Das Dorfchen and the 'unsinnsgesellschaft': Schubert's Elise

Musical Times, Spring 1999 by Steblin, Rita

'Go into a bar, at best the Tischlerherberge [carpenters' inn] in the Ballgasse [the same place where in 1813 Schubert had almost come to blows with a university professor who had criticized a performance of Gluck's Iphigenie]. Let yourself be beaten soundly Allow your bruises to swell up like doughnuts, then take one pound of butter, rub it well into your back, warm up some wine and have your belly washed with it; afterwards, when you hear all the angels in heaven singing, get painfully out of bed, slip on the floor, fall down; and so the dumb guy is ready'

[Prugelkrapfen. Geh in ein Wirthshaus; am besten ist die Tischlerherberge im Ballgassel, und lass dich fein sauber abprugeln; lass d' Schlag auflaufen wie die Krapfen, nimm dann 1 [Pfund] Butter, reibe den Buckel gut ein, mache Wein warm und lass dir den Ranzen abwaschen; hernach, wenn du alle Engeln im Himmel singen horst, so geh vor Schmerzen aus dem Bette, rutsch' auf dem Boden aus u. fall nieder, so ist der dumme Kerl fertig].

(According to my analysis of the encoded materials of the 'Unsinnsgesellschaft', Schubert is often associated with a 'dumb guy' [dummer or 'fool' [Narr] in the newsletters. He also appears later as the despotic school teacher 'Eustachius Prugel' and thus may be the hidden subject of the above account.)

As can be imagined, Dorflinger's hasty entry into the state of matrimony inspired much mirth in the club. A newsletter dated 23 October 1817 contains a clever parody written by Eduard Anschutz ('Schnautze Redacteur') - the 20-yearold leader of the 'Unsinnsgesellschaft' - on Schiller's poem 'Hektors Abschied'. (Schiller was, like Birger, a favourite subject for travesty in the club.) It was Eduard's older brother, the famous actor Heinrich Anschutz, who wrote later in his memoirs that Schubert had been one of the most active members of the nonsense society. Schubert had already set this Schiller text as the Lied 'Hektors Abschied' (D.312) in October 1815. In 'Schnautze's' parody it appears that the club members were worried 'Liesel' [Austrian diminutive of Elise] would be more interested in the marriage bed than in nonsense activities (fig.4).

Two weeks later, on 6 November 1817, 'Nina Wutzerl' - that is, Smirsch - painted a fashionplate with eleven fancy hats and the caption 'Pariser Kopfputz. Muster' [Parisian hats. Samples] (fig.5). This spoof on the latest hat fashions as commonly displayed in the Viennese Modenzeitung contains the inscription: 'gewidmet meiner Winkel Freundin Elise von Antifi zu ihrer Verbindung von Nina Wuzerl' [dedicated to my shady girlfriend Elise von Antifi on her wedding, by Nina Wuzerl]. The hats progress from the 'chapeau a l'escargot', for ladies of the night, whose business takes place on the street, to the eleventh hat 'Bonnet d'enfant', a bonnet for babies trimmed not with lace but with straight pins. This artistic travesty is the pictorial counterpart to the earlier literary parody 'Liesels Abschied'.

Another picture may also have been painted as a farce on Elise's fate. The third surviving newsletter, dated 9 October 1817, contains the watercolour 'Die Freuden Elysiums' [The joys of paradise], dedicated in the accompanying explanation - typically encoded - to all those good people who cherish the happy hope of attaining bliss [Seligkeit] in Elysium [the entire dedication reads: 'Der sinnige Kunstler widmet es allen guten Menschen; allen, welche die frohe Hoffnung hegen durfen dereinst nach Elisium zu gelangen. Folgt mir im Geiste meine Bruder, dass wir selig werden im Anschauen und schon im Voraus die Freuden Elisiums geniessen mogen']. This picture, by 'Widermann' (probably Georg Wiedermann), depicts a fantasy-land: a fountain spouts red wine, trees are hung with roast goose, ivy is strung with smoked sausages, thistles bear pineapple and melons, mountains are made of pie crust and the river Lethe flows with Viennese coffee. A huge coloured balloon, carrying a platform filled with observers, flies overhead. In a rose arbour in the lower right-hand corner, Cicero and the 'unforgettable' Viennese dramatist Joachim Perinet16 sit listening to Schiller reading an improved version of his [sic] drama 'Genovefa', while the heroine herself stands at his elbow in order to distinguish correctly between truth and lies. The similarity between the names 'Elise' and 'Elysium' suggests that this scene, with its triumphal arch bearing the inscription 'Elisium. Hier bekommt man alles Gutes' [Paradise. Here one receives all that is good], may also have a connection to the event of Dorflinger's marriage 'in good hope', 'in guter Hoffnung' being a German expression used to describe a woman 'great with child'.