Schubert and Beethoven

[Frohlich]

FRANZ SCHUBERT,
died 1828, age 31, wrote the following words just a few months after the onset of an illness that would eventualy kill him.


"See abased in dust and mire,
Scorched by agonizing fire,
I in torture go my way,
Nearing dooms destructive day.

Take my life, my flesh, my blood,
Plunge it all in Lethe's flood,
To a purer stronger state
Deign me, Great One, to translate".

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I am sure we would all agree that these are very great lines of poetry conveying powerful truths in searing beautiful language.
Somehow it reminds me of, T.S. Eliot, from the Four Quartets when he wrote;-

We only live,
we only suspire,
consumed by either
fire or fire.

********

Like Keats, whose works he almost certainly didn't know, Schubert had a clear sense that his life would be short, and that he would have to work at a sustained fever pitch to put on paper the vast wealth of ideas contained in his genius.
Like Mozart, Schubert possessed a remarkable ability to compose quite lengthy of music in his head, and then from memory commit them to paper at a later time.

[Peter]

Originally posted by spaceray:
Why were Beethoven and Schubert not left to rest as they were,what was the point of moving them?

Oct 13th 1863 - First exhumation of both Schubert and Beethoven in order to better preserve the body by placing it in a metal casket within a bricked-in vault. Gerhard Breuning (who as a 13 year old boy had known Beethoven) was present, and noted the compact thickness of Beethoven's skull in comparison to the 'almost feminine thinness' of Schubert's. Another striking feature was the presence of a fine gold filling in the last left molar - a rarity for the 1820's. Both skulls were photographed by J.B.Rottmayer and plaster casts were made by Wittman. As a member of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Gerhard Breuning had custody of Beethoven's skull - In his own words " what stormy feelings passed through my mind evoking such powerful memories, as I had possession of that head for a few days, cleaned from it bits of dirt, took plaster casts of the base of the skull for Professor Romeo Seligmann, kept it by my bedside overnight, and in general proudly watched over that head from whose mouth, in years gone by, I had so often heard the living word!"

Oct 23rd 1863 - Beethoven and Schubert reburied

June 22nd 1888 4 pm - During the second disinterment, the casket was opened and scientists were allowed twenty minutes to examine and measure the bones. Photographs were again taken. The composer Anton Bruckner was present and Bruckner was a very traditional Catholic with a reverence for relics, such as the remains of saints. For him composers like Beethoven were "saints," and when Beethoven and Schubert's remains were exhumed for reburial close to each other in the Central Cemetery in Vienna, Bruckner insisted upon being present and in handling the remains of Beethoven, even being the one to put Beethoven's skull back in the casket after examination by physicians. Afterwards he was proud of the fact that he might have lost a lens out of his pince nez glasses in handling Beethoven's bones and that the lens might have ended up being buried with Beethoven!


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'Man know thyself'

[Frohlich]

Thankou for your information Peter,

Regarding Beethoven's skull, I bieleve there are pieces still remaining in a private collection in Vienna. Members of the American Beethoven society, Meridith, Brilliant, and Guevara, had succeeded in locating these skull fragments that have been studied in Vienna in the 1980's, and there current owner had allowed testing of the bone to begin, both to verify the dramatic lead finding and, via DNA comparison, to attempt to prove that both hair and bone had come from the same person.

*********
Pictures of Beethoven's tomb and exhumation in 1888 can be seen on the following site-> http://www.lvbeethoven.com/MeetLvB/A...ennaGraves.htm

Another interesting article on Beethoven's lead poisoning by, Science daily. Probably common knowledge anyhow.-> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1228084801.htm

Amalie

[This message has been edited by Frohlich (edited November 12, 2003).]