Anybody else remember when Mr. Peabody and Sherman used the Wayback Machine to visit Franz Schubert?
A fun conceit, but Jay Ward and company really missed the boat by not actually using any of Schubert’s music. It would have been a lot more fun had Sherman sung “Standchen,” D. 889 (a.k.a. “Serenade”):
Listen, listen to the lark in the ethereal blue!
And Phoebus, newly awakened,
Leading his horses to drink the dew
That covers the calyces of the flowers;
The buds of the marigolds are beginning to open
Up their little golden eyes;
With everything that is charming there,
Oh sweet maid, get up!
Get up! Get up!
Not the more famous “Serenade,” but all the more appropriate, since Schubert remarks afterward that he’s just been at work on a NEW serenade.
Schubert’s OTHER “Serenade” (from the song cycle “Schwanengesang,” D.957)
Softly my songs plead
through the night to you;
down into the silent grove,
beloved, come to me!
Slender treetops whisper and rustle
in the moonlight;
my darling, do not fear
that the hostile betrayer will overhear us.
Do you not hear the nightingales call?
Ah, they are imploring you;
with their sweet, plaintive songs
they are imploring for me.
They understand the heart’s yearning,
they know the pain of love;
with their silvery notes
they touch every tender heart.
Let your heart, too, be moved,
beloved, hear me!
Trembling, I await you!
Come, make me happy!
Even “The Smurfs” used the “Unfinished” Symphony.
At least the segment gave kids an awareness of the composer, if not his decadent milieu.
Happy birthday, Franz Schubert.