Robert Schumann |

Robert Schumann

To shed light into the depths of the human heart – such is the vocation of the artist. R. Schumann

P. Tchaikovsky believed that future generations would call the XNUMXth century. Schumann’s period in the history of music. And indeed, Schumann’s music captured the main thing in the art of his time – its content was the “mysteriously deep processes of the spiritual life” of man, its purpose – penetration into the “depths of the human heart.”

R. Schumann was born in the provincial Saxon town of Zwickau, in the family of the publisher and bookseller August Schumann, who died early (1826), but managed to pass on to his son a reverent attitude towards art and encouraged him to study music with the local organist I. Kuntsch. From an early age, Schumann loved to improvise on the piano, at the age of 13 he wrote a Psalm for choir and orchestra, but no less than music attracted him to literature, in the study of which he made great strides during his years at the gymnasium. The romantically inclined young man was not at all interested in jurisprudence, which he studied at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg (1828-30).

Classes with the famous piano teacher F. Wieck, attending concerts in Leipzig, acquaintance with the works of F. Schubert contributed to the decision to devote himself to music. With difficulty overcoming the resistance of his relatives, Schumann began intensive piano lessons, but a disease in his right hand (due to mechanical training of the fingers) closed his career as a pianist for him. With all the more enthusiasm, Schumann devotes himself to composing music, takes composition lessons from G. Dorn, studies the work of J. S. Bach and L. Beethoven. Already the first published piano works (Variations on a theme by Abegg, “Butterflies”, 1830-31) showed the independence of the young author.

Since 1834, Schumann became the editor and then the publisher of the New Musical Journal, which aimed to fight against the superficial works of virtuoso composers who flooded the concert stage at that time, with handicraft imitation of the classics, for a new, deep art, illuminated by poetic inspiration . In his articles, written in an original artistic form – often in the form of scenes, dialogues, aphorisms, etc. – Schumann presents the reader with the ideal of true art, which he sees in the works of F. Schubert and F. Mendelssohn, F. Chopin and G Berlioz, in the music of the Viennese classics, in the game of N. Paganini and the young pianist Clara Wieck, the daughter of her teacher. Schumann managed to gather around him like-minded people who appeared on the pages of the magazine as Davidsbündlers – members of the “David Brotherhood” (“Davidsbund”), a kind of spiritual union of genuine musicians. Schumann himself often signed his reviews with the names of fictitious Davidsbündlers Florestan and Eusebius. Florestan is prone to violent ups and downs of fantasy, to paradoxes, the judgments of the dreamy Eusebius are softer. In the suite of characteristic plays “Carnival” (1834-35), Schumann creates musical portraits of the Davidsbündlers – Chopin, Paganini, Clara (under the name of Chiarina), Eusebius, Florestan.

The highest tension of spiritual strength and the highest ups of creative genius (“Fantastic Pieces”, “Dances of the Davidsbündlers”, Fantasia in C major, “Kreisleriana”, “Novelettes”, “Humoresque”, “Viennese Carnival”) brought Schumann the second half of the 30s. , which passed under the sign of the struggle for the right to unite with Clara Wieck (F. Wieck in every possible way prevented this marriage). In an effort to find a wider arena for his musical and journalistic activities, Schumann spends the 1838-39 season. in Vienna, but the Metternich administration and censorship prevented the journal from being published there. In Vienna, Schumann discovered the manuscript of Schubert’s “great” Symphony in C major, one of the pinnacles of romantic symphonism.

1840 – the year of the long-awaited union with Clara – became for Schumann the year of songs. An extraordinary sensitivity to poetry, a deep knowledge of the work of contemporaries contributed to the realization in numerous song cycles and individual songs of a true union with poetry, the exact embodiment in music of the individual poetic intonation of G. Heine (“Circle of Songs” op. 24, “The Poet’s Love”), I. Eichendorff (“Circle of Songs”, op. 39), A. Chamisso (“Love and Life of a Woman”), R. Burns, F. Rückert, J. Byron, G. X. Andersen and others. And subsequently, the field of vocal creativity continued to grow wonderful works (“Six Poems by N. Lenau” and Requiem – 1850, “Songs from “Wilhelm Meister” by I. V. Goethe” – 1849, etc.).

The life and work of Schumann in the 40-50s. flowed in an alternation of ups and downs, largely associated with bouts of mental illness, the first signs of which appeared as early as 1833. Upsurges in creative energy marked the beginning of the 40s, the end of the Dresden period (the Schumanns lived in the capital of Saxony in 1845-50. ), coinciding with the revolutionary events in Europe, and the beginning of life in Düsseldorf (1850). Schumann composes a lot, teaches at the Leipzig Conservatory, which opened in 1843, and from the same year begins to perform as a conductor. In Dresden and Düsseldorf, he also directs the choir, devoting himself to this work with enthusiasm. Of the few tours made with Clara, the longest and most impressive was a trip to Russia (1844). Since the 60-70s. Schumann’s music very quickly became an integral part of Russian musical culture. She was loved by M. Balakirev and M. Mussorgsky, A. Borodin and especially Tchaikovsky, who considered Schumann the most outstanding modern composer. A. Rubinstein was a brilliant performer of Schumann’s piano works.

Creativity of the 40-50s. marked by a significant expansion of the range of genres. Schumann writes symphonies (First – “Spring”, 1841, Second, 1845-46; Third – “Rhine”, 1850; Fourth, 1841-1st edition, 1851 – 2nd edition), chamber ensembles (3 strings quartet – 1842, 3 trios, piano quartet and quintet, ensembles with the participation of the clarinet – including “Fabulous Narratives” for clarinet, viola and piano, 2 sonatas for violin and piano, etc.); concertos for piano (1841-45), cello (1850), violin (1853); program concert overtures (“The Bride of Messina” according to Schiller, 1851; “Hermann and Dorothea” according to Goethe and “Julius Caesar” according to Shakespeare – 1851), demonstrating mastery in handling classical forms. The Piano Concerto and the Fourth Symphony stand out for their boldness in their renewal, the Quintet in E-flat major for the exceptional harmony of embodiment and the inspiration of musical thoughts. One of the culminations of the composer’s entire work was the music for Byron’s dramatic poem “Manfred” (1848) – the most important milestone in the development of romantic symphonism on the way from Beethoven to Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Brahms. Schumann does not betray his beloved piano either (Forest Scenes, 1848-49 and other pieces) – it is his sound that endows his chamber ensembles and vocal lyrics with special expressiveness. The search for the composer in the field of vocal and dramatic music was tireless (the oratorio “Paradise and Peri” by T. Moore – 1843; Scenes from Goethe’s “Faust”, 1844-53; ballads for soloists, choir and orchestra; works of sacred genres, etc.) . The staging in Leipzig of Schumann’s only opera Genoveva (1847-48) based on F. Gobbel and L. Tieck, similar in plot to the German romantic “knightly” operas by K. M. Weber and R. Wagner, did not bring him success.

The great event of the last years of Schumann’s life was his meeting with the twenty-year-old Brahms. The article “New Ways”, in which Schumann predicted a great future for his spiritual heir (he always treated young composers with extraordinary sensitivity), completed his publicistic activity. In February 1854, a severe attack of illness led to a suicide attempt. After spending 2 years in a hospital (Endenich, near Bonn), Schumann died. Most of the manuscripts and documents are kept in his House-Museum in Zwickau (Germany), where competitions of pianists, vocalists and chamber ensembles named after the composer are regularly held.

Schumann’s work marked the mature stage of musical romanticism with its heightened attention to the embodiment of the complex psychological processes of human life. Schumann’s piano and vocal cycles, many of the chamber-instrumental, symphonic works opened up a new artistic world, new forms of musical expression. Schumann’s music can be imagined as a series of surprisingly capacious musical moments, capturing the changing and very finely differentiated mental states of a person. These can also be musical portraits, accurately capturing both the external character and the inner essence of the depicted.

Schumann gave programmatic titles to many of his works, which were designed to excite the imagination of the listener and performer. His work is very closely connected with literature – with the work of Jean Paul (J. P. Richter), T. A. Hoffmann, G. Heine and others. Schumann’s miniatures can be compared with lyric poems, more detailed plays – with poems, romantic stories, where different storylines are sometimes bizarrely intertwined, the real turns into a fantastic one, lyrical digressions arise, etc. creatures. In this cycle of piano fantasy pieces, as well as in the vocal cycle on Heine’s poems “The Love of a Poet”, the image of a romantic artist arises, a true poet, capable of feeling infinitely sharp, “strong, fiery and tender”, sometimes forced to hide his true essence under a mask irony and buffoonery, in order to later reveal it even more sincerely and cordially or plunge into deep thought … Byron’s Manfred is endowed by Schumann with sharpness and strength of feeling, the madness of a rebellious impulse, in whose image there are also philosophical and tragic features. Lyrically animated images of nature, fantastic dreams, ancient legends and legends, images of childhood (“Children’s Scenes” – 1838; piano (1848) and vocal (1849) “Albums for Youth”) complement the artistic world of the great musician, “a poet par excellence”, as V. Stasov called it.

E. Tsareva

• Schumann’s life and work →
• Schumann’s piano works →
• Chamber-instrumental works of Schumann →
• Schumann’s vocal work →
• Schumann’s vocal and dramatic works →
• Symphonic works of Schumann →
• List of works by Schumann →

Schuman’s words “to illuminate the depths of the human heart – this is the purpose of the artist” – a direct path to the knowledge of his art. Few people can compare with Schumann in the penetration with which he conveys the finest nuances of the life of the human soul with sounds. The world of feelings is an inexhaustible spring of his musical and poetic images.

No less remarkable is another statement by Schumann: “One should not plunge too much into oneself, while it is easy to lose a sharp look at the world around.” And Schumann followed his own advice. At the age of twenty he took up the struggle against inertia and philistinism. (philistine is a collective German word that personifies a tradesman, a person with backward philistine views on life, politics, art) in art. A fighting spirit, rebellious and passionate, filled his musical works and his bold, daring critical articles, which paved the way for new progressive phenomena of art.

Irreconcilability to routinism, vulgarity Schumann carried through his whole life. But the disease, which grew stronger every year, aggravated the nervousness and romantic sensitivity of his nature, often hindered the enthusiasm and energy with which he devoted himself to musical and social activities. The complexity of the ideological socio-political situation in Germany at that time also had an effect. Nevertheless, in the conditions of a semi-feudal reactionary state structure, Schumann managed to preserve the purity of moral ideals, constantly maintain in himself and arouse creative burning in others.

“Nothing real is created in art without enthusiasm,” these wonderful words of the composer reveal the essence of his creative aspirations. A sensitive and deeply thinking artist, he could not help but respond to the call of the times, to succumb to the inspiring influence of the era of revolutions and national liberation wars that shook Europe in the first half of the XNUMXth century.

The romantic unusualness of musical images and compositions, the passion that Schumann brought to all his activities, disturbed the sleepy peace of the German philistines. It is no coincidence that Schumann’s work was hushed up by the press and did not find recognition in his homeland for a long time. Schumann’s life path was difficult. From the very beginning, the struggle for the right to become a musician determined the tense and sometimes nervous atmosphere of his life. The collapse of dreams was sometimes replaced by a sudden realization of hopes, moments of acute joy – deep depression. All this was imprinted in the quivering pages of Schumann’s music.

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To Schumann’s contemporaries, his work seemed mysterious and inaccessible. A peculiar musical language, new images, new forms – all this required too deep listening and tension, unusual for the audience of concert halls.

The experience of Liszt, who tried to promote Schumann’s music, ended rather sadly. In a letter to Schumann’s biographer, Liszt wrote: “Many times I had such a failure with Schumann’s plays both in private homes and in public concerts that I lost the courage to put them on my posters.”

But even among musicians, Schumann’s art made its way to understanding with difficulty. Not to mention Mendelssohn, to whom the rebellious spirit of Schumann was deeply alien, the same Liszt – one of the most insightful and sensitive artists – accepted Schumann only partially, allowing himself such liberties as performing “Carnival” with cuts.

Only since the 50s, Schumann’s music began to take root in the musical and concert life, to acquire ever wider circles of adherents and admirers. Among the first people who noted its true value were leading Russian musicians. Anton Grigoryevich Rubinshtein played Schumann a lot and willingly, and it was precisely with the performance of “Carnival” and “Symphonic Etudes” that he made a huge impression on the audience.

Love for Schumann was repeatedly testified by Tchaikovsky and the leaders of the Mighty Handful. Tchaikovsky spoke especially penetratingly about Schumann, noting the exciting modernity of Schumann’s work, the novelty of the content, the novelty of the composer’s own musical thinking. “Schumann’s music,” wrote Tchaikovsky, “organically adjoining Beethoven’s work and at the same time sharply separating from it, opens up a whole world of new musical forms to us, touches strings that his great predecessors have not yet touched. In it we find an echo of those mysterious spiritual processes of our spiritual life, those doubts, despairs and impulses towards the ideal that overwhelm the heart of modern man.

Schumann belongs to the second generation of romantic musicians who replaced Weber, Schubert. Schumann in many respects started from the late Schubert, from that line of his work, in which lyrical-dramatic and psychological elements played a decisive role.

Schumann’s main creative theme is the world of a person’s internal states, his psychological life. There are features in the appearance of Schumann’s hero that are akin to Schubert’s, there is also much that is new, inherent in an artist of a different generation, with a complicated and contradictory system of thoughts and feelings. Artistic and poetic images of Schumann, more fragile and refined, were born in the mind, acutely perceiving the ever-increasing contradictions of the time. It was this heightened acuteness of reaction to the phenomena of life that created extraordinary tension and strength of the “impact of Schumann’s ardor of feelings” (Asafiev). None of Schumann’s Western European contemporaries, except for Chopin, has such passion and a variety of emotional nuances.

In the nervously receptive nature of Schumann, the feeling of a gap between a thinking, deeply feeling personality and the real conditions of the surrounding reality, experienced by the leading artists of the era, is exacerbated to the extreme. He seeks to fill the incompleteness of existence with his own fantasy, to oppose an unsightly life with an ideal world, the realm of dreams and poetic fiction. Ultimately, this led to the fact that the multiplicity of life phenomena began to shrink to the limits of the personal sphere, inner life. Self-deepening, focus on one’s feelings, one’s experiences strengthened the growth of the psychological principle in Schumann’s work.

Nature, everyday life, the entire objective world, as it were, depend on the given state of the artist, are colored in the tones of his personal mood. Nature in Schumann’s work does not exist outside of his experiences; it always reflects his own emotions, takes on a color corresponding to them. The same can be said about the fabulous-fantastic images. In the work of Schumann, in comparison with the work of Weber or Mendelssohn, the connection with the fabulousness generated by folk ideas is noticeably weakening. Schumann’s fantasy is rather a fantasy of his own visions, sometimes bizarre and capricious, caused by the play of artistic imagination.

The strengthening of subjectivity and psychological motives, the often autobiographical nature of creativity, does not detract from the exceptional universal value of Schumann’s music, for these phenomena are deeply typical of Schumann’s era. Belinsky spoke remarkably about the significance of the subjective principle in art: “In a great talent, an excess of an inner, subjective element is a sign of humanity. Do not be afraid of this direction: it will not deceive you, it will not mislead you. The great poet, speaking of himself, of his я, speaks of the general – of humanity, because in his nature lies everything that humanity lives by. And therefore, in his sadness, in his soul, everyone recognizes his own and sees in him not only poetBut peoplehis brother in humanity. Recognizing him as a being incomparably higher than himself, everyone at the same time recognizes his kinship with him.

Along with the deepening into the inner world in the work of Schumann, another equally important process takes place: the scope of the vital content of music is expanding. Life itself, feeding the composer’s work with the most diverse phenomena, introduces elements of publicism, sharp characterization and concreteness into it. For the first time in instrumental music, portraits, sketches, scenes so accurate in their characteristic appear. Thus, living reality sometimes very boldly and unusually invades the lyrical pages of Schumann’s music. Schumann himself admits that he “excites everything that happens in the world – politics, literature, people; I think about all this in my own way, and then it all asks to come out, looking for expression in music.

The incessant interaction of external and internal saturates Schumann’s music with sharp contrast. But his hero himself is quite contradictory. After all, Schumann endowed his own nature with different characters of Florestan and Eusebius.

Rebellion, tension of searches, dissatisfaction with life cause rapid transitions of emotional states – from stormy despair to inspiration and active enthusiasm – or are replaced by quiet thoughtfulness, gentle daydreaming.

Naturally, this world woven from contradictions and contrasts required some special means and forms for its implementation. Schumann revealed it most organically and directly in his piano and vocal works. There he found forms that allowed him to freely indulge in the whimsical play of fantasy, not constrained by the given schemes of already established forms. But in widely conceived works, in symphonies, for example, lyrical improvisation sometimes contradicted the very concept of the symphony genre with its inherent requirement for a logical and consistent development of an idea. On the other hand, in the one-movement overture to Manfred, the closeness of some features of Byron’s hero to the composer’s inner world inspired him to create a deeply individual, passionate dramatic work. Academician Asafiev characterizes Schumann’s “Manfred” as “a tragic monologue of a disillusioned, socially lost “proud personality”.

Many pages of music of unspeakable beauty contain Schumann’s chamber compositions. This is especially true of the piano quintet with the passionate intensity of its first movement, the lyric-tragic images of the second and the brilliantly festive final movements.

The novelty of Schumann’s thinking was expressed in the musical language – original and original. Melody, harmony, rhythm seem to obey the slightest movement of bizarre images, variability of moods. The rhythm becomes unusually flexible and elastic, endowing the musical fabric of the works with a uniquely sharp characteristic. In-depth “listening” to the “mysterious processes of spiritual life” gives rise to especially close attention to harmony. It is not for nothing that one of the aphorisms of the Davidsbündlers says: “In music, as in chess, the queen (melody) is of the greatest importance, but the king (harmony) decides the matter.”

Everything characteristic, purely “Schumannian”, was embodied with the greatest brightness in his piano music. The novelty of Schumann’s musical language finds its continuation and development in his vocal lyrics.

V. Galatskaya

Schumann’s work is one of the pinnacles of world musical art of the XNUMXth century.

The advanced aesthetic tendencies of German culture of the period of the 20s and 40s found a vivid expression in his music. The contradictions inherent in Schumann’s work reflected the complex contradictions of the social life of his time.

Schumann’s art is imbued with that restless, rebellious spirit that makes him related to Byron, Heine, Hugo, Berlioz, Wagner and other outstanding romantic artists.

Oh let me bleed But give me space soon. I’m scared to suffocate here In the damned world of merchants… No, better vile vice Robbery, violence, robbery, Than bookkeeping morality And the virtue of well-fed faces. Hey cloud, take me away Take it with you on a long journey To Lapland, or to Africa, Or at least to Stettin – somewhere! — (Translated by V. Levik)

Heine wrote about the tragedy of a thinking contemporary. Under these verses Schumann could subscribe. In his passionate, agitated music, the protest of a dissatisfied and restless personality is invariably heard. Schumann’s work was a challenge to the hated “world of traders”, its stupid conservatism and self-satisfied narrow-mindedness. Fanned by the spirit of protest, Schumann’s music objectively expressed the best people’s aspirations and aspirations.

A thinker with advanced political views, sympathetic to revolutionary movements, a major public figure, a passionate propagandist of the ethical purpose of art, Schumann angrily castigated the spiritual emptiness, the petty-bourgeois mustiness of modern artistic life. His musical sympathies were on the side of Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, whose art served him as the highest artistic measure. In his work, he sought to rely on folk-national traditions, on democratic genres common in German life.

With his inherent passion, Schumann called for a renewal of the ethical content of music, its figurative-emotional structure.

But the theme of rebellion received from him a kind of lyrical and psychological interpretation. Unlike Heine, Hugo, Berlioz and some other romantic artists, civic pathos was not very characteristic of him. Schumann is great in another way. The best part of his varied legacy is the “confession of the son of the age.” This theme worried many of Schumann’s outstanding contemporaries and was embodied in Byron’s Manfred, Müller-Schubert’s The Winter Journey, and Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony. The rich inner world of the artist as a reflection of the complex phenomena of real life is the main content of Schumann’s art. Here the composer achieves great ideological depth and power of expression. Schumann was the first to reflect in music such a wide range of experiences of his peer, the variety of their shades, the subtlest transitions of mental states. The drama of the epoch, its complexity and inconsistency received a peculiar refraction in the psychological images of Schumann’s music.

At the same time, the composer’s work is imbued not only with a rebellious impulse, but also with poetic dreaminess. Creating autobiographical images of Florestan and Eusebius in his literary and musical works, Schumann essentially embodied in them two extreme forms of expressing romantic discord with reality. In the above poem by Heine, one can recognize the heroes of Schumann – the protesting ironic Florestan (he prefers robbery of “accounting morality of well-fed faces”) and the dreamer Eusebius (along with a cloud carried off to unknown countries). The theme of a romantic dream runs like a red thread through all his work. There is something deeply significant in the fact that Schumann associated one of his most beloved and artistically significant works with the image of Hoffmann’s Kapellmeister Kreisler. Stormy impulses to unattainably beautiful make Schumann related to this impulsive, unbalanced musician.

But, unlike his literary prototype, Schumann does not so much “rise” above reality as poeticizes it. He knew how to see its poetic essence under the everyday shell of life, he knew how to select the beautiful from real life impressions. Schumann brings new, festive, sparkling tones to music, giving them many colorful shades.

In terms of the novelty of artistic themes and images, in terms of its psychological subtlety and truthfulness, Schumann’s music is a phenomenon that significantly expanded the boundaries of the musical art of the XNUMXth century.

Schumann’s work, especially piano works and vocal lyrics, had a huge impact on the music of the second half of the XNUMXth century. The piano pieces and symphonies of Brahms, many vocal and instrumental works by Grieg, the works of Wolf, Frank and many other composers date back to Schumann’s music. Russian composers highly appreciated Schumann’s talent. His influence was reflected in the work of Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, and especially Tchaikovsky, who not only in the chamber, but also in the symphonic sphere, developed and generalized many of the characteristic features of Schumann’s aesthetics.

“It can be said with certainty,” wrote P. I. Tchaikovsky, “that the music of the second half of the century of the current century will constitute a period in the future history of art, which future generations will call Schumann’s. Schumann’s music, organically adjacent to Beethoven’s work and at the same time sharply separating from it, opens up a whole world of new musical forms, touches strings that his great predecessors have not yet touched. In it we find an echo of those … deep processes of our spiritual life, those doubts, despairs and impulses towards the ideal that overwhelm the heart of modern man.

V. Konen

• Schumann’s life and work →
• Schumann’s piano works →
• Chamber-instrumental works of Schumann →
• Schumann’s vocal work →
• Symphonic works of Schumann →