Robert Schumann

The hopes of the great German Romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) to become a concert pianist were dashed in his early twenties when he permanently damaged his hand, so he redirected his energies to both composing and music criticism. From childhood he was torn between literature and music, but he managed to combine these two loves even in some of his purely instrumental music by using poetry and dramatic narrative to color and direct the musical discourse.

Schumann identified two separate (but complimentary) aspects of his personality that directed his composing, and went so far as to name them: “Eusebius” was the name for his lyrical, reflective self; and “Florestan” was his passionate side. In Schumann’s eight Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Op. 12, he credits Eusebius with the 1st and 3rd pieces, and Florestan with the 2nd and 4th, with the remaining pieces bringing the two together (but with Eusebius having the final say). Composed in 1837, the Fantasiestücke were dedicated to Scottish pianist Anna Robena Laidlaw (1819–1901), but the real inspiration was the celebrated pianist Clara Wieck (1819-1896), who became Mrs. Robert Schumann in 1840. When Schumann wrote the Fantasiestücke the proposed union was by no means a certainty—Friedrich Wieck, the father of the teenaged Clara (and Robert’s former piano teacher), refused his consent, so the matter was tied up in the courts. Robert described the concluding End of the Song movement as combining wedding bells with funeral knells, which was, as he explained in a letter to Clara, the result of his anxiety over their as yet undetermined fate.

Composed in 1838, the 13 pieces that comprise Schumann's Kinderszenen ("Childhood Scenes"), Op. 15, are not really intended specifically for children, as one might suppose at first glance. Rather, they are nostalgic remembrances of youth filtered through the experience of adulthood. Nothing demonstrates this better than the first piece, Von fremden Länder und Menschen ("Of Foreign Lands and Peoples"). The simple, wistful tune perhaps suggests that the imagined distance is not of place, but of time--a happy remembrance of a carefree existence foreign to the often troubled circumstances adults face, such as the embittered court battle with his former teacher, and future father-in-law, that Schumann was then waging, fighting for the right to marry his beloved Clara Wieck (1819-1896).

Although his taste in song texts sometimes seems questionable by today’s standards, Schumann’s keen literary sensibilities nonetheless made him one of history’s greatest songwriters, and his finest Lieder rival those of Schubert. Following the examples of Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte (1816) and Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827), Schumann composed four song cycles in 1840, including both Frauenliebe und -Leben [Woman's Love and Life], Op. 42, on verses by Adelbert von Chamisso, and Dichterliebe [Poet's Love], Op. 48, on verses by Heinrich Heine. Like Beethoven, Schumann recalls music from preceding songs at the end of these cycles, but rather than merely accompanying the singer, Schumann's piano writing is quite independent from the vocal part and forms a true partnership with the voice in expressing the moods and emotions of the texts.

--Summer Serenade, July 25, 2007 (Lindsey Tuller & Clinton Weinberg)

The poems of Frauenliebe und -Leben now seem a tad mawkish, but they must have held special significance to Schumann--he set them around the same time he was struggling to win the legal right to marry the virtuoso pianist Clara Wieck (1819-1896), despite the strenuous objections of his soon-to-be father-in-law . Although the verses ostensibly narrate the course of budding love through marriage and the death of a beloved spouse strictly from a woman's point of view (albeit as imagined by a male poet), one can imagine that Schumann nonetheless used them to illustrate his own devotion to his beloved.

--Intermezzo Sunday Concerts, February, 2007 (Hsiao-Ling Wang, Kristin Samuelson)

The four-part Zigeunerleben dates from 1840, Schumann's "Year of Song" which also saw the creation of Dichterliebe, Frauenliebe und -leben, and the his two other Liederkreis. It is composed on a text depicting a Romantic notion of Gypsy Life written especially for Schumann by the popular German poet Emanuel Geibel (1815-1884), and during the composer's lifetime the colorful work (which includes optional percussion parts) became one of his most popular pieces.

--Music@Main October 5, 2009 (Jacksonville Masterworks Chorale)

The Adagio and Allegro, op. 70, is among the numerous and varied works Schumann composed in 1849, and it takes advantage of the then “new” valve horn’s ability to play chromatic half-steps. Although the technical demands place the work well beyond the capabilities of the amateur players Schumann had hoped to reach with it, the success of the piece among professional horn players inspired the composer to complete his Konzertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra, op. 86, later that same year.

--Intermezzo Sunday Concerts, January 13, 2008 (Aaron Brask, horn)

A work which has no apparent connection with any verbiage is Schumann's three-movement Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Op. 73, for clarinet and piano. If Mendelssohn had written these lyric miniatures they might well have been called "Songs without Words," but Schumann himself toyed with the idea of naming them Nachtstücke (Night Pieces). Schumann quickly wrote his would-be nocturnes over the course of two cold days in February, 1849, near the outset of what he would later refer to as "my most fruitful year," and he thought they would be equally effective with violin or cello. The composer instructed that the movements be played without a break, and, as his tempo markings indicate, the first movement is nostalgically dreamy, and the second one sprightly. The third movement becomes a jaunty ride, ever faster and faster in its Coda, so, with apologies to Bette Davis, "fasten your seatbelts ... ."

Meine Rose ("My Own Rose") is the second song incuded in 6 Gedichte von N. Lenau und Requiem, Op.90 (1850). Schumann added the Requiem to the six poems by Lenau because, while composing the songs, Schumann was under the impression that the poet was deceased. He happily learned that Lenau was still alive, but by a strange turn of events, on the very day that the songs were first performed Schumann received word the Lenau had, in fact, just died.

Nordisches Lied (Nordic Song) and Nachklänge aus dem Theater (Echoes of the Theatre) are both from Schumann's Album für die Jugend (Album for the Young), Op. 68, a collection of 43 short works written as instructional pieces for his three daughters. The Nordic Song was written as a tribute to Danish composer Niels Gade, taking as its opening the four pitches that correspond to composer's name, G-A-D-E.