Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
- Concert (a-moll) für das Piano Forte mit Begleitung des Orchesters (c.1843)
Performers: Claire Chеvalliеr (fortepiano); Anima Etеrna Bruggе; Jos van Immеrsееl (conductor)
---
German composer and music critic. He was the fifth and youngest child of
August Schumann (1773-1826), a Saxon bookseller who encouraged his
musical inclinations, and Johanna Christiana Schnabel (1767-1836). At
about the age of 7, he began taking piano lessons from Johann Gottfried
Kuntzsch, organist at the Zwickau Marienkirche. In 1828 he enrolled at
the University of Leipzig as studiosus juris. In Leipzig he became a
piano student of Friedrich Wieck, his future father-in-law. In 1829 he
went to Heidelberg, where he applied himself seriously to music. In 1830
he returned to Leipzig and lodged in Wieck's home. He also took a
course in composition with Heinrich Dorn. His family life was unhappy;
his father died at the age of 53, and his sister Emily at the age of 19,
most likely a suicide. Of his 3 brothers, only one reached late middle
age. Schumann became absorbed in the Romantic malaise of Weltschmerz;
his idols included the writers and poets Jean Paul, Novalis, Heinrich
von Kleist and Lord Byron. Schumann wrote plays and poems in the
Romantic tradition and at the same time practiced his piano playing in
the hope of becoming a virtuoso pianist. He never succeeded in this
ambition; ironically, it was to be his beloved bride, Clara Schumann
(1819-1896), who would become a famous concert pianist, with Schumann
himself often introduced to the public at large as merely her husband.
Schumann had a handsome appearance; he liked the company of young women,
and enjoyed beer, wine, and strong cigars; this was in sharp contrast
with his inner disquiet. As a youth, he confided to his diary a fear of
madness. He had auditory hallucinations which caused insomnia, and he
also suffered from acrophobia. When he was 23 years old, he noted sudden
onsets of inexpressible angst, momentary loss of consciousness, and
difficulty in breathing. He called his sickness a pervasive melancholy, a
popular malaise of the time.
What maintained his spirits then was his great love for Clara, 9 years
his junior; he did not hesitate to confess his psychological
perturbations to her. Her father must have surmised the unstable
character of Schumann, and resisted any thought of allowing Clara to
become engaged to him; the young couple had to go to court to overcome
Wieck's objections, and were finally married on 12 September 1840.
Whatever inner torment disturbed Schumann's mind, it did not affect the
flowering of his genius as a composer. One of the most fanciful
inventions of Schumann was the formation of an intimate company of
friends, which he named Davidsbundler to describe the sodality of David,
dedicated to the mortal struggle against Philistines in art and to the
passionate support of all that was new and imaginative. In 1843 he was
asked by Mendelssohn to join him as a teacher of piano, composition, and
score reading at the newly founded Conservatory in Leipzig. In 1844 he
and Clara undertook a concert tour to Russia. In the autumn of 1844 they
moved to Dresden, remaining there until 1850. In 1850 he became
municipal music director in Düsseldorf, but his disturbed condition
manifested itself in such alarming ways that he had to resign the post
in 1853. His condition continued to deteriorate. On 27 February 1854, he
threw himself into the Rhine, but was rescued. On 4 March 1854, he was
placed, at his own request, in a sanatorium at Endenich, near Bonn,
remaining there until the end of his life. While best remembered for his
piano music and songs, and some of his symphonic and chamber works,
Schumann made significant contributions to all the musical genres of his
day and cultivated a number of new ones as well. His dual interest in
music and literature led him to develop a historically informed music
criticism and a compositional style deeply indebted to literary models. A
leading exponent of musical Romanticism, he had a powerful impact on
succeeding generations of European composers.
