Therese Grob

Therese Grob (1798 - 1875) was the first love of the composer Franz Schubert He petitioned to marry her but the petition was turned down on account of his impecuniosity: Metternich's Marriage Consent Law expressly forbade marriages by men in Schubert's class if they could not verify their ability to support a family. The composer's friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner recalled — twenty-six years after Schubert's death — a conversation in which Schubert had said "I loved someone very dearly and she loved me too … . For three years she hoped I would marry her; but I could not find a position which would have provided for us both."

Therese Grob was the daughter of Heinrich Grob and Therese Männern (died 22 August 1826). She was born in Lichtental, Vienna. There was one other child, a boy called Heinrich (1800 - 1855) who was two years younger than Therese. The father died early in Therese's life. The widowed mother continued to run the small silk-weaving business that Heinrich Senior had established. The premises were very near to Schubert's home. Therese had an attractive soprano voice, and the young Heinrich was a talented painist and violinist. The two families grew close through music-making.

Therese sang in the Lichtental parish church, which Schubert had been attending since he was a child. For the church's centenary celebrations, the young Schubert completed his first mass in late July 1814 — the Mass in F, D.105 — and Therese sang the soprano solo at the premiere performance, which Schubert conducted himself.

Schubert's application in April 1816, eventually rejected, for the post of music teacher at a teachers' training college in Ljubljana (then known as Laibach) may have been in part driven by his awareness to gain some financial security to make marriage to Therese possible.Schubert assembled an album of songs for Therese, the last of which is dated to 1816.

On 21 November 1820 Therese married Johann Bergmann (1798 - 1875), a baker. Together they had one child, a daughter, Amalia Bergmann (9 July 1824 - 24 December 1886).

Eight years after the composer's death [Ignaz and Wilhelmine were married on 14 September 1836] , Schubert's brother Ignaz married Therese's aunt Wilhelmine.

References

* Brown, 'The Therese Grob Collection of Songs by Schubert', "Music and Letters" 1968; XLIX: 122-134
* Winter, Robert, 'Schubert, Franz' in "Grove Music"

Notes

External links

* [http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/franzschubert/tree/gp65.htm Grob family tree]