Schubert Franz Peter (1797-1828), an Austrian composer, was born in Vienna. At the age of eight, he studied violin from his father and piano from his brother Ignaz. At the age of 11 (188), he was recruited as a choir singer of Imperial Temples in Vienna and a student of Imperial School. Later, he became the captain of Temples and often served as a conductor. At the age of 14, he composed his first song "The Elegy of Haga". In the history of European music development, Schubert is an artist who connects the past with the future. On the one hand, he inherited the German-Austrian classical music traditions of Mozart and Beethoven; On the one hand, he opened up a new world for later composers by innovating and developing the tradition, and was called the first romantic musician. Schubert's life is short, but his creative fields are wide, involving symphony, chamber music, piano, opera and religious music, especially his artistic songs, which are unique in content and form, fully showing the unique style of Schubert's music.
Schubert, as the founder of romantic music school, died only one year later than Beethoven, but it can be said that he and Beethoven belong to two eras. By the time he entered life, the wave of the French Revolution that shook Europe and influenced Beethoven's world outlook and creation had vanished, and the feudal dynasty was restored throughout the European continent. The slogan of "freedom, equality and fraternity", which inspired the German and Austrian people in those years, has been eclipsed by the bloodshed and violence in the revolution and the invasion of Napoleon, and can no longer attract Schubert's generation of young people. He is not "rational" and advocates "fantasy" instead. Romanticism, a new artistic trend of thought, became popular in Germany and Austria and appeared in almost all artistic fields. It is not only the expression of romanticism in creation, but more importantly, it reflects the world outlook and artistic view of this literary school. The social and ethical themes and heroic spirit in Beethoven's works quietly passed away in Schubert's creation.
He focuses on the life circle of ordinary people and expresses his feelings and fantasies of "self". He has composed music for a large number of famous contemporary poems, which are widely related to social life at that time. At the same time, Schubert sometimes uses shepherds, wandering grinders, girls persecuted by death to express his feelings, and sometimes personifies flowers, birds, fish and insects, all of which reflect his ever-changing thoughts in his personal inner world. He praised nature and spring with a lot of songs, such as "On the Peak" and "Listen, Listen, Lark". Or enthusiastically praise art and love, such as: To Music, Messenger of Love, Serenade; Or pray to God and the kingdom of heaven, such as "The Suffering Man" and "Ode to the Virgin", and use these beautiful things to build his ideal kingdom, in order to get happiness and comfort that reality can't give. Like other romantic artists, he eulogized "fantasy" and declared that "you are the treasure of mankind and the inexhaustible source"; He often rejoices that he is "decorating this reality with my imagination as much as possible".
Schubert's vocal divertimento "A Winter Journey" and "The Beautiful Mill Woman" are both based on the poems of the same name by German romantic poet Miao Lei, which can be called Schubert's masterpieces of artistic songs. According to a friend's memory, the long poem "Winter Journey" strongly shook the composer's heart, and he devoted himself to writing a vocal suite composed of 24 songs connected together. It can be said that this is a set of narrative lyric music poems, a drama with music. Schubert deliberately depicts the inner world of the characters, vividly shaping the lonely, lonely, dissatisfied with reality, hopeless pursuit of the ideal kingdom and finally the depressed soul in Muller's poems. He left the familiar city and the ungrateful lover who had married the rich man, walked in the endless winter wilderness, looked at the wind flags and the frozen river in the north wind, listened to the sound of snow and the tinkling of mail trucks, avoided the evil dogs and ominous crows in the forest, and felt deeply touched by the scene. He deeply feels the indifference and desolation in the world, and he can't get sympathy and pity here, and he will always be a stranger and a wanderer. He wants to avoid the flashy world and seek inner peace in the wandering journey. When all attempts to get rid of the painful fate failed in the end, he braced himself, cursed the world and followed a lonely old beggar. It can be said that this is Schubert's inner disclosure, which profoundly reflects the thoughts and emotions of the composer and his contemporaries. Schubert made great efforts to explore the rhythm and tone in Miao Lei's beautiful poems, which made the divertimento contain infinite poetry. He followed the romantic school's idea of "breaking the boundaries of various literary and artistic categories", making drama in music and poetry in singing; He also broke some strict norms of classical school, and created melody, harmony, tonal layout and musical form according to the content and rhythm of poetry, especially improving the expressive force of piano accompaniment, so that it no longer only simulates the image and sound externally, but vividly depicts the inner feelings of the characters set off by the natural environment, so that the lyrics, melody and accompaniment can be integrated into a perfect whole.
The composer's breakthrough and development of tradition are not only reflected in the vocal divertimento such as Winter Journey, but also widely used in his other songs. Schubert's art songs were criticized by conservatives in society at that time for their unusual novel acoustics.
Good night is the first song in the divertimento Winter Journey. The piano begins with sadness, downward tone with heavy sigh and steady marching rhythm, which immediately indicates the basic tone of the whole suite and depicts the gloomy mood of the travelers who have just set off.
In the second "Wind Flag", the piano accompaniment, on the one hand, creates the changeable flying scene of the wind flag, on the other hand, sets off the abnormal excitement and resentment of the lovelorn traveler with a fast sound pattern.
The Bodhi Tree (No.5) is the most popular song in the divertimento. Comfortable and gentle melody, with the light and dark colors of e's homophonic tone, contrasts the hero's beautiful past and bleak present.
Schubert's melody is inextricably linked with folk songs. He has adapted a large number of folk songs of various ethnic groups in Germany and Austria (including Austria, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, etc.), and his previous works Wild Rose and Trout are as concise, clear and moving as folk songs. At that time, it was a prominent phenomenon that German and Austrian romantic artists collected and sorted out their own fairy tales, legends and songs, which was caused by the national pride aroused in the Napoleonic Wars on the one hand, and because they thought the reality was too ugly, they might as well indulge in those naive and wonderful fairy tales and legends that were far away from reality.
The melody of "Bodhi Tree" has a kind and simple Austrian folk song style. After Schubert's death, this song was widely sung among German and Austrian people, and later generations even thought it was really a folk song.
By the ninth song "Ghost Fire", the traveler's excitement gradually subsided. He felt that "human happiness, human pain is as elusive as a ghost fire", and he wanted to bury his pain like a river will eventually flow into the sea. This heavy thinking is accompanied by a slow, deep but still undulating tone.
The poem of the 11th Dream of Spring contains three artistic conceptions: in a dream-flowers, birds, joy and happiness; Wake up-all good things are disillusioned, only dark and cold, and the crow is noisy; Continue to "talk nonsense"-fantasize that green leaves will bloom in winter and love will come again. The composer used three different musical images to describe this different picture: the first paragraph is a lively and joyful tune, in the prelude, the piano imitates the singing of birds, and in the dream, it turns into a smooth accompaniment; In the second paragraph, chords suddenly appear and change in four minor tunes of e-d-g-a one after another, which, in coordination with the cold recitation, declares the disillusionment; The beat of the third paragraph changed from 6/ 8 to 2/ 4, and the melody was soft but with the inherent melancholy color. Three seemingly isolated paragraphs, by skillfully using the transformation and unification of tonality (A-a-A), keep the integrity of the three-paragraph body structure.
In the 14th "White Hair", travelers finally come to a pessimistic and fatalistic conclusion. Life is painful to endure, and he is looking forward to the moment of "liberation". The tone of weeping is an exaggerated recitation tone.
The 2th "Road Signs" and 21st "Hotels" show that the final destination of travelers is the grave. Schubert himself has been looking for a way out and a conclusion since he set foot on the journey of life. However, as he lamented in a poem written in 182: "People bumped into each other in the dark, looking for their goals all the way, but all in vain, and they could never find the truth." Therefore, the sad and painful conclusion of the traveler in the song reflects the composer's disappointment and despair, which is the reason why Miao Lei's poems caused Schubert to sing strongly. Helpless, the only attempt to relieve the pain could not be realized. The "hotel" of the grave did not accept travelers, so he had to summon up "courage" again and continue to embark on a long and boundless journey of life.
The speed of the 22nd "Courage" is quite fast, but the tonality changes with each phrase. (g - G- g - G? ), the song ends in G major, while the piano ends in G minor. This treatment has an ironic meaning to "courage".
"The Old Artist" is the end of the divertimento. Travelers see their own destiny and "future" in the old beggar who is "indifferent to human suffering". From beginning to end, the monotonous sound of the 8-tone piano box is like the singing of the old artist and the inner moans of poets and composers, thus ending the whole divertimento. The artistic features mentioned in the above selections also run through other songs in this suite. The distinctive features of Schubert's artistic songs and the beauty of his melody, such as the strict logic of songs and music, are obviously permeated in his symphonies, piano music and other forms of works.
A Winter Journey is Schubert's most important and influential vocal suite, which clearly shows the composer's unique artistic temperament, and also clearly shows the relationship between the ideological content contained in Schubert's "Romanticism" and social life. From his early songs "Devil", "Trout" and "death and the maiden" to his last songs "Earth God" and "Fantasy", although he tried to avoid reality subjectively, these works still reflected reality. Schubert's position in the history of music is not only because he pioneered romantic music, but also because his original romantic music art expressed the social and life ideals of ordinary people at that time. Schubert and his artistic songs typically created the school of romanticism embodied in music. Moreover, songs with piano accompaniment, a traditional music genre, have been raised to a perfect artistic height by Schubert. Many of his famous artistic songs, such as Trout, Devil, Wanderer, Bodhi Tree, Dream of Spring, God of the Earth, etc., are still popular today, entirely because his musical images are vivid, vivid and profound, which can stand the test of history. Schubert created a large number of songs in order to establish the image of poetry, using the simple and beautiful melody, rich harmonic changes, ingenious tonal color contrast, and the poetic and appropriate cooperation of the piano, which is still worthy of our study and research. His songs have reached a new artistic realm that no one has ever reached before, and are the artistic crystallization of romantic music.