Schubert's Guitar

When I was looking for a recording of Schubert's song Nacht und Träume the other night I came across a version of it with the accompaniment played on guitar instead of piano.  

As a piano player I've got to admit it sounds as good as the song when accompanied by a modern piano, an instrumental sound that wouldn't have been as familiar to Schubert as a modern guitar.   On this song the really difficult task of playing quietly comes a lot easier to a guitarist.  Though a modern instrument sounds different enough from the guitar of Schubert's time as to make a different effect the difference isn't as drastic as between a piano of Schubert's time and a modern piano.   

From back in my college days I knew some of Schubert's pieces for male chorus had provided an alternate guitar accompaniment for some of them so I wondered if maybe he'd done the same for some of his solo songs.  Apparently a number of his songs were published with guitar accompaniment during Schubert's lifetime, some with a guitar accompaniment published BEFORE a version with piano was.    While there has been some assertion that Schubert didn't play guitar, the evidence is that he did, he is known to have owned one made by Johann Georg Staufer, one of the best guitar makers of the period.  It is preserve in the Schubert Museum. The description of the difference between Staufer's guitars and others given here is especially interesting in regard to Schubert's music.

Stauffer guitars were exceptional, as are the modern reproductions. There is no bracing on the top; it is a simple design with only a harmonic bar, but it works well, and the back is sloped somewhat like a violin. The sound is very different from the Spanish school, as is the construction. Spanish guitars have a slow response (particularly in the trebles). This means that during a split second, the sound starts softly, then grows in strengh and fades away more slowly after the string has been plucked. This is what contributes to the singing, mellow quality of the Spanish intruments. The Stauffer on the other hand is much quicker. The sound is immediate when the string is plucked; it speaks quickly. Therefore the Stauffer does not have the same singing quality, but this is not what the Austrians wanted (think romantic piano music, e.g. Beethoven.) They wanted an instrument that could play dramatic music, with a lot of expression. The basses are solid and deep to provide a foundation to your music. The Stauffer projects exceptionally well and many surviving originals as well as replicas are easily as loud as a modern classical guitar.

You can find youtubes of people playing original Staufer guitars.  

I doubt Schubert would have had a guitar if he didn't know how to play it. He lived a pretty modest, and somewhat homeless and all too short a life, depending on the kindness of friends.  I doubt he'd have kept an instrument he couldn't play but which he could have sold for much needed money.  I also know that he must have been familiar with the fret board layout of the guitar because it is the same as for the arpeggione, a bowed instrument invented by Staufer, is tuned like the guitar for which Schubert's one sonata is, beyond doubt, the most significant composition.  

As to the use of a guitar instead of a piano, apparently that was a common practice in Vienna which Schubert certainly was aware of,  I'm unaware of any instance in which he expressed an objection to it.   Even if he didn't make those arrangements he knew others did.  There is some indication that it was expected, especially at amateur performances in the home, that if a much more expensive piano were not available, an accompaniment on guitar might be made or even improvised.  There is some indication that he might have done that, himself.   It is also known that in the decades after his death, Franz von Schlechta, one of his sometimes collaborators and friends made a large number of such transcriptions for his own use.   I don't think anyone today has the standing to second guess the judgement of someone who actually knew Schubert, especially if the results are a musical success. For all we know he based what he did on what he heard Schubert either doing or approving of.  

Here is a really interesting arrangement of Der Lindenbuam which uses harmonics and other effects which I doubt Schubert could perform but which I can't imagine he'd object to if he heard it.  Perhaps his friend, Mauro Giuliani could have done it.  

I would certainly rather have people singing his songs with a guitar than first hearing them from one of the myriad recordings of his songs played on instruments, with no one singing a syllable.   Schubert wrote songs to be sung to texts he wanted to be heard and thought about.   That was one of the things that finally got me to stop listening to the morning music show on our local public radio station where they seemed to have a policy against ever playing a recording of a singer singing Schubert, instead playing recordings by celebrity violinists, flutists and cellists playing the lines no where near as interestingly as hearing a singer singing them.  If there's a violation of musical intent, that's it.