Schubert’s Workshop by Brian Newbould (review)

Reviewed by: Schubert's Workshop by Brian Newbould Richard Kramer Schubert's Workshop. By Brian Newbould. 2 vols. New York: Routledge, 2023. Vol. 1, Towards an Early Maturity: xviii, 240 p. ISBN 9781032317717 (hardcover), 128; ISBN 9781003311263 (ebook), 42. 36. Vol. 2, Mastery and Beyond: xviii, 240 p. ISBN 9781032317731 (hard-cover), 128; ISBN 9781003311270 (ebook), 42. 36. Music examples, illustrations, index. In the busy world of Schubert studies, Brian Newbould, long a prominent and respected name, has been known perhaps less for his scholarly work than for his sophisticated and bold—some might say misguided—forays into an edgy business that would bring his own completion to a number of works that Franz Schubert did not finish. Newbould comes to his task with impressive credentials. He is a musician first, as he likes to remind us. His arguments in Schubert's Workshop, both in the justification of his undertakings and in support of his musical decisions, must be taken seriously. Newbould puts his credentials on display across the pages of these two volumes. The display is a bit chaotic, beginning with a title, Schubert's Workshop, that portends a visit to those documents capturing Schubert in the act—an encounter with drafts and sketches, rare as they may be, for works that, whether completed or not, would give us some idea of what might have gone on in that workshop of Schubert's mind. What we get in its place is a depiction of the physical layout of what Newbould imagines to have been Schubert's workplace: "a multi-purpose room, with a table and chair at which he could write with a quill pen" (v. 1, p. 3). Was there a piano in the room? "The true composer does not need a piano, " offers Newbould. "Of all composers, those least likely to require it were probably Mozart and Schubert" (v. 1, p. 4). Who, we might wonder, were the truly true composers in Newbould's pantheon? And can we verify with any certainty that they labored without a keyboard at hand? In this opening chapter, "Tools, " Newbould writes of the relatively loose and carefree neglect with which Schubert is thought to have managed his portfolio of manuscripts. "Karl Pinterics built up a collection of over 500 of the songs in autograph, which on his death passed to Josef Wilhelm Witteczek, and on the latter's death to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde" (v. 1, p. 2). But the manuscripts that Pinterics collected are exclusively (or very nearly so) in the hands of copyists, and decidedly not "in autograph. " And the collection was finally acquired by Josef Freiherr von Spaun, upon whose death in 1865 it was deposited at the Gesellschaft. An accurate account of all this is found in Walther Dürr's meticulously crafted Franz Schuberts Werke in Abschriften: Liederalben und Sammlungen (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1975), but Newbould makes no End Page 669 reference to it and does not include a bibliography: "I would write from within my own experience, the experience of both listening and, as it were, peering over the composer's shoulder. For this reason, the inclusion of a bibliography would be a pointless routine" (v. 1, p. viii). And he proffers the suspicious claim that Schubert "may well have given Karl Pinterics autographs of his songs" (v. 1, p. 2) without a shred of evidence. The title of volume 1, Towards an Early Maturity, suggests that we are about to undertake a journey through Schubert's formative years. This first volume is in effect a primer, an extensive and often informat ive theory text meant to prepare us for an understanding of Schubert's tool-box, covering the repertory from earlier works to the final masterpieces. Newbould writes for a broad reader-ship: he puts explanations of technical matters—figured bass, voice leading, augmented-sixth chords, and so forth—in language that will give the untutored amateur an entry into the conversation. In a prefatory chapter, "Definitions, " Newbould sets the table, but his definitions are not without flaws. Under "Chord-Symbols, " we read: "the system preferred here is that used by Schubert when writing a figured bass, as he did in his church music. . .