Beschreibung:

Franz Schubert
Autograph manuscript of Hagars Klage, D.5, SCHUBERT'S FIRST SURVIVING SONG, SIGNED BY THE 14-YEAR-OLD COMPOSER ("Franz Schubert")
comprising an extended working draft of bb.1-204 only, with many differences from the published score, including the complete re-drafting of bb.194-204, with numerous autograph revisions, INCLUDING THE RE-DRAFTING OF VARIOUS PARTS OF THE VOCAL LINE (BB.43-87 AND 118-193) WITH A NEW HITHERTO ONLY PARTLY IDENTIFIED TEXT, from Isaiah 34.8 and from the first scene of the operetta Amors Guckkasten by J.B. Michaelis (Arkadia: "Und legte Zeus vor seinem Thron..."), set to music by C.G. Neefe and performed in Leipzig on 10 May 1772, almost certainly in Schubert's hand, the last ten bars crossed through by Schubert in pencil, notated in brown ink on two three-stave systems per page, (marked "Voce" and "Clavicembalo"), with different coloured inks revealing various stages of working, with autograph title-page ("Hagars-Klage/in/Musick gesetzt/von/Franz Schubert/den 30 März 1811"), inscribed "nicht gest[ochen]" in the hand of Spina, the publisher, and, by the Schubert scholar Johannes Wolf ("Oberhalb der Gesangstimme gegenwärtigen Liedes ist stellenweise mit Bleistift ein launenhafter Text ersichtlich...angeblich früheste Composition, im Convict mit 14 Jahren geschrieben...")
18 pages, large oblong folio (23.1 x 32.4cm), 8-stave paper, modern ties, [Vienna], 30 March 1811 
THIS IS THE ONLY AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF SCHUBERT'S FIRST SURVIVING SONG, INAUGURATING THE EXCEPTIONAL OUTPUT OF ONE OF THE GREATEST SONG-WRITERS. IT IS THEREFORE OF GREAT SIGNIFICANCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY LIED.
Hagars Klage, a setting of an extended poem by Clemens August Schücking, was written while Schubert was still a schoolboy. It takes the form of an extended lyrical scena rather than the strophic song of which Schubert was to compose so many famous examples. Schubert here treats the story of Abraham's rejected concubine, lamenting over her dying Ishmael in the wilderness. Hagar's lament, encompassing her rages, appeals to Jehovah, curses upon the Patriarch, ravings and final prayer, is set to an alternation of "arioso" and "recitativo", following the story rather than absorbing it into a generalized strophic format. Alfred Einstein compares this scena with the melodramas by Georg Benda and Zumsteeg, including Zumsteeg's own Hagars Klage in der Wuste Bersaba, published in 1797, a print of which was ultimately Schubert's text source (Schücking's poem itself had been published in the Göttingen Musen-Almanach in 1781). 
Schubert's song is important in that it is part of a rich tradition of the operatically-inspired scena. Benda's Ariadne and Medea are passionately dramatic scene-monologues, in which the orchestra endeavours to illustrate the heroine's emotions. Zumsteeg transformed this accompanied recitative into the piano-accompanied ballad and song: "Now this scena...is written precisely after the pattern of Zumsteeg's setting... But it is much better and richer than Zumsteeg, and emotionally coloured rather than purely illustrative" (Einstein, Schubert, 1971, p.51).
We are glad to acknowledge the kind assistance of Peter Rastl in our cataloguing of this lot, in particular concerning the identification of the sources for Schubert's alternative pencil text.
LITERATURE:Peter Rastl and Peter Dellitsch, edd., Franz Schubert. Die Texte seiner Lieder und Gesänge und ihre Dichter, (Stuttgart, 2023), pp.1250-1254
PROVENANCE:Sotheby's, London, 7 December 2001 (lot 185)