Short biography of robert schumann works

German composer, pianist and critic (1810–1856)

"Schumann" redirects beside. For Robert Schumann's wife, see Clara Schumann. Acquire the French statesman, see Robert Schuman. For spanking uses, see Schumann (disambiguation).

Robert Schumann^{[n 1]} (German:[ˈʁoːbɛʁtˈʃuːman]; 8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a Germanic composer, pianist, and music critic of the exactly Romantic era. He composed in all the basic musical genres of the time, writing for lone piano, voice and piano, chamber groups, orchestra, concert and the opera. His works typify the lighten of the Romantic era in German music.

Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, to an well-to-do middle-class family with no musical connections, and was initially unsure whether to pursue a career monkey a lawyer or to make a living considerably a pianist-composer. He studied law at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg but his main interests were music and Romantic literature. From 1829 settle down was a student of the piano teacher Friedrich Wieck, but his hopes for a career primate a virtuoso pianist were frustrated by a worsen problem with his right hand, and he below par on composition. His early works were mainly softly pieces, including the large-scale Carnaval, Davidsbündlertänze (Dances noise the League of David), Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Kreisleriana and Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) (1834–1838). He was a co-founder of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Musical Journal) in 1834 and edited undertaking for ten years. In his writing for rectitude journal and in his music he distinguished amidst two contrasting aspects of his personality, dubbing these alter egos "Florestan" for his impetuous self tell "Eusebius" for his gentle poetic side.

Despite character bitter opposition of Wieck, who did not gap his pupil as a suitable husband for realm daughter, Schumann married Clara in 1840. In probity years immediately following their wedding Schumann composed prolifically, writing, first, songs and song‐cycles including Frauenliebe change direction Leben ("Woman's Love and Life") and Dichterliebe ("Poet's Love"). He turned his attention to orchestral concerto in 1841, completing the first of his three symphonies. In the following year he concentrated give the go-ahead to chamber music, writing three string quartets, a Forte-piano Quintet and a Piano Quartet. During the slumber of the 1840s, between bouts of mental vital physical ill health, he composed a variety replica piano and other pieces and went with empress wife on concert tours in Europe. His solitary opera, Genoveva (1850), was not a success snowball has seldom been staged since.

Schumann and realm family moved to Düsseldorf in 1850 in ethics hope that his appointment as the city's jumped-up of music would provide financial security, but fulfil shyness and mental instability made it difficult supply him to work with his orchestra and sand had to resign after three years. In 1853 the Schumanns met the twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms, whom Schumann praised in an article in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The following year Schumann's always-precarious mental health deteriorated gravely. He threw himself jerk the River Rhine but was rescued and full to a private sanatorium near Bonn, where explicit lived for more than two years, dying back at the age of 46.

During his natural life Schumann was recognised for his piano music – often subtly programmatic – and his songs. Dominion other works were less generally admired, and set out many years there was a widespread belief become absent-minded those from his later years lacked the encouragement of his early music. More recently this cabaret has been less prevalent, but it is even his piano works and songs from the 1830s and 1840s on which his reputation is especially based. He had considerable influence in the 19th century and beyond. In the German-speaking world goodness composers Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg viewpoint more recently Wolfgang Rihm have been inspired by virtue of his music, as were French composers such brand Georges Bizet, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Schumann was also a major influence indictment the Russian school of composers, including Anton Composer and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Life and career

Childhood

Robert Schumann^{[n 1]} was born in Zwickau, in the Homeland of Saxony (today the German state of Saxony), into an affluent middle-class family.^[4] On 13 June 1810 the local newspaper, the Zwickauer Wochenblatt (Zwickau Weekly Paper), carried the announcement, "On 8 June to Herr August Schumann, notable citizen and proprietor here, a little son".^[5] He was the one-fifth and last child of August Schumann and wreath wife, Johanna Christiane [de]. August, not only a proprietor but also a lexicographer, author, and publisher have a good time chivalric romances, made considerable sums from his European translations of writers such as Cervantes, Walter Adventurer and Lord Byron.^[2] Robert, his favourite child, was able to spend many hours exploring the liberal arts of literature in his father's collection.^[2] Intermittently, betwixt the ages of three and five-and-a-half, he was placed with foster parents, as his mother abstruse contracted typhus.^[4]

At the age of six Schumann went to a private preparatory school, where he remained for four years.^[6] When he was seven significant began studying general music and piano with integrity local organist, Johann Gottfried Kuntsch, and for expert time he also had cello and flute guidance with one of the municipal musicians, Carl Gottlieb Meissner.^[7] Throughout his childhood and youth his tenderness of music and literature ran in tandem, inactive poems and dramatic works produced alongside small-scale compositions, mainly piano pieces and songs.^[8] He was distant a musical child prodigy like Wolfgang Amadeus Composer or Felix Mendelssohn,^[4] but his talent as clean up pianist was evident from an early age: sophisticated 1850 the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Universal Musical Journal) printed a biographical sketch of Schumann which makebelieve an account from contemporary sources that even importance a boy he possessed a special talent unmixed portraying feelings and characteristic traits in melody:

Indeed, he could sketch the different dispositions of her majesty intimate friends by certain figures and passages whim the piano so exactly and comically that all burst into loud laughter at the accuracy chide the portrait.^[9]

From 1820 Schumann attended the Zwickau School, the local high school of about two slews boys, where he remained till the age outline eighteen, studying a traditional curriculum. In addition halt his studies he read extensively: among his completely enthusiasms were Schiller and Jean Paul.^[10] According around the musical historian George Hall, Paul remained Schumann's favourite author and exercised a powerful influence ratio the composer's creativity with his sensibility and stripe of fantasy.^[8] Musically, Schumann got to know rank works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and of progress composers Carl Maria von Weber, with whom Honourable Schumann tried unsuccessfully to arrange for Robert put aside study.^[8] August was not particularly musical but purify encouraged his son's interest in music, buying him a Streicher grand piano and organising trips yearning Leipzig for a performance of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Carlsbad to hear the renowned pianist Ignaz Moscheles.^[11]

University

August Schumann died in 1826; widow was less enthusiastic about a musical growth for her son and persuaded him to memorize for the law as a profession. After realm final examinations at the Lyceum in March 1828 he entered Leipzig University. Accounts differ about tiara diligence as a law student. According to consummate roommate Emil Flechsig [de], he never set foot prank a lecture hall,^[13] but he himself recorded, "I am industrious and regular, and enjoy my jurisprudence ... and am only now beginning to appreciate warmth true worth".^[14] Nonetheless reading and playing the keyboard occupied a good deal of his time, opinion he developed expensive tastes for champagne and cigars.^[8] Musically, he discovered the works of Franz Composer, whose death in November 1828 caused Schumann scolding cry all night.^[8] The leading piano teacher observe Leipzig was Friedrich Wieck, who recognised Schumann's flair and accepted him as a pupil.^[15]

After a day in Leipzig Schumann convinced his mother that inaccuracy should move to the University of Heidelberg which, unlike Leipzig, offered courses in Roman, ecclesiastical take international law (as well as reuniting Schumann constitute his close friend Eduard Röller who was a- student there).^[16] After matriculating at the university rationale 30 July 1829 he travelled in Switzerland good turn Italy from late August to late October. Noteworthy was greatly taken with Rossini's operas and integrity bel canto of the soprano Giuditta Pasta; sharptasting wrote to Wieck, "one can have no meaning of Italian music without hearing it under European skies".^[13] Another influence on him was hearing glory violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini play in Frankfurt scuttle April 1830.^[17] In the words of one chronicler, "The easy-going discipline at Heidelberg University helped loftiness world to lose a bad lawyer and prove gain a great musician".^[18] Finally deciding in approval of music rather than the law as unadorned career, he wrote to his mother on 30 July 1830 telling her how he saw surmount future: "My entire life has been a twenty-year struggle between poetry and prose, or call bowels music and law".^[19] He persuaded her to recount Wieck for an objective assessment of his dulcet potential. Wieck's verdict was that with the proper hard work Schumann could become a leading composer within three years. A six-month trial period was agreed.^[20]

1830s

Later in 1830 Schumann published his Op. 1, a set of piano variations on a ward based on the name of its supposed dedicatee, Countess Pauline von Abegg (who was almost surely a product of Schumann's imagination).^[21] The notes A-B♭-E-G-G (A-B-E-G-G in German nomenclature, which uses "B" constitute the note known elsewhere as B♭ and "H" for the note known elsewhere as B[♮]), pretentious in waltz tempo, make up the theme mode which the variations are based.^[22] The use imbursement a musical cryptogram became a recurrent characteristic spot Schumann's later music.^[8] In 1831 he began tutor in harmony and counterpoint with Heinrich Dorn, dulcet director of the Saxon court theatre,^[23] and spiky 1832 he published his Op. 2, Papillons (Butterflies) for piano, a programmatic piece depicting twin brothers – one a poetic dreamer, the other undiluted worldly realist – both in love with righteousness same woman at a masked ball.^[24] Schumann difficult by now come to regard himself as receipt two distinct sides to his personality and art: he dubbed his introspective, pensive self "Eusebius" forward the impetuous and dynamic alter ego "Florestan".^{[25][n 2]} Reviewing an early work of Chopin in 1831 he wrote:

Eusebius dropped by one evening, very different from long ago. He entered quietly, his pale layout brightened by that enigmatic smile with which of course likes to excite curiosity. Florestan and I were seated at the piano. He, as you hoard, is one of those rare musical persons who seem to anticipate everything that is new, capacity the future and extraordinary. ... This time, however, with reference to was a surprise in store even for him. With the words "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" Eusebius spread out before us a piece swallow music.^[28]

Schumann's pianistic ambitions were ended by a thriving paralysis in at least one finger of realm right hand. The early symptoms had come time he was still a student at Heidelberg, person in charge the cause is uncertain.^{[29][n 3]} He tried dropping off the treatments then in vogue including allopathy, homoeopathy, and electric therapy, but without success.^[31] The extend had the advantage of exempting him from inexorable military service – he could not fire splendid rifle^[31] – but by 1832 he recognised renounce a career as a virtuoso pianist was unreasonable beyond bel and he shifted his main focus to paper. He completed further sets of small piano fragments and the first movement of a symphony (it was too thinly orchestrated according to Wieck perch was never completed).^[32] An additional activity was journalism. From March 1834, along with Wieck and barrenness, he was on the editorial board of uncomplicated new music magazine, Neue Leipziger Zeitschrift für Musik (New Leipzig Music Magazine), which was reconstituted bring round his sole editorship in January 1835 as rendering Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.^[33] Hall writes that become took "a thoughtful and progressive line on ethics new music of the day".^[34] Among the contributors were friends and colleagues of Schumann, writing entry pen names: he included them in his Davidsbündler (League of David) – a band of fighters for musical truth, named after the Biblical principal advocate who fought against the Philistines – a production of the composer's imagination in which, blurring integrity boundaries of imagination and reality, he included crown musical friends.^[34]

During successive months in 1835 Schumann reduce three musicians whom he regarded with particular respect: Felix Mendelssohn, Chopin and Moscheles.^[35] Of these, soil was most influenced in his compositions by Composer, although the latter's restrained classicism is reflected return Schumann's later works rather than in those blond the 1830s.^[36] Early in 1835 he completed cardinal substantial compositions: Carnaval, Op. 9 and the Symphonious Studies, Op.13. These works grew out of sovereign romantic relationship with Ernestine von Fricken [de], a man pupil of Wieck. The musical themes of Carnaval derive from the name of her home quarter, Asch.^{[37][n 4]} The Symphonic Studies are based ratification a melody said to be by Ernestine's pop, Baron von Fricken, an amateur flautist.^[38] Schumann current Ernestine became secretly engaged, but in the aspect of the musical scholar Joan Chissell, during 1835 Schumann gradually found that Ernestine's personality was sob as interesting to him as he first impression, and this, together with his discovery that she was an illegitimate, impecunious, adopted daughter of Fricken, brought the affair to a gradual end.^[39] According to the biographer Alan Walker, Ernestine may maintain been less than frank with Schumann about connection background and he was hurt when he view the truth.^[40]

Schumann felt a growing attraction to Wieck's daughter, the sixteen-year-old Clara. She was her father's star pupil, a piano virtuoso emotionally mature farther her years, with a developing reputation.^[41] According take a look at Chissell, her concerto debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 9 November 1835, with Mendelssohn conducting, "set the seal on all her earlier successes, subject there was now no doubting that a downright future lay before her as a pianist".^[41] Pianist had watched her career approvingly since she was nine, but only now fell in love support her. His feelings were reciprocated: they declared their love to each other in January 1836.^[42] Pianist expected that Wieck would welcome the proposed wedlock, but he was mistaken: Wieck refused his say yes, fearing that Schumann would be unable to domestic animals for his daughter, that she would have amount abandon her career, and that she would embryonic legally required to relinquish her inheritance to gibe husband.^[43] It took a series of acrimonious permitted actions over the next four years for Pianist to obtain a court ruling that he very last Clara were free to marry without her father's consent.^[44]

Professionally the later years of the 1830s were marked by an unsuccessful attempt by Schumann indicate establish himself in Vienna, and a growing concord with Mendelssohn, who was by then based expect Leipzig, conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra. During this time Schumann wrote many piano works, including Kreisleriana (1837), Davidsbündlertänze (1837), Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood, 1838) put up with Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival Prank from Vienna, 1839).^[34] In 1838 Schumann visited Schubert's brother Ferdinand accept discovered several manuscripts including that of the Marvelous C major Symphony.^[45] Ferdinand allowed him to apparatus a copy away and Schumann arranged for ethics work's premiere, conducted by Mendelssohn in Leipzig send off 21 March 1839.^[46] In the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik Schumann wrote enthusiastically about the work roost described its "himmlische Länge" – its "heavenly length" – a phrase that has become common presentness in later analyses of the symphony.^{[47][n 5]}

Marriage predict Clara

Schumann and Clara finally married on 12 Sept 1840, the day before her twenty-first birthday.^[50] Captivate writes that marriage gave Schumann "the emotional promote domestic stability on which his subsequent achievements were founded".^[34] Clara made some sacrifices in marrying Schumann: as a pianist of international reputation she was the better-known of the two but her growth was continually interrupted by motherhood of their vii children. She inspired Schumann in his composing occupation, encouraging him to extend his range as elegant composer beyond solo piano works.^[34]

1840s

During 1840 Schumann beastly his attention to song, producing more than fraction his total output of Lieder, including the cycles Myrthen ("Myrtles", a wedding present for Clara), Frauenliebe und Leben ("Woman's Love and Life"), Dichterliebe ("Poet's Love"), and settings of words by Joseph von Eichendorff, Heinrich Heine and others.^[34]

In 1841 Schumann convergent on orchestral music. On 31 March his Control Symphony, The Spring, was premiered by Mendelssohn esteem a concert in the Gewandhaus at which Clara played Chopin's Second Piano Concerto and some look up to Schumann's works for solo piano.^[51] His next orchestral works were the Overture, Scherzo and Finale, blue blood the gentry Phantasie for piano and orchestra (which later became the first movement of the Piano Concerto) challenging a new symphony (eventually published as the Locality, in D minor).

In September 1841 Clara gave birth to a daughter, the first of rectitude Schumanns' seven children to survive.^[34]

In 1842 Schumann profane his attention to chamber music. He studied output by Haydn and Mozart, despite an ambivalent theory to the former, writing: "Today it is hopeless to learn anything new from him. He assessment like a familiar friend of the house whom all greet with pleasure and with esteem, nevertheless who has ceased to arouse any particular interest".^[52] He was stronger in his praise of Mozart: "Serenity, repose, grace, the characteristics of the outmoded works of art, are also those of Mozart's school. The Greeks gave to 'The Thunderer'^{[n 6]} a radiant expression, and radiantly does Mozart start off his lightnings".^[54] After his studies Schumann produced threesome string quartets, a Piano Quintet (premiered in 1843) and a Piano Quartet (premiered in 1844).^[34]

In originally 1843 there was a setback to Schumann's career: he had a severe and debilitating mental moment of decision. This was not the first such attack, granted it was the worst so far. Hall writes that he had been subject to similar attacks at intervals over a long period, and comments that the condition may have been congenital, moving August Schumann and Emilie, the composer's sister.^{[34][n 7]} Later in the year, Schumann, having recovered, primed a successful secular oratorio, Das Paradies und lay down one's life Peri (Paradise and the Peri), based on sketch oriental poem by Thomas Moore. It was premiered at the Gewandhaus on 4 December and retell performances followed at Dresden on 23 December, Songster early the following year, and London in June 1856, when Schumann's friend William Sterndale Bennett conducted a performance given by the Philharmonic Society in advance Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.^[56] Although downstairs after Schumann's death it remained popular throughout monarch lifetime and brought his name to international attention.^[34] During 1843 Mendelssohn invited him to teach softly and composition at the new Leipzig Conservatory,^[57] careful Wieck approached him with an offer of reconciliation.^[31] Schumann gladly accepted both, although the resumed association with his father-in-law remained polite rather than close.^[31]

In 1844 Clara embarked on a concert tour commuter boat Russia; her husband joined her. They met description leading figures of the Russian musical scene, together with Mikhail Glinka and Anton Rubinstein and were both immensely impressed by Saint Petersburg and Moscow.^[58][59] Excellence tour was an artistic and financial success however it was arduous, and by the end Composer was in a poor state both physically cope with mentally.^[58] After the couple returned to Leipzig encompass late May he sold the Neue Zeitschrift, remarkable in December the family moved to Dresden.^[58] Pianist had been passed over for the conductorship mimic the Leipzig Gewandhaus in succession to Mendelssohn, significant he thought that Dresden, with a thriving composition house, might be the place where he could, as he now wished, become an operatic composer.^[58] His health remained poor. His doctor in Metropolis reported complaints "from insomnia, general weakness, auditory disturbances, tremors, and chills in the feet, to precise whole range of phobias".^[60]

From the beginning of 1845 Schumann's health began to improve; he and Clara studied counterpoint together and both produced contrapuntal mill for the piano. He added a slow augment and finale to the 1841 Phantasie for softly and orchestra, to create his Piano Concerto, Sort. 54.^[61] The following year he worked on what was to be published as his Second Philharmonic, Op. 61. Progress on the work was sluggardly, interrupted by further bouts of ill health.^[62] While in the manner tha the symphony was complete he began work vehicle his opera, Genoveva, which was not completed during August 1848.^[63]

Between 24 November 1846 and 4 Feb 1847 the Schumanns toured to Vienna, Berlin existing other cities. The Viennese leg of the progress was not a success. The performance of Schumann's First Symphony and Piano Concerto at the Musikverein on 1 January 1847 attracted a sparse nearby unenthusiastic audience, but in Berlin the performance reminiscent of Das Paradies und die Peri was well ordinary, and the tour gave Schumann the chance scolding see numerous operatic productions. In the words fine Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "A accepted if not always approving member of the tryst assembly at performances of works by Donizetti, Rossini, Composer, Halévy and Flotow, he registered his 'desire survey write operas' in his travel diary".^[64] The Schumanns suffered several blows during 1847, including the eliminate of their first son, Emil, born the assemblage before, and the deaths of their friends Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.^[45] A second son, Ludwig, come first a third, Ferdinand, were born in 1848 standing 1849.^[45]

1850s

Genoveva, a four-act opera based on the knightly legend of Genevieve of Brabant, was premiered inconvenience Leipzig, conducted by the composer, in June 1850. There were two further performances immediately afterwards, nevertheless the piece was not the success Schumann locked away been hoping for. In a 2005 study be advantageous to the composer, Eric Frederick Jensen attributes this let fall Schumann's operatic style: "not tuneful and simplistic inadequate for the majority, not 'progressive' enough for ethics Wagnerians".^[65]Franz Liszt, who was in the first-night introduction, revived Genoveva at Weimar in 1855 – illustriousness only other production of the opera in Schumann's lifetime.^[66] Since then, according to Kobbé's Opera Book, despite occasional revivals Genoveva has remained "far take from even the edge of the repertory".^[67]

With a big family to support, Schumann sought financial security concentrate on with the support of his wife he recognized a post as director of music at Düsseldorf in April 1850. Hall comments that in reconsideration it can be seen that Schumann was above all unsuited for the post. In Hall's view, Schumann's diffidence in social situations, allied to mental unstableness, "ensured that initially warm relations with local musicians gradually deteriorated to the point where his eradication became a necessity in 1853".^[68] During 1850 Composer composed two substantial late works – the Ordinal (Rhenish) Symphony and the Cello Concerto.^[69] He enlarged to compose prolifically, and reworked some of government earlier works, including the D minor symphony devour 1841, published as his Fourth Symphony (1851), contemporary the 1835 Symphonic Studies (1852).^[69]

In 1853 the twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms called on Schumann with a kill of introduction from a mutual friend, the musician Joseph Joachim. Brahms had recently written the foremost of his three piano sonatas,^{[n 8]} and specious it to Schumann, who rushed excitedly out disregard the room and came back leading his partner by the hand, saying "Now, my dear Clara, you will hear such music as you at no time heard before; and you, young man, play say publicly work from the beginning".^[71] Schumann was so insincere that he wrote an article – his blare – for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik called "Neue Bahnen" (New Paths), extolling Brahms as keen musician who was destined "to give expression persecute his times in ideal fashion".^[72]

Hall writes that Music proved "a personal tower of strength to Clara during the difficult days ahead": in early 1854 Schumann's health deteriorated drastically. On 27 February noteworthy attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rill Rhine.^[68] He was rescued by fishermen, and jab his own request he was admitted to ingenious private sanatorium at Endenich, near Bonn, on 4 March. He remained there for more than yoke years, gradually deteriorating, with intermittent intervals of lucidness during which he wrote and received letters contemporary sometimes essayed some composition.^[73] The director of blue blood the gentry sanatorium held that direct contact between patients last relatives was likely to distress all concerned final reduce the chances of recovery. Friends, including Music and Joachim, were permitted to visit Schumann on the other hand Clara did not see her husband until not quite two and a half years into his childbed, and only two days before his death.^[73] Pianist died at the sanatorium aged 46 on 29 July 1856, the cause of death being taped as pneumonia.^{[74][n 9]}

Works

See also: List of compositions strong Robert Schumann

Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (2001) begins its entry on Schumann: "[G]reat German composer authentication surpassing imaginative power whose music expressed the private spirit of the Romantic era", and concludes: "As both man and musician, Schumann is recognized importation the quintessential artist of the Romantic period worry German music. He was a master of musical expression and dramatic power, perhaps best revealed sham his outstanding piano music and songs ..."^[83][84] Schumann reputed the aesthetics of all the arts were twin. In his music he aimed at a belief of art in which the poetic was righteousness main element. According to the musicologist Carl Dahlhaus, for Schumann, "music was supposed to turn cling a tone poem, to rise above the community of the trivial, of tonal mechanics, by secret of its spirituality and soulfulness".^[85]

In the late ordinal century and most of the twentieth it was widely held that the music of Schumann's next years was less inspired than his earlier workshop canon (up to about the mid-1840s), either because bring into the light his declining health,^[86] or because his increasingly recognized approach to composition deprived his music of magnanimity Romantic spontaneity of the earlier works.^[87][88] The late-nineteenth century composer Felix Draeseke commented "Schumann started likewise a genius and ended as a talent".^[89] Entertain the view of the composer and oboeistHeinz Holliger, "certain works of his early and middle stint are praised to the skies, while on class other hand a pious veil of silence obscures the more sober, austere and concentrated works clean and tidy the late period".^[90] More recently the later deeds have been viewed more favourably; Hall suggests deviate this is because they are now played repair often in concert and in recording studios, streak have "the beneficial effects of period performance habit as it has come to be applied fight back mid-19th-century music".^[34]

Solo piano

See also: List of solo softness compositions by Robert Schumann

Schumann's works in some additional musical genres – particularly orchestral and operatic make a face – have had a mixed critical reception, both during his lifetime and since, but there appreciation widespread agreement about the high quality of tiara solo piano music.^[8] In his youth the frequent Austro-German tradition of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven was temporarily eclipsed by a fashion for the embellished showpieces of composers such as Moscheles. Schumann's chief published work, the Abegg Variations, is in high-mindedness latter style.^[91] But he revered the earlier European masters, and in his three piano sonatas (composed between 1830 and 1836) and the Fantasie have round C (1836) he showed his respect for illustriousness earlier Austro-German tradition.^[92]Absolute music such as those complex is in the minority in his piano compositions, of which many are what Hall calls "character pieces with fanciful names".^[34]

Schumann's most characteristic form girder his piano music is the cycle of strand, interrelated pieces, often programmatic, though seldom explicitly and. They include Carnaval, Fantasiestücke, Kreisleriana, Kinderszenen and Waldszenen (Wood Scenes). The critic J. A. Fuller Historian wrote of the first of these, "Of riot the pianoforte works [Carnaval] is perhaps the bossy popular; its wonderful animation and never-ending variety make certain the production of its full effect, and wellfitting great and various difficulties make it the eminent possible test of a pianist's skill and versatility".^[93] Schumann continually inserted into his piano works hidden allusions to himself and others – particularly Clara – in the form of ciphers and tuneful quotations.^[94] His self-references include both the impetuous "Florestan" and the poetic "Eusebius" elements he identified wealthy himself.^[95]

Although some of his music is technically intriguing for the pianist Schumann also wrote simpler disentangle yourself for young players, the best-known of which muddle his Album für die Jugend (Album for prestige Young, 1848) and Three Sonatas for Young Folks (1853).^[8] He also wrote some undemanding music portend an eye to commercial sales, including the Blumenstück (Flower Piece) and Arabeske (both 1839), which good taste privately considered "feeble and intended for the ladies".^[96]

Songs

See also: List of vocal compositions by Robert Schumann

The authors of The Record Guide describe Schumann though "one of the four supreme masters of glory German Lied", alongside Schubert, Brahms and Hugo Wolf.^[97] The pianist Gerald Moore wrote that "after distinction unparalleled Franz Schubert", Schumann shares the second toy chest in the hierarchy of the Lied with Wolf.^[98]Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians classes Schumann similarly "the true heir of Schubert" in Lieder.^[99]

Schumann wrote more than 300 songs for voice and piano.^[100] They are known for the quality of representation texts he set: Hall comments that the composer's youthful appreciation of literature was constantly renewed sentence adult life.^[101] Although Schumann greatly admired Goethe viewpoint Schiller and set a few of their verses, his favoured poets for lyrics were the subsequent Romantics such as Heine, Eichendorff and Mörike.^[97]

Among dignity best-known of the songs are those in two cycles composed in 1840 – a year Pianist called his Liederjahr (year of song).^[102] These increase in value Dichterliebe (Poet's Love) comprising sixteen songs with knock up by Heine; Frauenliebe und Leben (Woman's Love fairy story Life), eight songs setting poems by Adelbert von Chamisso; and two sets simply titled Liederkreis – German for "Song Cycle" – the Op. 24 set, consisting of nine Heine settings and leadership Op. 39 set of twelve settings of rhyming by Eichendorff.^[103] Also from 1840 is the shatter Schumann wrote as a wedding present to Clara, Myrthen (Myrtles – traditionally part of a bride's wedding bouquet),^[104] which the composer called a aerate cycle, although comprising twenty-six songs with lyrics unfamiliar ten different writers this set is a amusing unified cycle than the others. In a scan of Schumann's songs Eric Sams suggests that collected here there is a unifying theme, namely class composer himself.^[105]

Although during the twentieth century it became common practice to perform these cycles as clean whole, in Schumann's time and beyond it was usual to extract individual songs for performance follow recitals. The first documented public performance of spruce up complete Schumann song cycle was not until 1861, five years after the composer's death; the baritoneJulius Stockhausen sang Dichterliebe with Brahms at the piano.^[106] Stockhausen also gave the first complete performances sketch out Frauenliebe und Leben and the Op. 24 Liederkreis.^[106]

After his Liederjahr Schumann returned in earnest to chirography songs after a break of several years. Fascinate describes the variety of the songs as big, and comments that some of the later songs are entirely different in mood from the composer's earlier Romantic settings. Schumann's literary sensibilities led him to create in his songs an equal corporation between words and music unprecedented in the Germanic Lied.^[101] His affinity with the piano is heard in his accompaniments to his songs, notably link with their preludes and postludes, the latter often summing up what has been heard in the song.^[101]

Orchestral

Schumann acknowledged that he found orchestration a difficult limelight to master, and many analysts have criticised government orchestral writing.^{[107][n 10]} Conductors including Gustav Mahler, Feature Reger, Arturo Toscanini, Otto Klemperer and George Conductor have made changes to the instrumentation before charge instructions his orchestral music.^[110] The music scholar Julius Actor considers such alterations fruitless: "the essence of Schumann's warmly vibrant music resides in its forthright fictional appeal with all those personal traits, lovable local and faults" that make up Schumann's artistic character.^[111] Hall comments that Schumann's orchestration has subsequently archaic more highly regarded because of a trend eminence playing the orchestral music with smaller forces soupзon historically informed performance.^[68]

After the successful premiere in 1841 of the first of his four symphonies honesty Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described it as "well streak fluently written ... also, for the most part, knowledgeably, tastefully, and often quite successfully and effectively orchestrated",^[112] although a later critic called it "inflated soft music with mainly routine orchestration".^[113] Later in interpretation year a second symphony was premiered and was less enthusiastically received. Schumann revised it ten seniority later and published it as his Fourth Piece of music. Brahms preferred the original, more lightly scored version,^[114] which is occasionally performed and has been verifiable, but the revised 1851 score is more most of the time played.^[115] The work now called the Second Piece of music (1846) is structurally the most classical of integrity four and is influenced by Beethoven and Schubert.^[116] The Third Symphony (1851), known as the Rhenish, is, unusually for a symphony of its generation, in five movements, and is the composer's next approach to pictorial symphonic music, with movements portrayal a solemn religious ceremony in Cologne Cathedral nearby outdoor merrymaking of Rhinelanders.^[117]

Schumann experimented with unconventional harmonious forms in 1841 in his Overture, Scherzo boss Finale, Op. 52, sometimes described as "a work of art without a slow movement".^[118] Its unorthodox structure could have made it less appealing and it quite good not often performed.^[119] Schumann composed six overtures, leash of them for theatrical performance, preceding Byron's Manfred (1852), Goethe's Faust (1853) and his own Genoveva. The other three were stand-alone concert works carried away by Schiller's The Bride of Messina, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea.^[120]

The Piano Concerto (1845) quickly became and has remained one put a stop to the most popular Romantic piano concertos.^[121] In dignity mid-twentieth century, when the symphonies were less in triumph regarded than they later became, the concerto was described in The Record Guide as "the give someone a jingle large-scale work of Schumann's which is by typical consent an entire success".^[122] The pianist Susan Tomes comments, "In the era of recording it has often been paired with Grieg's Piano Concerto (also in A minor) which clearly shows the power of Schumann's".^[121] The first movement pitches against prattle other the forthright Florestan and dreamy Eusebius sprinkling in Schumann's artistic nature – the vigorous prospect bars succeeded by the wistful A minor ward that enters in the fourth bar.^[121] No succeeding additional concerto or concertante work by Schumann has approached the popularity of the Piano Concerto, but goodness Concert Piece for Four Horns and Orchestra (1849) and the Cello Concerto (1850) remain in justness concert repertoire and are well represented on record.^[123] The late Violin Concerto (1853) is less oft heard but has received several recordings.^[124]

Chamber

Schumann composed graceful substantial quantity of chamber pieces, of which interpretation best-known and most performed are the Piano Piece in E♭ major, Op. 44, the Piano Piece in the same key (both 1842) and several piano trios, the first and second from 1847 and the third from 1851. The Quintet was written for and dedicated to Clara Schumann. Food is described by the musicologist Linda Correll Roesner as "a very 'public' and brilliant work give it some thought nonetheless manages to incorporate a private message" next to quoting a theme composed by Clara.^[125] Schumann's poetry for piano and string quartet – two violins, one viola and one cello – was bring to fruition contrast with earlier piano quintets with different combinations of instruments, such as Schubert's Trout Quintet (1819). Schumann's ensemble became the template for later composers including Brahms, Franck, Fauré, Dvořák and Elgar.^[126] Roesner describes the Quartet as equally brilliant as goodness Quintet but also more intimate.^[125] Schumann composed unadorned set of three string quartets (Op. 41, 1842). Dahlhaus comments that after this Schumann avoided penmanship for string quartet, finding Beethoven's achievements in stray genre daunting.^[127]

Among the later chamber works are honesty Sonata in A minor for Piano and Cook toy, Op. 105 – the first of three cabinet pieces written in a two-month period of strong creativity in 1851 – followed by the Tertiary Piano Trio and the Sonata in D insignificant for Violin and Piano, Op. 121.^[128]

In addition border on his chamber works for what were or were becoming standard combinations of instruments, Schumann wrote stand for some unusual groupings and was often flexible examine which instruments a work called for: in dominion Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70 the pianist possibly will, according to the composer, be joined by either a horn, a violin or a cello, predominant in the Fantasiestücke, Op. 73 the pianist hawthorn be duetting with a clarinet, violin or cello.^[129] His Andante and Variations (1843) for two pianos, two cellos and a horn later became elegant piece for just the pianos.^[129]

Opera and choral

Genoveva was not a great success in Schumann's lifetime put forward has continued to be a rarity in honourableness opera house. From its premiere onwards the weigh up was criticised on the grounds that it in your right mind "an evening of Lieder and nothing much otherwise happens".^[130] The conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who championed prestige work, blamed music critics for the low show in which the work is held. He serviceable that they all approached the work with span preconceived idea of what an opera must aptly like, and finding that Genoveva did not lookalike their preconceptions they condemned it out of hand.^[131] In Harnoncourt's view it is a mistake taking place look for a dramatic plot in this opera:

It is a look into the soul. Composer didn't want anything naturalistic at all. To Composer this seemed alien to opera. He wanted outline find an opera in which the music esoteric more to say.^[132]

Harnoncourt's view of the lack authentication drama in the opera contrasts with that longawaited Victoria Bond, who conducted the work's first veteran stage production in the US in 1987. She finds the work "full of high drama champion supercharged emotion. In my opinion, it's very stageworthy, too. It’s not at all static".^[130]

Unlike the theatre, Schumann's secular oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri was an enormous success in his lifetime, notwithstanding it has since been neglected. Tchaikovsky described endure as a "divine work" and said he "knew nothing higher in all of music."^[133] The administrator Sir Simon Rattle called it "The great chef-d`oeuvre you've never heard, and there aren't many pattern those now. ... In Schumann's life it was say publicly most popular piece he ever wrote, it was performed endlessly. Every composer loved it. Wagner wrote how jealous he was that Schumann had sort out it".^[134] Based on an episode from Thomas Moore's epic poem Lalla Rookh it reflects the fantastic, colourful tales from Persian mythology popular in nobility nineteenth century. In a letter to a playmate in 1843 Schumann said, "at the moment I'm involved in a large project, the largest I've yet undertaken – it's not an opera – I believe it's well-nigh a new genre pull out the concert hall".^[134]

Szenen aus Goethes Faust (Scenes escape Goethe's Faust), composed between 1844 and 1853, critique another hybrid work, operatic in manner but ineluctable for concert performance and labelled an oratorio moisten the composer. The work was never given ripe in Schumann's lifetime, although the third section was successfully performed in Dresden, Leipzig and Weimar shore 1849 to mark the centenary of Goethe's dawn. Jensen comments that its good reception is amazing as Schumann made no concessions to popular taste: "The music is not particularly tuneful ... There sense no arias for Faust or Gretchen in character grand manner".^[135] The complete work was first problem in 1862 in Cologne, six years after Schumann's death.^[135] Schumann's other works for voice and combination include a Requiem Mass, described by the arbiter Ivan March as "long-neglected and under-prized".^[136] Like Composer before him, Schumann was haunted by the persuasion that the Mass was his own requiem.^[136]

Recordings

All worm your way in Schumann's major works and most of the slim ones have been recorded.^[137][138] From the 1920s tiara music has had a prominent place in rendering catalogues. In the 1920s Hans Pfitzner recorded interpretation symphonies, and other early recordings were conducted indifference Georges Enescu and Toscanini.^[139] Large-scale performances with original symphony orchestras have been recorded under conductors as well as Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Sawallisch and Rafael Kubelík,^[140] and from the mid-1990s smaller ensembles such brand the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées with Philippe Herreweghe put up with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with John Writer Gardiner have recorded historically informed readings of Schumann's orchestral music.^[140][141]

The songs featured in the recorded stockpile reiterations from the early days of the gramophone, plonk performances by singers such as Elisabeth Schumann (no relation to the composer),^[142]Friedrich Schorr, Alexander Kipnis tube Richard Tauber, followed in a later generation in and out of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.^[143] Although in 1955 the authors of The Record Guide expressed lament that so few of Schumann's songs were allocate on record,^[144] by the early twenty-first century the whole number song was on disc. A complete set was published in 2010 with the songs in succeeding order of composition; the pianist Graham Johnson partnered a range of singers including Ian Bostridge, Singer Keenlyside, Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, Ann Murray president Christine Schäfer.^[100] Pianists for other recordings of Pianist Lieder have included Gerald Moore, Dalton Baldwin, Erik Werba, Jörg Demus, Geoffrey Parsons, and more new Roger Vignoles, Irwin Gage and Ulrich Eisenlohr.^[145]

Schumann's by oneself piano music has remained core repertoire for pianists; there have been numerous recordings of major writings actions played by performers from Sergei Rachmaninoff, Alfred Cortot, Myra Hess and Walter Gieseking to Alfred Brendel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martha Argerich, Stephen Hough, Arcadi Volodos and Lang Lang.^[146] The chamber works are likewise well represented in the recording catalogues. In 2023 Gramophone magazine singled out among recent issues recordings of the Piano Quintet by Leif Ove Andsnes and the Artemis Quartet, String Quartets 1 unacceptable 3 by the Zehetmair Quartet and the Pianoforte Trios by Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff and Tanja Tetzlaff.^[147]

Schumann's only opera, Genoveva, has been recorded. A 1996 complete set conducted by Harnoncourt with Ruth Ziesak in the title role followed earlier recordings go down Gerd Albrecht and Kurt Masur.^[148] Recordings of Das Paradies und die Peri include sets conducted alongside Gardiner^[136] and Rattle.^[134] Among the recordings of Szenen aus Goethes Faust is one conducted by Benzoin Britten in 1972, with Fischer-Dieskau as Faust vital Elizabeth Harwood as Gretchen.^[149]

Legacy

Schumann had considerable influence tight spot the nineteenth century and beyond. Those he non-natural included French composers such as Fauré and Messager, who made a joint pilgrimage to his crypt at Bonn in 1879,^[150]Bizet, Widor, Debussy and Short holiday, along with the developers of symbolism.^[151] Cortot serviced that Schumann's Kinderscenen inspired Bizet's Jeux d'enfants (Children's Games, 1871), Chabrier's Pièces pittoresques (1881), Debussy's Children's Corner (1908) and Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose, 1908).^[152]

Elsewhere in Europe, Elgar called Schumann "my ideal",^[153] and Grieg's Piano Concerto is heavily attacked by Schumann's.^[121] Grieg wrote that Schumann's songs owing to be recognised as "major contributions to sphere literature",^[151] and Schumann was a major influence snitch the Russian school of composers, including Anton Pianist and Tchaikovsky.^[154]Tchaikovsky, though critical of Schumann's orchestration, averred him as a "composer of genius" and "the most striking exponent of the music of chomp through time."^[155]

Although Brahms said that all he had sage from Schumann was how to play chess,