Maria Stuart (c 1800)

While proclaiming him “the Mozart of Württemburg” is overstating his case somewhat, Zumsteeg clearly found inspiration in Mozart’s music both as a composer and as musical director of the Württemburg court theatre – in which latter capacity he was responsible for the first Stuttgart performances of Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte. Schubert in his turn found early inspiration in Zumsteeg’s songs and ballads, not least his Schiller settings. Zumsteeg had been a fellow-pupil of Schiller at the Karlschule in Stuttgart and they remained close friends, which is how Zumsteeg came to compose the ballads, like Ritter Toggenburg, Leichenfantasie and Der Taucher, that were to make such a profound impression on Schubert in his mid-teens.

Schubert apparently also knew and admired Zumsteeg’s Maria Stuart. Far from being a ballad, however, it is an operatic setting of a speech, the captive Queen’s fantasy on freedom, from the third act of Schiller’s play of the same name. Furnished with a piano introduction and interludes expressive of the encouragement Mary feels among the trees and under the sky outside her prison, it takes the form of a recitative, a da capo aria beginning “Eilender Wolken!” and a sort of cabaletta in quicker tempo on the last two lines.