All wrapped up in Schubert; Composer's appeal is his stylistic, aesthetic variety, Gibbs says

By BRENT CUNNINGHAM
Reporter Staff

How much Schubert is too much Schubert? For Christopher H. Gibbs, an assistant professor in the Department of Music and a specialist in Franz Schubert, the answer is "more than you might think."

"One does get more and more wrapped up by these types of figures, almost seduced by them," he said. "To be working with a major figure, a genius...can sustain you for a lifetime."

Gibbs, who received his doctorate from Columbia University, came to UB five years ago as a visiting professor and became an assistant professor this year. Three years ago, he was named musicological director of the Shubertiade, the 10-year Schubert festival in New York City that ended this year on the bicentennial of Schubert's death.

Gibbs quickly found himself teaching Schubert as he produced Schubert, and he tried to convey the thrill of working with artists like Hermann Pray, James Levine and the Tokyo String Quartet to his students. Gibbs edited the recently published "Cambridge Companion to Schubert" and is working on a Schubert biography, which will be followed by a book on Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Where some lovers of Schubert locate their affection in the romantic qualities of the music, or in the high tragedy of a composer who died at age 31, Gibbs finds Schubert's greatest appeal in his stylistic and aesthetic variety.

"When you write 600 songs, from the most complex to the simplest, the variety is incredible," he said. "He wrote hundreds and hundreds of dances that were very popular, but are real gems...it's writing a lower music at an incredibly sophisticated level. And that affects his higher pieces.

"That sort of eclecticism and mixture and crossing boundaries," he added, "is something we now label rather distinctly postmodern...It makes him a very elusive composer."

Gibbs has brought his own version of prolific eclecticism to his career as a musicologist. This month alone, he will deliver lectures, attend symposiums or introduce concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the International Schubert Conference in Germany, and for the New York Philharmonic.

As much as his research, Gibbs sees his role as "public musicologist" as a vital source for his teaching. ["It is true that] no matter how esoteric your scholarship is, it keeps you involved in your area of expertise, it keeps your creative juices going, and I think students see it. But for me, public musicology has an even more direct relationship to teaching...because it is a model of what is possible to do and what is out there."

Mixing business and music

"One of the answers for music students," he added, "is to work in some way with the business side of music. That sometimes means writing program notes, working for record firms, for symphony orchestras or opera companies. We haven't had a program for that, but the university as a whole is developing an arts-management degree."

Gibbs sees other benefits that would come from broadening the concept of what music graduates can do with their degree. "I'd like to contribute to the development of the B.A. in music," Gibbs said. "There are a great variety of career paths that can come out of it.

"It is my hope," he added, "that one of my contributions to teaching and to this community will be in the area of music criticism and thematic programming."

As an example of "thematic programming," Gibbs referred to his experience as musicological director of the Shubertiade. Under his directorship, all the concerts in a given year centered around a specific theme. "The idea [in 1995] was to present how Schubert was known in his own lifetime...then the next year to compare him to Beethoven, his pre-eminent contemporary and the one Schubert revered the most...then the final year to show what happened in the 20 months that separated their deaths, and where Schubert was heading [when he died]."

Taking musicology to the public

Gibbs plans to shift some of his involvement in the Schubertiade to the Buffalo music scene, and then to work that involvement back into his teaching. A longtime summer resident at the Chautauqua Institution, Gibbs continues to write music reviews for The Chautauqua Daily. He sees this as yet another way to take his musicology to the public.

"I hope," he said, "that as we're taking a larger view of what is appropriate to study in music, this wider eclecticism, we can also view it as appropriate for academics to be more public intellectuals. But the practical entryway is still to be an expert in a particular area-in my case Schubert-and that will continue."