the lens through with I view this piece. Although the Variations are full of exciting virtuosic fireworks, I love this piece first and foremost for the haunting beauty of the Introduction and Theme. I had previously read the text of the Lied on which the Theme is based, and knew how tragic the poem was. In my mind, I had always drawn some connections between the tragedy of the poem's wilting flowers and some of the suffering I imagined Schubert must have experienced as a gay man (as I believed him to certainly be) in 19th Century Vienna, and this fed my emotional connection with the work, and my interpretation of the theme.

Somehow in researching for this essay, I learnt for the first time that Schubert's sexuality is actually a point of enormous contention, and not a foregone conclusion as I had somehow come to believe. I had incorrectly put Schubert in with Tchaikovsky in a category of composers we know almost certainly to have been gay. And so what started out as quite general research very quickly fell down a rabbit of hole centred around Schubert's sexuality. The question why it should matter at all was posed to me by a number of family members and friends, and I attempt to answer this within the essay. But the truth is that it also matters to me because it deepened my personal connection to the piece. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I could relate to some extent to what I imagined Schubert experienced, although I have an enormous amount of privilege that gay men at that time would not have had. At the end of the day, whether or not Schubert was gay, there were certainly people who were forced to hide their true selves in 19th century Vienna, throughout history, and still today, and Schubert certainly experienced suffering in many forms throughout his life. To what extent any or all of this could inspire connection with Schubert's shunned protagonist and the dying flowers on his grave probably lies in the hands of the performer.

Anyway, I was quite happy with the essay I came up with, so I figured I would share it in case anyone might be interested in some ponderings on Schubert, his life, his sexuality, and how and to what extent it might relate to this work. I've slightly changed the referencing for a more reader-friendly experience (including with hyperlinks to sources), but left everything else in tact. So without further ado:

Schubert's Trockne Blumen: A Reflection of His Life?

Franz Schubert’s only work for flute and piano, Introduction and Variations on Trockne Blumen is particularly treasured within the flute repertoire as one of extremely few Romantic-period pieces originally written for flute within the Austro-Germanic tradition. Notwithstanding its popularity, like many parts of Schubert’s life and compositional output, aspects of this work are shrouded in mystery.

The central theme, Trockne Blumen (from which the Variations are formed), is drawn from Schubert’s song cycle, Die Schöne Müllerin, which in turn is based on Müller’s anthology of the same name. Müller wrote his collection of poems in 1817, following a Liederspiel in the house of Friedrich August von Staegemann. This was a collaborative parlour game in which a group of artists contributed music and poetry to stage a tragic love-triangle drama. Schubert set Müller’s resulting anthology for tenor and piano in 1823, and several months later in January of 1824, selected the 18^th Lied from his cycle of twenty, Trockne Blumen to create his Theme and Variations for flute. Why Schubert opted for the flute in this transformation of his theme is unknown. It is speculated that he was possibly inspired by a flautist in his circle of acquaintances, perhaps Ferdinand Bogner (see, for example, Rosella Marisi's 2010 Conference Paper). I find the transfer of material from tenor voice to flute particularly intriguing: one might associate the flute more immediately with the soprano. Perhaps Schubert was inciting flautists to explore unconventional tone colours.

Müller’s poem outlines the despair of a snubbed lover: he wishes to be buried with the withered flowers that his lover once offered him and fantasises about her walking past his grave and realising his love was true. Given the depths of despair portrayed in the poem, Schubert’s setting of it beckons reflection on to what extent and how the text might relate to events of Schubert’s own life. What is unquestionable is that by the time of the composition Schubert was beginning to experience the effects of the syphilis that would eventually cause his early death. Not only would Schubert have been suffering from the onset of physical symptoms, but also languishing in the understanding of what that meant: according to Grove Music Online, “in Schubert's Vienna the contraction of syphilis was for all practical purposes a death sentence; the time interval between contracting the disease and entering its tertiary, and usually terminal, stage was typically three to ten years”. We could perhaps understand the general dark mood of the text through this lens.

What is more contentious is to what extent the romantic tragedy of Trockne Blumen might reflect Schubert’s own love life. Here enters the controversy that has emerged in the last 25 years over Schubert’s sexuality. The assertion that Schubert might have been gay was first committed to writing by Maynard Solomon in 1989. The primary evidence called upon is surviving writings from Schubert’s friends, including about Schubert’s indifference and even disdain towards women (with Anselm Hüttenbrenner once writing that Schubert had “a dominating aversion for the daughters of Eve”); about Schubert’s sexual immorality (with Josef Kenner describing “how powerfully the craving for pleasure dragged [Schubert’s] soul down to the cesspool of slime”) and about Schubert’s highly affectionate and intimate relationships to a number of male friends.

The first prominent refute of Solomon’s claims was written by Rita Steblin, who questions the validity of certain of Solomon’s sources, suggesting that second hand sources, including some collected after Schubert’s death, should be approached with a degree of scepticism. She also provides historical context to many of the quotations employed by Solomon, suggesting alternative interpretations. Additionally, she purports that “the lenient legal penalties and low number of cases indicate that police did not persecute homosexuals in Schubert’s Vienna, and that the fears ‘of surveillance, of arrest and persecution, of stigmatization and exile’ as mentioned by Solomon… are overstated. Thus, there would seem to be little reason for a clandestine ring to develop”.  This was directly refuted by Philip Brett in 1997, who describes her statement as “chilling to gay men and lesbians who have any historical and social awareness”. He further points to the “internalization of oppression” as equally as “damaging as any overt police action”. As Brett points out, even in today’s increasingly accepting society and even within progressive circles, many still grapple with their gender or sexuality and fear the consequences of being openly themselves. It is therefore no stretch of the imagination to think that if Schubert was indeed gay or bisexual, he would have been subject to enormous pressure to live a clandestine lifestyle and may have experienced intense fear as a result.

Here one might question what pertinence Schubert’s sexuality bears on this work. Indeed, Kofi Agawu argues in his article Schubert's Sexuality: A Prescription for Analysis that whether Schubert was gay is only relevant to understanding his music if it can be proven his homosexuality had a distinct effect on his compositional voice throughout all his works. It is conspicuous that assertions like Agawu’s are not raised when musicologists research other aspects of composers’ lives. Many musicians and musicologists view understanding a composer’s life as a helpful tool to understand their music, a position which would not widely be considered controversial. If Schubert was indeed gay, one could imagine that his feelings about not being able to openly express it may have inspired some of his music, particularly pieces like Trockne Blumen, where romantic tragedy lies at the heart. Returning now to Philip Brett, he identifies that Agawu’s argument is underlaid by a model that “never validates a specific listener and omits the expression without which the work only lamely exists – the performance”. Whether or not his sexuality defined Schubert’s compositional style, understanding that he might have been queer may allow queer performers and audiences to uniquely connect with his music. Gay, bisexual or straight, it is highly likely that Schubert’s romantic life was largely unsuccessful; since the only woman he ever courted, Therese Grob, escaped his grasp, and no further records of serious pursuits exist.

Regardless of the relationship to Schubert’s own personal life, it is inarguable that the content of the Lied, Trockne Blumen, is explicitly suicidal in nature. With this in mind, the reasoning behind Schubert’s choice to create highly virtuosic variations for the flute and piano on this theme is not immediately comprehensible. In the words of musicologist Alfred Einstein, in Schubert: a Musical Portrait, “it is depressing for any lover of Schubert to see a song of such unique intensity and restraint subjected to a virtuoso treatment and transformed eventually into a triumphal march – a sacrilege which no one but Schubert himself could have been allowed to commit”.

One possible rationale, as presented by Lawrence Zbikowski in Blossoms of Trockne Blumen: Music and Text in the Early 19th Century, is that Schubert was exercising a “psychological urge to tame a song whose topic – suicide – might have occupied Schubert in his confrontation with a debilitating disease”. He points to the structural changes in the presentation of the Trockne Blumen theme prior to variation, with repetition of each phrase altering the overall perception of harmony and rhythm, with the overall effect of “drain[ing] away much of the tension and drama”. A slightly more optimistic interpretation from Marisi suggests that “the function of the composition of this piece might be to purge Schubert’s excessive feelings of sorrow and fear, which were related to his illness”. As supporting evidence, she calls on Schubert’s 1824 letter to his brother, in which he writes: “Do not think that I am not well or cheerful, just the contrary. It is a period, which I endeavor to beautify as far as possible”; and suggests the extensive use of the Tierce de Picardy amongst Schubert’s E minor theme could reflect “positive behavioral adaptation”. If we accept that the text of Trockne Blumen could in some way also reflect the unhappiness of Schubert’s romantic life, it could be that also here he was seeking solace, expressed through the flute’s voice. As flautists we are presented with the opportunity to transform despair to hope not only for Schubert, but through sensitive interpretation, also for audiences of today and well into the future.