Fenice wrote:I would never have thought it; as far as I know, there was bad blood between the two... am I wrong?
Schubert had no luck at all during his lifetime, only small concerts in private salons with a few friends, no academy, and many of his works were known and published only after his death, largely thanks to Schumann. This meant that in the Vienna of that time, composers such as Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Joseph Weigl, and the Bohemian Adalbert Gyrowetz were much more famous, all of whom were present at the funeral alongside the unrecognized Schubert.
The great Austrian composer, initially influenced by his teacher Salieri—who had previously been Beethoven's teacher as well—and by a limited knowledge of Beethovenian music, had strong doubts and perplexities regarding certain Beethovenian expressive violences and the shocks he dealt to traditional forms. Significant in this regard is an excerpt from his diary dated June 16, 1816, on the occasion of a concert held in honor of Salieri by his students: « It must be beautiful and comforting for an artist to see all his students gathered around him, each striving to do their best. To hear in all those compositions the expression of a pure nature, free from the eccentricity frequently found in today's composers, which is due solely to one of our greatest German artists; that eccentricity which unites and confuses the tragic with the comic, the pleasant with the repulsive, the heroic with the terrible, the sacred with the buffoonish, without distinction, to stimulate people toward malice instead of instilling love in them, inciting them to unrestrained laughter instead of raising them to God. » It is quite evident that, although not naming him, Schubert was alluding to Beethoven.
Later, greater maturity and greater knowledge led him to radically change his mind, though—as seen in the phrase spoken after his death—his final compositions remained not entirely comprehensible to him, even while recognizing their enormous and unreachable greatness. Furthermore, Schubert was an extremely timid man, and all these matters meant that he always felt a strong sense of awe toward this preeminent personality, toward this artist who had known how to impose himself through the sole force of his genius.
Beethoven, for his part, had no way of knowing anything about the music of his unfortunate colleague, and there are many doubts regarding an eventual meeting between them. Nothing is reported in the Conversation Books in this regard, but if one is to believe the usual Schindler—who has told countless tall tales about Beethoven—it seems there was a single encounter between the two in 1822, when Schubert presented to Beethoven the "8 Variations on a French Song for Piano Four Hands" composed in 1818. Thus wrote Schindler: « (...) The timid and moreover taciturn artist appeared in an unfavorable light, despite being accompanied by Diabelli who, in presenting him, tried to interpret his feelings toward the master (...) Beethoven quickly scanned the copy presented to him and encountered a harmonic error. With gentle words, he drew the young man's attention to that error, hurrying however to add that it was not at all a mortal sin; but Schubert, perhaps precisely because of the kindness of the observation, completely lost control of himself. Only when he was outside the door did he regain his composure and reproach himself harshly. He never again had the courage to present himself to the master. »
