None But The Lonely Heart Poem by gershon hepner

Schubert wrote “None but the Lonely Heart” six times,
but Goethe thought that Mendelssohn was greater;
as an accompaniment for all his clever rhymes,
it seems that he preferred a decorator
to somebody who was able to transform each word,
not limited by rules of symbiosis.
While by conventional artistry he could be stirred,
he could not recognize apotheosis.
How sad to be ignored by major talent when
an artist has a work he wants to share;
the sound of silence when he wants to hear amen
caused many more than Schubert great despair.

Bernard Holland (“None but the Soulful Hearts for Schubert and Goethe, ” NYT, January 21,2008) writes about a recital of Schubert’s Goethe Lieder at Carnegie Hall, with the singers Ian Bostridge, Thomas Quasthoff and Dorrothea Röschmann, accompanied by Julius Drake:
Schubert’s attraction to Goethe approached obsession. He set “None but the Lonely Heart” six times and returned again and again to the poetry of “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship” and “Faust.” Goethe took up much of Saturday night’s Schubert recital at Carnegie Hall. Goethe, on the other hand, is the wrong man to explain the arc of Schubert’s life. “Gretchen am Spinnrade, ” which was sung here by Dorothea Röschmann, is the best of all the Goethe songs and also the first: drama and tone-painting of astonishing compactness written by a 17-year-old. Later in his brief career, Schubert’s passion for the great man cooled, and he turned more to other texts. Goethe’s reciprocation was never warm in the first place. Seeking to woo him through the mails, Schubert found his songs ignored. Perhaps they were unsettling to a man who so loved order and symmetry and whose musical tastes ran more toward Mendelssohn. Goethe did come to appreciate the feverish dramatics of “Erlkönig” but only after Schubert was dead. It was sung on Saturday by Thomas Quasthoff.


1/21/08