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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:___________________
I, _________________________________________________________,
hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree
of:
in:
It is entitled:
This work and its defense approved by:
Chair: _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
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Themes of Childhood: A Study of Robert Schumanns Piano Music for
Children
A doctoral document submitted to the
Division of Research and Advanced Studies
of the University of Cincinnati
In partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS
In the Keyboard Division
of the College-Conservatory of Music
2006
By
DONG XU
B.M., Central Conservatory of Music, China, 1996
M.M., Eastman School of Music, 1999
Committee Chair: Frank Weinstock
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ABSTRACT
Robert Schumanns piano music for children, including the
Kinderszenen, Album
for the Young, Waldszenen, Three Piano Sonatas for the Young,
and three piano duets
Twelve Four-Hand Piano Pieces for Small and Big Children, Ball
Scenes, and Childrens
Ball, has remained the most characteristic and successful
example of his engagement
with the theme of childhood, a popular topic in Romantic art and
culture. Although the
techniques required within these collections are not as
difficult as those found in
Schumanns other piano works, they embrace some of the finest and
most rewarding
instances of Schumanns piano writing, and demonstrate their
innermost poetic quality
and evocative imagination. The purpose of this document is to
explore the expressiveness
of these works by revealing the sources of their emotional
content, their musical
originality and characteristics through a historical study and
musical analysis.
The first chapter addresses Schumanns personal and family life
and the influence
of childhood on him to explain why the theme could have affected
his affinity for music
related to children. The second chapter provides an overview of
Schumanns music for
and about children in genres other than piano. This chapter also
discusses the quality and
styles of Schumanns late works, with emphasis on Hausmusik, a
German term
suggesting domestic music making found throughout in his piano
music for children and
many of his late compositions. The following two chapters
present detailed studies of
Schumanns four piano solo works for children. To uncover their
musical effect and
characteristics of the theme of childhood, the compositional
background, thematic
treatment, harmonic design, and formal structure are analyzed in
detail, as individual
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pieces and coherent sets. The last chapter is devoted to the
three piano duets for children,
and identifies their musical traits that are found throughout
Schumanns other works
related to childhood. Appendices contain selected reviews of
Schumanns piano music
for children by Franz Liszt, and Clara Schumanns explanation and
interpretation of
pieces from the Album for the Young.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the course of preparing this document, several individuals
have assisted me in
bringing the project to its completion, and it is my pleasure to
acknowledge them here.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere
appreciation and gratitude to my
piano teacher, advisor, and committee chair Professor Frank
Weinstock, who has offered
constructive support, invaluable advice, and sensible guidance
at every stage of the
project. He has been a source of inspiration during my doctoral
studies and a model for
me as a pianist and person. Special and warm thanks go to my
committee members, Dr.
Hilary Poriss and Mr. Michael Chertock, who have provided me
with especially valued
insights and extremely helpful comments and suggestions.
I also wish to express deep thanks to my wife, Jing Ye, for her
understanding,
patience, and encouragement, for helping me in countless ways in
my life. And to my
son, Felix; it was because of his birth in 2004 that the idea
for the topic first germinated. I
hope that one day he will want to read it. Finally, I would like
to extend my heartfelt
thanks to my dear parents for their unconditional love and
immeasurable support in my
musical education. I dedicate this document to them, with
love.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES.. iii
LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES. iv
INTRODUCTION.. 1
Chapter
1. CHILDHOOD AND SCHUMANN
Schumanns Own Childhood.. 4
Schumanns Relationship with His Children. 9
Childhood in German Romantic Literature 13
Childrens Education: Social Influences on Schumann. 16
2. SCHUMANN: MUSIC FOR CHILDREN, THE LATE WORKS AND
HAUSMUSIK
Schumanns Music for Children. 20
The Late Works and Hausmusik. 37
3. THE KINDERSZENEN AND THE ALBUM FOR THE YOUNG
The Kinderszenen: Schumann as a Poet. 45
The Album for the Young: Imaginative Miniatures of Childhood..
56
4. THE WALDSZENEN AND THREE PIANO SONATAS FOR THE YOUNG
The Waldszenen: A Musical Mrchen... 76
Three Piano Sonatas for the Young: Musical Portraits of Three
Daughters... 93
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5. THE THREE PIANO DUETS FOR CHILDREN
The Piano Duet and Schumann... 108
The Twelve Four-Hand Piano Pieces For Small and Big Children,
Op. 85.. 111 The Ball Scenes, Op. 109 and the Childrens Ball, Op.
130.. 118
CONCLUSION... 128
BIBLIOGRAPHY... 130
APPENDIXES
A. Selected Reviews of Schumanns Piano Music for Children by
Liszt 137
B. Clara Schumanns Explanation and Interpretation of Pieces from
the Album for the Young.. 139
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LIST OF TABLES
1. Kinderszenen, Op. 15, key scheme and formal structure. 55
2. Waldszenen, Op. 82, key scheme and formal structure 81
3. The Twelve Four-Hand Piano Pieces for Small and Big Children,
Op. 85, key and formal schemes 114 4. Walzer, from the Ball Scenes,
Op. 109, No. 8, formal outline. 123
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LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
1. Mond, meiner Seele Liebling, Op. 104, No. 1, mm. 1-8...
24
2. Der Zeisig, Op. 104, No. 4, mm. 1-11... 25
3. Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, No. 12, Op. 112, mm. 1-6.. 27
4. Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, No. 1, Op. 112, mm. 1-24.. 28
5a. Mrchenerzahlungen, Op. 132, 3rd movement, mm. 1-9.. 30
5b. Mrchenerzahlungen, Op. 132, 4th movement, mm. 1-7.. 31
6. Mignon, Op. 68, No. 35, mm. 1-10... 33
7. Heiss mich nicht redden, Op. 98a, No. 5, mm. 1-9 34
8. Requiem fr Mignon, No. 6, Op. 98b, mm. 355-371. 36
9a. Bittendes Kind, Op. 15, No. 4, mm. 14-17 48
9b. Glckes genug, Op. 15, No. 5, mm. 1-4 48
10. Kind im Einschlummern, Op. 15, No. 12, mm. 7-16. 49
11. Kind im Einschlummern, Op. 15, No. 12, mm. 25-32... 50
12. Der Dichter spricht, Op. 15, No. 13, mm. 1-12 50
13. Von fremden Lndern und Menschen, Op. 15, No. 1, mm. 1-4
52
14a. Kuriose Geschichte, Op. 15, No. 2, mm. 1-4 52
14b. Bittendes Kind, Op. 15, No. 4, mm. 1-3 53
14c. Frchtenmachen, Op. 15, No. 11, mm. 1-8... 53
15a. Wichtige Begebenheit, Op. 15, No. 6, mm. 1-4. 53
15b. Trumerei, Op. 15, No. 7, mm. 1-4... 54
15c. Ritter vom Steckenpferd, Op. 15, No. 9, mm. 1-8. 54
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16. Fr ganz Kleine. 58
17a. Little Fugue, Op. 68, No. 40, prelude, mm. 1-4 63
17b. Little Fugue, Op. 68, No. 40, fugue, mm. 1-4... 63
18a. A Chorale, Op. 68, No. 4... 64
18b. Figured Chorale, Op. 68, No. 42, mm. 1-8... 64
19a. Remembrance, Op. 68, No. 28, mm. 1-10. 67
19b. Intermezzo, from the Leiderkreis, Op. 39, No. 2, mm. 1-6...
67
20a. Op. 68, No. 21, mm. 1-4... 68
20b. Beethoven, Euch werde Lohn in bessern Welten in Act II from
Fidelio, mm. 1-6. 68
21a. Op. 68, No. 21, mm. 14-18.... 69
21b. Fantasie, Op. 17, 1st movement, mm. 295-309. 69
22a. Soldiers March, Op. 68, No. 2, mm. 1-12 70
22b. Beethoven, Spring Sonata for piano and violin, Op. 24, 3rd
movement, mm. 1-13 70
23. Northern Song, Op. 68, No. 41, mm. 1-4.. 71
24. Wintertime II, Op. 68, No. 39, mm. 1-6 72
25. Wintertime II, Op. 68, No. 39, mm. 25-32 73
26. Wintertime II, Op. 68, No. 39, mm. 47-64 74
27a. J.S. Bach, Peasant Cantata, BWV 212, No. 3, Recitative, mm.
4-9 74
27b. Papillons, Op. 2, finale, mm. 1-12 75
27c. Carnaval, Op. 9, finale, mm. 49-65.. 75
28a. Einsame Blumen, Op. 82, mm. 1-7... 81
28b. Verrufene Stelle, Op. 82, mm. 5-8 82
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29a. Herberge, Op. 82, mm. 37-40... 82
29b. Freundliche Landschaft, Op. 82, mm. 1-5 82
30a. Abschied, Op. 82, mm. 1-3... 83
30b. Herberge, Op. 82, mm. 1-2... 83
31a. Verrufene Stelle, Op. 82, mm. 33-35 83
31b. Vogel als Prophet, Op. 82, mm. 1. 84
32. Eintritt, Op. 82, mm. 1-4... 85
33. Jger auf der Lauer, Op. 82, mm. 1-4.. 85
34. Schubert, Frhlingsglaube, D. 686, mm. 4-7. 86
35. Schubert, Waltz, from 34 Valses sentimentales, D. 779, No,
13, mm. 1-6 87
36. Verrufene Stelle, Op. 82, mm. 1-8. 88
37a. Herberge, Op. 82, mm. 1-4... 89
37b. Waldesgeprch, from Liederkreis, Op. 39, No. 3, mm. 1-4...
89
38. Vogel als Prophet, Op. 82, mm. 1-5.. 90
39. Abschied, Op. 82, mm. 1-6 92
40a. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 3rd movement, mm. 1-4 97
40b. Brahms, Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, 3rd movement, mm. 1-4
97
41. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 1st movement, mm. 1-4 98
42. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 2nd movement, mm. 1-3... 98
43a. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 3rd movement, mm. 1-4 99
43b. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 3rd movement, mm. 31-34 99
44a. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 4th movement, mm. 1-4 99
44b. Sonata No. 1, Op. 118, 4th movement, mm. 93-105.. 99
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45. Sonata No. 2, Op. 118, 1st movement, mm. 1-3 101
46. Sonata No. 2, Op. 118, 3rd movement, mm. 1-5 102
47. Sonata No. 2, Op. 118, 4th movement, mm. 1-4 102
48. Sonata No. 3, Op. 118, 1st movement, mm. 1-6 104
49. Sonata No. 3, Op. 118, 2nd movement, mm. 1-3... 105
50a. Sonata No. 3, Op. 118, 4th movement, mm. 32-38 106
50b. Sonata No. 3, Op. 118, 4th movement, mm. 43-50 106
51a. Brentanz, mm. 1-4... 113
51b. Brentanz, Op. 85, No. 2, mm. 1-4... 114
52. Turniermarsch, Op. 85, No. 7, mm. 1-6 115
53. Am Springbrunnen, Op. 85, No. 9, mm. 1-8. 116
54. Abendlied, Op. 85, No. 12, mm. 1-9. 117
55a. Walzer, Op. 109, No. 3, mm. 1-6.. 121
55b. Walzer, Op. 109, No. 8, mm. 1-12 122
55c. Walzer, Op. 130, No. 2, mm. 1-7.. 122
56a. Sonata No. 3, Op. 118, 1st movement, mm. 4-6 124
56b. Polonaise, Op. 130, No. 1, mm. 1-8.. 124
57. Ungarisch, Op. 109, No. 4, mm. 42-53. 125
58. Mazurka, Op. 109, No. 6, mm. 1-10. 126
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INTRODUCTION
In modern times the writing of simple piano works as educational
music has
become a separate division of composition. However, in the
nineteenth century it seemed
not so. Many piano pieces for children were written by great
composers of all periods,
meeting the needs of beginners and young players. This type of
musical literature
provides children with materials for developing their technical
abilities and their musical
minds; it also offers them an opportunity to study the
individual composers work in
miniature and to examine its relationship in style to their
large-scale compositions. Many
of these piano pieces by great composers have proved to be of
lasting value, not only as
teaching works but also as music.
Among the best of the piano music for children are some poetic
and imaginative
collections composed by Robert Schumann (1810-1856). In his
compositions, there was a
marked, lasting, and historical link with the world of
childhood. The composer dedicated
many works to this topic, and a poetical element is never
missing from these works. Even
when the reference is not explicit, the imaginative aspect
always manages to appear.
Many of Schumanns compositions, therefore, are bound up with
themes which are close
in spirit to the world of the child, not only those whose titles
specifically point out this
fact.
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2
The theme of childhood in the romantic experience was symbolic
of the return to
the natural, poetic, and sublime soul of man. Based upon the
great number of musical
compositions, there is reason to conclude that the idea of
childhood greatly influenced
Schumann and his music. Schumanns fondness for childhood is
first found in the
Kinderszenen, Op. 15, which was not written for the young but
rather for an adults
recollection of childhood. The works he deliberately planned for
children are, for
example, the Album for the Young, Op. 68, the Three Piano
Sonatas for the Young, Op.
118, and some sets of piano duets. Interest in the serious study
of Mrchen (fairy tale)
developed and flourished in the early nineteenth-century
Germany. Schumann read them
to his children and, inspired by them, he wrote several musical
works, including the
Waldszenen, Op. 82, and chamber pieces for small ensemble. As
evidenced by the
composers musical references, the theme of childhood made a
lasting impression upon
many of Schumanns creative inspirations.
Today most of Schumanns piano works for children are less known
and rarely
performed, without having received any serious attention from
pianists or critics.
Although extensive research has been done on Schumann and his
compositions, a
comprehensive study and analysis of his piano music for and
about children has not been
undertaken. The primary purpose of this document is to evaluate
these childhood
collections (including the Kinderszenen, the Album for the
Young, the Waldszenen, Three
Piano Sonatas for the Young, and the three piano duets Twelve
Four-Hand Piano Pieces
for Small and Big Children, the Ball Scenes, and the Childrens
Ball) and to draw
attention to the expressiveness of these works by revealing
their musical originality,
emotional substance, and poetic quality through a historical
study and musical analysis.
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3
To understand the influence of childhood upon Schumann and to
study his piano
music for children, this document will first discuss the
reasoning behind Schumanns
personal identification with childhood. There is an important
issue regarding his music
for children and about childhood: Schumanns relationship with
his children. Examining
this issue leads to a better understanding of the simplicity,
the characterization of
childhood, and the meditative attitude within the works. Next,
the document will focus on
Schumanns music for children and his late works. Except the
Kinderszenen, all the
works for and about children were composed during the last years
of Schumanns career.
The concept of Hausmusik, a German musical and cultural movement
in the 1840s, had
profound effects on Schumanns late music. This movement and
Schumanns response to
it are important factors in the changes in his musical
aesthetics. After synthesizing the
background information on Schumanns world of childhood and his
late music, the
document will then explore the influence of the themes of
childhood upon Schumanns
creations of each work. The analysis will concentrate on their
compositional/historical
background, thematic treatment, harmonic design, and formal
structure, as individual
pieces and coherent sets. From the early Kinderszenen to the
final Childrens Ball, the
piano pieces for children prove themselves to be the significant
points of contact with the
more nostalgic and intimate journey of Schumanns spirit.
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CHAPTER ONE
CHILDHOOD AND SCHUMANN
Schumanns Own Childhood
Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810, in Zwickau in Saxony,
a small town
of east-central Germany south of Leipzig. Zwickau was a
beautiful and idyllic place,
described by his father as one of the loveliest and most
romantic regions of Saxony,1
where Schumann spent his childhood and youth.
Schumanns own childhood was quite comfortable: the fifth and
youngest child in
a household with a strong literary atmosphere. His father,
August Schumann, was an
industrious publisher and bookseller. August Schumann received a
good education and
displayed an unusual interest in literature and poetry in his
early years. In 1795, he
married Johanne Christiane Schnabel, the daughter of a chief
surgeon at Zeitz. The
couple moved to Ronneburg and first opened a grocery store.
However, his passion for
literature persisted. In 1799, he abandoned the grocery business
and turned to
bookselling, and eventually moved with his wife and four
children to Zwickau in 1808,
where in partnership with his brother Friedrich he established
the publishing firm of the
Brothers Schumann. His business soon began to flourish. By the
time Robert was
1 August Schumann, Lexicon of Saxony, quoted in Georg Eismann,
Robert Schumann: A
Biography in Word and Picture, trans. Lena Jaeck (Leipzig: VEB
Edition Leipzig, 1964), 30.
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5
born, August Schumann had become a notable citizen2 of Zwickau.
At his death in
1826 he left an impressive estate, a sum that provided financial
assurance to the family
and ultimately assisted Schumann in his music study and career.3
It was August
Schumann who watched the development of his youngest son Robert
with great care. As
an affectionate father, he supervised and followed the gradual
unfolding of Roberts gifts
with ardent interest. Schumann admired and loved his father
throughout his life. In his
undergraduate room at the University of Leipzig, his fathers
portrait held a place of
honor, together with those of Jean Paul and Napoleon.4 With the
reverential memory, on
August 10, 1842, he noted the following words in his diary:
This day is the anniversary of the death of my good father,
about whom I have often been thinking; he was often in Teplitz; if
only he could also have seen us here together.5
Since his father was occupied with business, Schumann was
brought up largely by
two women. His mother devoted herself with passionate tenderness
to him, whom she
called the pretty child.6 Besides his mother, there was Eleonore
Ruppius, the wife of a
Burgomaster, who was a very dear friend of the whole Schumann
family. She took a
fancy to Schumann as a baby, and took care of him between his
third and fifth years.7
2 Frederick Niecks, Robert Schumann (London: J.M. Dent &
Sons Ltd., 1925), 25.
3 Alan Walker, Schumann and his Background, in Robert Schumann:
The Man and His Music,
ed. Alan Walker (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972), 3-4.
4 Niecks, 38.
5 The Marriage Diaries of Robert & Clara Schumann: From
Their Wedding Day through the Russia Trip, ed. Gerd Nauhaus, trans.
Peter Ostwald (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993),
163.
6 Ronald Taylor, Robert Schumann: His Life and Work (New York:
Universe Books, 1982), 24.
7 When Schumann was three, his mother caught typhoid. To avoid
the infection, he was put into the care of Eleonore Ruppius. See
Peter Ostwald, Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius
(Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985), 15.
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6
Although his stay in the Ruppius household has been viewed by
Peter Ostwald as the
source of a separation anxiety that fed into the composers later
depressive condition,8
Schumann seemed to have a loving memory of that period of time.
He later wrote in his
autobiography:
I at first was put for only 6 weeks to the house of the present
burgomaster Ruppius; I was fond of her, she became a second mother,
in short, I stayed two and a half years under her truly motherly
care9
Schumann possessed at an early age a marked talent for both
music and literature.
He began his earliest education with a resident tutor, who
taught him some basis of
music. At the age of six, he was sent to a private preparatory
school of the archdeacon
Hermann Dhner, where he remained for four years. Here, Schumann
was first brought
into contact with a number of children of his age. When he was
seven, he began piano
lessons with Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch (1775-1855), the organist
and choirmaster of the
Marienkirche, the largest church in Zwickau. Although Kuntzsch
was not a great
musician, he stimulated Schumanns musical interest, nourished
his remarkable ability,
helped him release the powerful musical impulse, and provided
constant support.
Throughout his life, Schumann held Kuntzsch in high regard. In a
letter dated July 27,
1832 to Kuntzsch, he wrote:
You will hardly believe, my most honoured teacher and friend,
how often and how gladly I think of you. You were the only one who
recognized the predominating musical talent in me and indicated
betimes the path along which, sooner or later, my good genius was
to guide me.10
8 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age (New
York: Oxford University
Press, 1997), 21, quoting Peter Ostwald, Leiden und Trauern im
leben und Werk Robert Schumann, in Schumanns Werke, ed. Mayeda and
Niemller (Mainz: Schott, 1987), 122; Ostwald, Schumann, 15-16,
20.
9 Eismann, 32.
10 Niecks, 32.
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7
Years later, in 1845, Schumann expressed sincere gratitude by
dedicating to him his
Studies for Pedal Piano, Op. 56, and in 1852, near the end of
his life, he wrote a grateful
letter to congratulate the fiftieth anniversary of Kuntzschs
installation as a music
teacher.11
In addition to the most favored piano, Schumann also learned to
play the cello and
the flute. He made his first attempt at composition, a set of
little dances for the piano
(now lost) at the age of seven or eight. At the age of ten,
Schumann entered into the
Zwickau Lyceum, where he soon began playing the piano at amateur
concerts. He
organized a youth orchestra made up of his little friends and,
when he was eleven,
performed his first large composition, a setting of Psalm 150
for chorus, piano, and
orchestra. His talent for improvisation was also displayed at
the time. In a supplement to
the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung issued April 1850, in the
52nd volume of the
publication, a biographical sketch of Schumann noted:
It has been related that Schumann, as a child, possessed rare
taste and talent for portraying feelings and characteristic traits
in melody, ay, he could sketch the different dispositions of his
intimate friends by certain figures and passages on the piano so
exactly and comically that every one burst into loud laughter at
the similitude of the portrait.12
Another childhood stimulation to Schumanns musical imagination
was especially
significant. In the summer of 1819, when he was nine, Schumanns
mother took him to
Carlsbad in Bohemia where, in a concert, he saw Ignaz Moscheles
(1794-1870), a
distinguished and great piano virtuoso of that time. The
dazzling occasion seems to have
made a deep and lasting impression on him. He kept the concert
program as a sacred
11 Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski, Life of Robert Schumann,
trans. A. L. Alger (Detroit:
Information Coordinators, 1975), 18.
12 Ibid., 18-19.
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8
memento and determined to become a piano virtuoso himself.13
Thirty-two years later in
a letter thanking Moscheles for the dedication of his E Major
Cello Sonata, Op. 121,
Schumann recalled that very occasion: more than thirty years
ago, in Carlsbad, how
little did I dream that I should ever be thus honored by so
illustrious a master!14
Reading literature attracted him as much as music. Schumanns
father insisted
that all of his sons should be well educated. Literary pursuits
were strongly encouraged in
the household; therefore, in addition to music, much of
Schumanns energy was directed
to literature. He found rich opportunities to go over the
classics of literature in his fathers
bookstore; he read the lives of the poets, studied the dramatic
works, and developed a
taste for Jean Paul and E.T.A. Hoffmann. He also helped his
father, along with his
brothers, collect and translate essays and organized various
literary clubs. These early
tasks no doubt stimulated his intense love for literature. In
addition to his early music
compositions, Schumanns first literary works originated
simultaneously: poetry, essays
and fragmentary novels.15 Later when he gave up study of the law
and devoted himself
entirely to music, Schumann still continued his literary
pursuits, particularly in the field
of music criticism.
Schumanns childhood was tranquil and happy, and he was educated
lovingly
and carefully.16 His life and music were involved in his
childhood in which it was
rooted. In his many moments of melancholy and suffering,
Schumann seemed always to
13 Ibid., 19. 14 Ibid.
15 Eric Frederick Jensen, Schumann (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001), 8.
16 Wasielewski, 126.
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9
recall it lovingly. His music is permeated with the memories of
his early years, a lasting
fragrance of childlike innocence.
Schumanns Relationship with His Children
Schumanns delight in the childs mind went back to the time when
he was the
young Claras moonstruck concocter of charades.17 He frequently
called her a child, as
he explained in a letter (May 11, 1838) to Clara:
Youre a very dear girl, and I often call you child in my
thoughts, and thats the most beautiful word that I can have for
anybody.18
During the time he and Clara spent together, they had eight
children: Marie (born 1841),
Elise (born 1843), Julie (born 1845), Emil (born 1846, died
1847), Ludwig (born 1848),
Ferdinand (born 1849), Eugenie (born 1851), and Felix (born
1854). Family life was
important for Schumann. His diaries, letters, and correspondence
are often deeply
personal. Surprising are the frequent references to his
children, showing him to be a lover
of childhood and an admirer of innocence. Even in the asylum in
Endenich he still asked
Clara on September 14, 1854:
I should be glad to know from you whether Marie and Elise
continue to make progress, and whether they still sing. Tell me
more details about the children. Do they still play Beethoven,
Mozart, and pieces out of my Jugendalbum (Album for the Young)?
Does Julie keep up her playing, and how are Ludwig, Ferdinand, and
sweet Eugenie shaping?19
17 Robert Haven Schauffler, Florestan: The Life and Work of
Robert Schumann (New York: Henry
Holt and Company, 1945), 48. 18 The Complete Correspondence of
Clara and Robert Schumann, ed. Eva Weissweiler, trans.
Hildegard Fritscht and Ronald L. Crawford, vol. 1 (New York: P.
Lang, 1994), 176.
19 Robert Schumann, The Letters of Robert Schumann, ed. Karl
Storck, trans. Hannah Bryant (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 289.
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10
Four days later, in response to news of the birth of his son
Felix, whom Schumann never saw, he wrote again to Clara: What
joyful tidings you have again sent me! The birth of a fine boyand
in June,
too. If you wish to consult me in the matter of a name, you will
easily guess my choicethe name of the unforgettable one.20
In the following months, he inquired about the children
regularly and mentioned to Clara
that he would write to them. He even insisted in a letter to his
young friend Brahms, on
December 15, 1854:
I am so glad to hear about the marked talent of my little girls,
Marie, Elise and Julie. Do you often hear them play?21
An unfailing source of comfort to him throughout all difficult
times was his wife and his
children. Robert says: Children are blessings, Clara noted in
May 1847 in her diary,
and he is right, for there is no happiness without children.22
As a composer, Schumann
wrote in his diary on June 28, 1843:
I dont like to write and speak about my own works; my wish is
that they may have good effects in the world and assure me a loving
remembrance from my children.23
Schumann was a devoted father. When Marie, the eldest child,
celebrated her first
birthday, Schumann gave her a really nice and thoughtful
present, a diary in which he
had described her first year of life.24 It was addressed to her
name:
20 Ibid., 290. Storck notes here that Felix was born on June 11
and Schumanns birthday was June
8. He also notes that the name is Mendelssohn. 21 Letters of
Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, 1853-1896, ed. Berthold
Litzmann, vol. 1
(New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927), 19.
22 Joan Chissell, Schumann (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.,
1967), 62.
23 The Marriage Diaries, 197. 24 Ibid., 171.
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11
You were happy and lively almost the whole time, with your
pretty blue eyes and dark lashes. You have learnt to crawl around
the room very quickly and are very agile. You can even stand up by
yourself, though of course you cannot yet walk properly or talk.
But your singing is farther advanced, with definite intervals and
phrases. At the back of this diary, where the staves have been
ruled, you will find some of the little tunes that I used to sing
to you at the piano. We shall make up a lot more together25
A couple of years later, Schumann decided to create a booklet in
a similar manner for all
the children. He named it A Little Book of Memories for Our
Children. Eugenie
Schumann, the seventh of eight children, published in her
Erinnerungen (Memoirs) the A
Little Book of Memories for Our Children, which Schumann started
on February 23, 1846
in Dresden.26 It contains a record of the childrens births,
their characteristics at various
ages, happenings and proof of child-like thinking and
experiences, and mottos and
maxims by Schumann and Clara. The booklet is a collection of
descriptions of
Schumanns life with his children, and it records Schumanns
approach to the psyche of
the child and his immersion into the world of his children. The
interpretation of their
characters is subtle, full of intuition and the psychological
understanding of their minds is
deep.
Schumann was pleased to be with his children and to observe
their growth and
development, as evidenced in the A Little Book of Memories for
Our Children:
Almost daily walks with Marie in Dresden, even in bad weather.
Frequently occupy myself in teaching Marie to count, and to look
for rhymes. The children like to be helpful and busy.
May 25 (1846), went with Marie and Elise into the country for a
few weeks, The childrens chief amusement was a very simple swing in
the arbour.27
25 Taylor, 214. 26 Eugenie Schumann, Memoirs of Eugenie
Schumann, trans. Marie Busch (London: W.
Heinemann, 1927; reprint, Westport: Hyperion Press, Inc., 1986),
206-18.
27 Ibid., 207, 208, 214.
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12
He also sketched the development of the childrens musical
education:
Marie and Elise often sing with evident pleasure, and have
clear, true voices, On March 26 (1846, Marie was four), I am
beginning to teach her the keys on the piano.
Julie is developing more slowly than the others. On the other
hand, music appeals to her very much, she at once begins to
sing.
Marie (1847) had started piano lessons with her aunt, Marie
Wieck. We were pleased to hear her play five or six little
exercises very nicely, Since October 1 (1848), Marie and Elise have
been going to a proper school.
They have also been attending Frulein Malinskas piano school for
the last six months, and are now playing all the scales and some
little pieces.28
The idea of such a booklet dedicated to children was remarkable.
For Schumann, to love
his children meant to reach out to the ideal state, which was
represented by the soul of a
child. Marie noted the childlike side of his father:
We met him [our father] once as we were coming out of school. We
saw him walking with Herr v. Wasielewski on the other side of the
street, and ran across and said good morning and offered him our
hands. He pretended not to know us, looked at us for a moment
through his glasses and then said: And who may you be, you dear
little people? We were very much amused29
Great artists are often accused of being too egocentric to care
for members of their
family, but, in the case of Schumann, it is a well-established
fact that for his children he
experienced a very tender love. In recollection of her father,
Marie wrote:
When I look back over my life, my childhood shines out as the
brightest spot in it. The happiness of being with my parents, the
knowledge that we children were the dearest thing on earth to them,
gave me a sense of certainty, of security, of protection, which,
when our great misfortune came, was lost, never to return to the
same extent.30
And Eugenie expressed this in her Memoirs:
28 Ibid., 207, 208, 211, 215.
29 Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann: An Artists Life, trans.
Grace E. Hadow, vol. 2 (New York: Vienna House, 1972), 143.
30 Ibid., 141.
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13
Marie, Elise, Julie! Your first steps in life were guided by our
father, and it was for you that he started to write the Little Book
of Memories to which I have already referred, and which he
continued for three years. What love, what understanding, while he
watched the first efforts of your little feet, the first
manifestations of your souls! How much did you, did we all, lose in
this father!31
Childhood in German Romantic Literature
The theme of childhood in the romantic experience was symbolic
of the return to
the natural, poetic, and innocent soul of man. By recapturing
and keeping the essence of a
childhood, one could evoke his reminiscences and dreams or
idealize the childhood he
had lost or never had. In painting, this side of human spirit
was examined in works such
as Night (1803) and The Artists Parents and Children (1806) by
Philipp Otto Runge,
who attempted to express nature in visual form by presenting his
idealized landscapes
with children, as though only children were worthy to live in
nature. The topic,
however, took on ideal connotations in German Romantic
literature, which played an
important role in shaping Schumanns musical aesthetics and had
great impact on the
form of his music for children.
Literature for children and about childhood emerged in the
second half of the
eighteenth century. The emergence was linked to many historical
forces, among them
notably the development of Enlightenment thought and
Romanticism. The Enlightenment
thought helped toward the identification of the child as an
independent being, while
Romanticism produced strands of genres making a special appeal
to the young: folktales,
fairy tales, and ballads, for instance. In addition, according
to Leon Botstein, the German
31 E. Schumann, 56.
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14
Romantics were ambivalent about the time they lived; therefore,
expressions of a desire
to escape the present moment became a general enthusiasm.32 He
further writes:
Once again Jean Paul helped to set the tone. Memory and hope
childhood and the beyond fill his spirit, wrote [Wilhelm] Dilthey,
obliterating the knife point of the present, general enthusiasm for
art and culture. The use of art to escape the present painthrough
the evocations (no matter how fantastic) of both remembrances and
dreamsfit precisely Schumanns careful description of his life in
letters and diaries.33
This was true of Schumann, who carried with him a nostalgia for
his childhood
throughout life as a wistful longing.
The first Romantic school in German literature originated in
Jena about 1798. The
major literary theorists were the brothers August Wilhelm and
Friedrich von Schlegel,
who considered that Romantic literature was to encompass all
forms of writing in
progress universal poetry.34 Goethes Wilhelm Meister was the
main literary model of
the group. The chief creative writers of the Jena school were
Wilhelm Heinrich
Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck, and Novalis (Friedrich von
Hardenberg). Like Jean Paul,
whose books to some extent are redeemed by profuse imagination
and dreamlike fantasy,
the theme of childhood was also presented in their works, such
as Novalis Henry of
Ofterdingen (1802). These works combined abstract ideas with
symbols of beauty and
innocence. By 1804 the circle at Jena had dispersed. A second
phase of Romanticism was
initiated two years later in Heidelberg, around Achim and
Bettina von Arnim, Clemens
Brentano, and Johann Joseph von Grres. Unlike the members of the
earlier school, the
32 Leon Botstein, History, Rhetoric, and the Self: Robert
Schumann and Music Making in
German-Speaking Europe, 1800-1860, in Schumann and His World,
ed. R. Larry Todd (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1994), 31.
33 Ibid., 31-32. 34 Ralph Tymms, German Romantic Literature
(London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1955), 123.
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15
Heidelberg writers tended more to stress the beauties of
unspoiled nature, and it was also
in Heidelberg romanticism that the romantic interest in German
history and folklore first
really took hold.
The emotional and imaginative forces in German Romantic
literature were
awakened mainly by the wide influence of two important works,35
not intended for
children but soon taken over by them. Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The
Youths Magic
Horn, 1805-08), a collection of old German songs and folk verse,
includes many
children's songs, or songs that were denominated by the editors,
Achim von Arnim and
Clemens Brentano. The effect of the book was to retrieve for
Germany much of its rich
folk heritage, to promote a new emotional sensibility, and to
draw attention to the link, as
the Romantics thought, binding folk feeling to the childs vision
of the world.36 Des
Knaben Wunderhorn became a part of German childhood, and it
helped inspire several
excellent writers of verse for children: Hoffmann von
Fallersleben, August Kopisch,
Count Franz Pocci, and F.W. Gll.
Just as in Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the same impulse later led the
brothers
Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm to compile their famous collection of
fairy tales, Kinder- und
Hausmrchen (Childrens and Household Tales, 1812-15), popularly
known as Grimms
Fairy Tales. The work helped to develop a school of prose
fairy-tale writers. For the
German Romantics, it was often in the fairy-tale, the Mrchen,
that childhood was most
easily recovered. Dominated by the poetic mood of fairy fiction,
they could immerse
themselves in the childs simplicity and refresh themselves at
the source of the childs
35 Gillian Rodger, The Lyric, in The Romantic Period in Germany,
ed. Siegbert Prawer (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), 147.
36 Tymms, 214.
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16
primitive innocence. Not all of these Romantics wrote with
children in mind, but some of
the simplest of their tales have become part of the German
childs inheritance. Among
the Mrchen masters are E.T.A. Hoffmann, Clemens Brentano, Ludwig
Tieck, Novalis,
and Wilhelm Hauff, whose talents are most nearly adapted to the
tastes of children.
The popularity of the fairy tale, childhood, and the dream in
the early stages of
German Romantic literature suited precisely Schumanns love of
the world of the child,
and provided him a source of memory and inspiration. The
conception of childhood as an
intermediate state between a lost world and reality is found
profoundly in Romantic
literary works, which are of great importance for the influence
upon Schumann. His
dedication to the music for children or about childhood was part
of this cultural trend.
Childrens Education: Social Influences on Schumann
An important social influence on Schumanns writing of childrens
music was the
focusing on their childhood education in the first half of the
nineteenth century in
Germany. The educational theories of Johann Bernhard Basedow,
Johann Friedrich
Herbart, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Froebel are
associated with the
Enlightenment insight toward the identification of the child as
an independent being.
Pestalozzi (1746-1827), a Swiss educational reformer whose
methods had profound
impact not in his native land but in Germany, was strongly
influenced by Rousseaus
romantic idealization of the nature of the child. His
pedagogical doctrines stressed that
instructions should proceed from the familiar to the new,
incorporate the performance of
concrete arts and the experience of actual emotional responses,
and be paced to follow
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17
the gradual unfolding of the childs development.37 His
curriculum, which was modeled
on Rousseau's plan in mile (On Education, 1762), emphasized
group rather than
individual recitation and focused on such participatory
activities as drawing, reading,
writing, singing, physical exercise, model making, gardening,
and field trips.38 Pestalozzi
was credited for the practical introduction of music into the
primary school curriculum.
He believed firmly that music was taught as an aid to moral
education,39 as he
expressed it in the following words:
It [music] is the marked and most beneficial influence which it
has on the feelings, and which I have always thought to be very
efficient in preparing and attuning us for the best impressions.
The effect of music in education is not alone to keep alive a
national feeling; it goes much deeper. If cultivated in the right
spirit, it strikes at the root of every bad or narrow feeling, of
every ungenerous or mean propensity, of every emotion unworthy of
humanity.40
Many of Pestalozzis principles greatly influenced Froebel
(1782-1852), the
founder of the kindergarten and one of the most influential
educational reformers in the
nineteenth century. His most important contribution to
educational theory was his belief
in self-activity and play as essential factors in child
education. Froebel wrote numerous
articles and in 1826 published his most important treatise,
Menschenerziehung (The
Education of Man), a philosophical presentation of principles
and methods of education.
In 1837 he opened an infant school in Blankenburg, Prussia,
which he originally called
the Child Nurture and Activity Institute, and which by happy
inspiration he later
renamed the Kindergarten, or garden of children. He also started
a publishing firm
37 Robert B. Downs, Heinrich Pestalozzi: Father of Modern
Pedagogy (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1975), 35. 38 Gerald Lee Gutek, Pestalozzi &
Education (New York: Random House, 1968), 46. 39 Ibid., 141.
40 Downs, 57.
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18
for play and other educational materials. His experiments at the
Kindergarten attracted
widespread interest, and other kindergartens were started.
Schumann enrolled his two
eldest children, Marie and Elise, in Dr. Frankenbergs
Kindergarten in Dresden in 1846.
They are very happy, Schumann wrote in his booklet.41 In 1849,
Julie started to attend
the same kindergarten. A basic aspect of the kindergarten scheme
planned by Froebel was
music. He described it in his writing Pedagogics of the
Kindergarten:
Music is especially important, since the sounds which he
produces in singing or by striking bells or glass or metal serve to
give creative expression to feelings and ideas.42
One of his ideas was that songs and music should accompany
well-directed play, which is
devised to stimulate learning. Long before the establishment of
the Blankenburg
Kindergarten, Froebel had begun collecting material for his
mother-songs. The result was
a little collection of nursery songs, issued in 1841. This work
developed into the notable
Mother-Play and Nursery Songs, composed by Froebels disciple,
Robert Kohl, and
published in 1843.
Seeing the child as a growing organism, both Pestalozzi and
Froebel in their
works drew analogies between a childs development and that of
the natural growth of a
plant. Pestalozzi wrote:
Sound education stands before me symbolized by a tree planted
near fertilizing waters. A little seed, which contains the design
of the tree, its form and properties, is placed in the soil. The
whole tree is an uninterrupted chain of organic parts, the plant of
which existed in the seed and root. Man is similar to the tree. In
the new born child are hidden those faculties which are to unfold
during life.43
41 E. Schumann, 209. 42 Irene M. Lilley, Friedrich Froebel: A
Selection from His Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1967), 113.
43 Downs, 79.
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19
And Froebel noted: The childs soul is more tender and vulnerable
than the finest or tenderest plant.44 As in a garden, under Gods
favor, and by the care of a skilled, intelligent gardener, growing
plants are cultivated in accordance with Natures laws, so here, in
our child-garden, our kindergarten, shall the noblest of all
growing things, men (that is children, the germs and shoots of
humanity) be cultivated in accordance with the laws of their own
being, of God and of Nature.45
Not surprisingly, Schumann responded to the comparison with his
own description of his
daughter Julie, who was thirteen months at the time, as an
altogether delicate, sensitive
little plant.46 Schumanns support of kindergarten and his
likening of the child to the
plant reveal his strong interest in childrens education. It was
naturally in Schumann that
the influence of German educational methods was especially
noticeable.
The theme of childhood binds together many facets of Schumanns
lifehis
childhood, his children, his association with the literature,
and his interest in education.
He ventured repeatedly into the world of childhood as a source
of inspiration,
demonstrating his delight in fantasy and sympathy with childlike
imagination.
Schumanns compositions for and about children, both musical and
literary, are examples
of his inner reflections of his personal life, and they are
Schumanns personality that
animates them. By depicting the childhood emotions musically
Schumann must have
recognized himself after all still a child at heart.
44 Berthe von Marenholz-Blow, Reminiscences of Friedrich
Froebel, trans. Horace Mann (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1877),
155.
45 Robert B. Downs, Friedrich Froebel (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1978), 42. 46 E. Schumann, 208.
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CHAPTER TWO
SCHUMANN: MUSIC FOR CHILDREN, THE LATE WORKS AND HAUSMUSIK
The happy days of childhoodone relives them through children,
Schumann
wrote in his diary on April 13, 1846.1 He was fascinated by the
naivety, freshness, and
innocence of childhood, and eager to transmit these
characteristics into his music.
Schumann continued throughout his life collecting musical
materials and composing
poetic cycles of the theme.
Schumanns Music for Children
The piano was Schumanns own instrument. He began his music
career as a
pianist, and found it easier to express himself through it. It
is not surprising that his
creative output for piano has provided some of the most
imaginative and touching music
for children. Schumanns first childhood collection is found in
the Kinderszenen, Op. 15,
composed in spring 1838. Although the work is indeed composed
for an adult performer,
portraying an adults reminiscences of childhood, conception and
technique tend to be
extremely simple throughout the entire set. Liszt told Schumann
in 1839, before meeting
1 Robert Schumann, Tagebcher, II: 1836-1854, ed. Gerd Nauhaus
(Leipzig: VEB Deutscher
Verlag fr Musik, 1987), 400, quoted in Daverio, 561, endnote
46.
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21
him in 1840, how his daughter Blandine clamored for these
pieces, of which she never
tired. He wrote:
Two or three times a week I play your Kinderszenen to her [my
daughter] in the evening; this enchants her, and me still more, as
you can imagine.2
Piano music for children came later in Schumanns output when he
had his own children,
including the Album for the Young, Op. 68 (1848), the Three
Piano Sonatas for the
Young, Op. 118 (1853), and sets of piano duetsthe Twelve
Four-Hand Piano Pieces for
Small and Big Children, Op. 85 (1850), the Ball Scenes, Op. 109
(1851), and the
Childrens Ball, Op. 130 (1853). For Schumann, nature and
childhood were alike, and the
topic of forests was never missed. The result of this forest
romanticism is the
Waldszenen, Op. 82, a musical Mrchen composed in 1849. Though
these piano works
were written in different periods of Schumanns lifeyouth,
maturity, and late years
the same childlike freshness and beauty are kept and carefully
expressed. Complete and
detailed discussions of these works will be given in the
following chapters.
In addition to the piano compositions, the childhood subject is
also presented in
other genres in Schumanns musicsongs, chamber music, and works
for voice and
orchestra. The collection of piano pieces, Album for the Young,
was published in
December 1848. It was well received and became popular in a
short time. Between April
and May, Schumann composed a vocal counterpart to it, the Song
Album for the Young,
Op. 79. The songbook contains twenty-nine songs, most of them
for solo voice and piano
plus a handful of ensemble lieder with piano, arranged in order
of increasing technical
difficulty, length, and expressive range. Schumann took
particular care in choosing
2 Eleanor Pernyi, Liszt: The Artist as Romantic Hero (Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1974), 135.
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22
poems by various poets including Hoffmann von Fallersleben,
Goethe, Schiller, Mrike,
and Rckert. As the composer told his publisher Emanuel
Klitzsch:
I have selected poems appropriate to childhood, from the best
poets and arranged them in order of difficulty. At the end comes
Mignon, on the threshold of a more complex emotional life.3
The set is a series of lyrical and exquisite miniatures; both
the vocal line and the
accompaniment are folk-like simple and beautifully written. The
Song Album for the
Young contains many parallels to its counterpart, the Album for
the Young. Orphan child,
May songs, hunting songs, winter scenes, and Christmas themes,
for example, all appear
in both sets. Among the masterpieces in the Song Album for the
Young are the delicate
Schmetterling, the peaceful Sonntag, the vivid Der Sandmann, the
playful
Marienwrchen, and the charming Er ists, which all mirror the
innocence of an
idealized childhood. Clara noted when Schumann finished the
cycle:
All the songs breathe and spirit of perfect peace, they seem to
me like spring, and laugh like blossoming flowers.4
Indeed, the laughter in springtime of Schumanns songs parallels
the same theme in the
texts, especially those by Fallersleben.
During the late years of his life, Schumann became enthusiastic
about the poetry
of Elisabeth Kulmann, who was a prodigy poet and died in 1825 of
consumption at the
age of seventeen. Since Kulmann was not a well-known poet of the
nineteenth century, it
has become a fashionable claim that Schumanns admiration for her
poems was the
3 Eric Sams, The Songs of Robert Schumann, 3d ed. (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1993), 197.
4 Litzmann, Clara Schumann, vol. 1, 454.
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23
result of failing powers of judgement.5 But his enthusiasm for
Kulmann was not the
evidence of a deteriorated mind. By the time she died, she had
produced nearly a
thousand poems and had created a sensation with her voluminous
writings in Russian,
German, and Italian, and with her translations, which Goethe,
Jean Paul, and other
contemporaries commented on favorably.6 Like Mignon, a character
in Goethes novel
Wilhelm Meister, Kulmann died so young as a tragic figure.
Schumann seemed to have
been touched by her personal fate. He kept a portrait of Kulmann
by the desk in his home
in Dsseldorf, and even in Endenich he still asked Brahms to send
him her poetry.7
Schumanns fascination with Kulmann, a child as poet, led him to
set eleven of her
poems to music in 1851, four as the Mdchenlieder, Op. 103, for
soprano, alto, and
piano, and seven as the solo song cycle Sieben Lieder, Op. 104.
These songs were not
written for the young singers but rather as an adults
sentimental imagination of children,
and almost all require accomplished and artistic performers.
The Sieben Lieder, Op. 104, dedicated to the memory of Kulmann,
were designed
to introduce the poets brief life. Together with these songs,
Schumann published a short
eulogy entitled dedication to which he added Kulmanns
biographical information and
brief comments on each poem. The musical style of the cycle is
transparent simplicity
and calmness. The voice, which usually begins without the
introduction, produces simple
direct melodies, and the accompaniment is economical and bare in
texture. The
characteristics are evident in the first song, Mond, meiner
Seele Liebling (Moon, my
5 Martin Cooper, The Songs, in Schumann: A Symposium, ed. Gerald
Abraham (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 118.
6 Ostwald, Schumann, 251.
7 Schumanns letter of 20 March 1855 to Brahms, in Litzmann,
Letters, vol. 1, 36.
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24
souls beloved), for instance, revealing Schumanns purpose of
giving the music the
appearance of childlike naivet (Example 1).
Example 1. Mond, meiner Seele Liebling, Op. 104, No. 1, mm.
1-8
The most successful in the set is the fourth song, Der Zeisig
(The finch). Two
competing canonic lines between the voice and the piano
delightfully catch the idea of a
song contest between child and bird (Example 2).
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25
Example 2. Der Zeisig, Op. 104, No. 4, mm. 1-11
Among the numerous titles Schumann composed in his late years,
the expressive
Mrchen, or fairy-tale, appears over and over: Mrchenbilder for
viola and piano, Op.
113, Mrchenerzahlungen for clarinet, viola, and piano, Op. 132,
and the oratorio Der
Rose Pilgerfahrt (The Pilgrimage of the Rose), Op. 112. The
Pilgrimage of the Rose is
Schumanns most extensive Mrchen work,8 the last of his works in
oratorio style. He
composed it between April and September 1851, after a rhymed
fairy-tale by a little-
known poet Moritz Horn. The work had been cast as a chamber
oratorio for solo voices,
chorus, with piano accompaniment, which Schumann thought
perfectly adequate to the
8 Jensen, 342.
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26
fanciful subject.9 However, urged by friends and acquaintances
and for the work to be
available to larger circles,10 Schumann wrote the orchestral
accompaniment, which
Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski described as follows: fine
spiritual instrumentation
increase the charm of coloring, no idea of which can be given by
a piano.11 Liszt
summed up the work in the Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik in 1855:
Der Rose Pilgerfahrt belongs to those images that one might call
visions of poetic mysticismhere, clouds become fragrances, waves
moving tones; here, everything is a transparent allegory of an
inexpressible feeling, and the symbol charms us like those nave
chains of ideas whose puzzles we often pursue with the meaningful
questions of childhood.12
The song-like arioso character, rather than the recitative-like
stylistic manner, and the
expressive mood make this oratorio a charming and agreeable
musical idyll, which is
more German and rustic in nature,13 as Schumann referred to it.
The rustic charm, an
element of German folk-like character, governs the work (Example
3).
9 Schumanns letter of 29 September 1851 to Moritz Horn, in
Wasielewski, 250.
10 Ibid., 250.
11 Ibid., 176.
12 Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann (1855), trans. R. Larry Todd, in
Schumann and His World, ed. R. Larry Todd (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 349-50.
13 Jensen, 343, quoting Hermann Erler, Robert Schumanns Leben:
Aus seinen Briefen geschildert, vol. 2 (Berlin: Ries & Erler,
1887), 61.
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27
Example 3. Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, No. 12, Op. 112, mm. 1-6
The Pilgrimage of the Rose is divided into two parts, comprising
twenty-four
numbers, but without lacking formal unity. Schumanns cyclical
idea of the work is
strengthened in three ways. First, there are many musical
sections flowing gracefully into
the next without break, giving the impression of a consistent
stream of music. Second,
Schumanns harmonic language is expressed by an elaborate use of
keys: related thirds
and fifths, relative keys, and major and minor parallel keys, as
well as sudden shifts to
remote keys for the introduction of a new color. Third, a brief
motive representing the
main character, the Rose, recurs at times, although it is
employed without complexity.
The entire work has a broad melodic spectrum, and is a charming
and fresh inspiration.
The very opening has the lyrical openness of Schubert (Example
4), its freshness
enhanced by the later interplay of solo voices and womens
chorus.
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28
Example 4. Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, No. 1, Op. 112, mm. 1-24
The idiom suggests the folk-based writing, innocent and in fact
subtle. A spirit of
freshness and youthfulness runs through The Pilgrimage of the
Rose, Schumanns
musical world of the Mrchen, as in his Kinderszenen and other
piano and song
collections for children.
The four Mrchenbilder, Op. 113, for viola and piano were written
in March 1851
and dedicated to Wasielewski, concertmaster of Schumanns
Dsseldorf orchestra at that
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29
time, who first performed them with Clara. Schumanns household
books records various
titles for the work as Violageschichten, Mrchengeschichten,
Mrchen, and
Mrchenlieder.14 But he eventually decided to use a visual art
form Bilder (pictures)
rather than concrete Geschichten (stories). Schumann had
lifelong interest in painting and
sculpture. During his years in Dresden and Dsseldorf from 1844
to 1854, he had
considerably close contact with the two schools of German
painters, among the most
significantly Alfred Rethel, Karl Friedrich Lessing, Eduard
Bendemann, Ludwig Richter,
and Johann Wilhelm Schirmer. Rethels work Monatsbilder (Monthly
Pictures) might
have inspired Schumann to compose the musical equivalent
Mrchenbilder, Op. 113.15
The four movements obtain their coherence not from any shared
thematic or motivic
element, but rather from a common D tonalitythe first and third
in D minor, the second
in the relative major F, and the final in D major. The main
emphasis falls on the opening
movement, which is a free form consisting of two themes. The
remaining three
movements are in sectional forms. All pieces are full of
romantic music evocative of the
atmosphere of fairy tales and contain deeply expressive
passages.
Following from the earlier Mrchenbilder, the Mrchenerzahlungen,
Op. 132,
composed for clarinet, viola, and piano in October 1853, a few
months before his fatal
breakdown, makes up Schumanns final example of the whole series
of works both for
and about children. The title Fairy Stories suggests that the
four movements are lyrical
character pieces intended to tell favorite stories of childhood.
It stresses a sort of narrative
in music, although there is no direct reference to an underlying
program. The piano
14 Ibid., 342, quoting Robert Schumann, Haushaltbcher, II:
1837-1856, ed. Gerd Nauhaus (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag fr
Musik, 1982), 554-56.
15 Botstein, 38.
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30
almost always plays a dominating role in this unusual
instrumentation (Mozart created
the instrumentation of clarinet, viola and piano in his Trio, K.
498). The work illustrates
the search for new tone colors. The choice of the clarinet and
viola is suitable to the
introspective situations due to their rich and warm tones, and
it produces a mood of
nostalgia towards the old happy times. Schumanns setting of the
work is condensed; the
music is increasingly agitated and the form is rhapsodically
free. The passionate
Florestan and the dreamy Eusebius, two important characters in
the Davidsbndler that
correspond to aspects of Schumann himself, are still evident in
the Mrchenerzahlungen,
one of the last works he was able to write, particularly in the
third movement and the
final movement (Examples 5a and 5b).
Example 5a. Mrchenerzahlungen, Op. 132, 3rd movement, mm.
1-9
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31
Example 5b. Mrchenerzahlungen, Op. 132, 4th movement, mm.
1-7
The music of Mrchenerzahlungen is a touching final glimpse of
the magical and
fantastical world of Schumanns immense imagination. In 1990,
almost one and half
centuries later, the Hungarian composer Gyrgy Kurtg completed
his Hommage R.
Sch., Op. 15d, for clarinet, viola and piano, on the inspiration
of Schumanns
Mrchenerzahlungen.
There is another clue in Schumanns compositions to what
childhood meant to
him. Mignon, the mysterious and fascinating girl created by
Goethe in his Wilhelm
Meister as the symbol of poetic childhood, was a character to
which Schumann was
particularly attracted, and inspired him to compose several
musical works. In Goethes
novel, the Italian little girl Mignon was abandoned and later
abducted by vagrants who
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32
brought her into Germany, where she became a child-waif and was
forced to sing and
dance in a traveling theater troupe of entertainers. Mignons
memorable lyrics in the
novel are filled with a sense of secrecy, grief and yearning for
love and homeland.16
These lyrics inspired many dramatic settings from numerous
composers both before and
after Schumann, including Beethoven, Schubert, Loewe, Liszt,
Gounod, Wolf, and
Tchaikovsky. The character of Mignon was indeed the appropriate
symbol of childhood
for Schumannan ideal childhood rich in memories of the past and
hopes in the future.
Mignon first appears in Schumanns piano collection Album for the
Young, Op.
68, No. 35. In the story, Mignon appears as a mesmerizing child
beauty and acrobat,
entertaining people with her precarious tightrope dance.
Schumann originally titled this
piece Seiltnzermdchen (Tightrope dancing girl) in his
sketchbook, but he later
crossed it out and changed it to Mignon.17 Schumann perfectly
conveys a delicate
tightrope walk in music with a right-hand halting melody as
Mignons walking, set
against the seemingly unsteady fp markings on the fourth beat in
mm. 1-4, thus evoking
the image of a swaying dancing girl (Example 6). The E flat
major and the lovely
melodic material help the musical realization of Mignons sweet
and delicate character.
16 Sams, 216.
17 Bernhard R. Appel, Actually, Taken Directly from Family Life:
Robert Schumanns Album fr die Jugend, trans. John Michael Cooper,
in Schumann and His World, 187.
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33
Example 6. Mignon, Op. 68, No. 35, mm. 1-10
Following from the Album for the Young, Schumann set Mignons
Kennst du das
Land in his Song Album for the Young, Op. 79, which serves as
the conclusion of the
collection. The work was composed, in Schumanns words, amidst a
veritable childrens
uproar,18 and it inspired Schumann to set other poems from the
novel. He went on to
write three more Mignon songs: Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,
Heiss mich nicht
reden, and So lasst mich scheinen. These songs appear as the
Nos. 3, 5, and 9 in
Schumanns collection of Goethe songs Lieder und Gesnge aus
Goethes Wilhelm
Meister, Op. 98a. He then decided also to publish the Kennst du
das Land as the
opening for the group of Goethe songs, thus Op. 98a No. 1. Clara
first heard the excerpts
of the Wilhelm Meister songs on the day when Schumann finished
the draft, and she was
profoundly affected.19 The set of Op. 98a displays some of
Schumanns most intense
18 Daverio, 425.
19 Litzmann, Clara Schumann, vol. 1, 456.
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34
songwritingdramatic qualities in the vocal part and
quasi-orchestral conception in the
accompaniment. The style is perfectly illustrated in Mignons
Heiss mich nicht reden,
Op. 98a, No. 5, which blurs the distinction between opera and
song cycle in the
composers mind (Example 7).
Example 7. Heiss mich nicht redden, Op. 98a, No. 5, mm. 1-9
Schumann employs a three-note motive (F-sharp, A-flat, G) in
Mignons songs as a
unifying tragic expression. The notes often appear both as
melody and as harmony.
Schumanns devotion to Mignon did not end there. Related to
Lieder und
Gesnge aus Goethes Wilhelm Meister is the Requiem fr Mignon, for
five solo voices,
chorus and orchestra. The text set to music by Schumann is taken
from Wilhelm Meisters
Apprenticeship and describes the funeral rites of Mignon.
Schumann first wrote the work
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35
in short score at the beginning of July, 1849, and orchestrated
it in July and September
1849. The Requiem can be viewed as a continuation of the Goethe
songs, and therefore it
was published, together with Op. 98a, as Op. 98b in 1849, the
year in which the
hundredth anniversary of Goethes birth was celebrated. Liszt
commented on this work in
an issue of the Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik in 1855:
The Requiem for Mignon performed the rare service of enriching
the consummate creation of a master with a new idea, a fortunately
successful stroke. This last lament, this thousandfold sigh
repeated above a grave covering so much suffering and beauty, so
much yearning and misfortune, is like the final chord of an earthly
lot full of painful dissonances.20
The Requiem fr Mignon is divided into six short sections
following on without a break,
and it maintains a tone of profound simplicity and a gripping
mood throughout. The
lyrical and mystical quality of Goethes text is displayed by the
imaginative handling of
the chorus and solo voices. The orchestra also includes many
unforgettable touches, such
as the arpeggios in the harp starting in mm. 71 in the third
section, where the incredibly
enchanting effect is achieved by a sudden dynamic change from
forte to piano and a
harmonic switch from a C-major chord to a half-diminished 6/5
chord on note A.
Schumann avoids contrapuntal intricacies in the work and employs
full harmonic
progression in favor of simple and expressive melody. Near the
end of the work, he wrote
an unexpected chromatic turn, which interrupts the foremost
diatonic flow, creating
extraordinary original and fresh sound (Example 8).
20 Liszt, Schumann (1855), 350.
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36
Example 8. Requiem fr Mignon, No. 6, Op. 98b, mm. 355-371
The chorus concludes the work in an unusual 6/4 chord in F
major, which strikingly
contrasts to the C minor funeral music at the beginning and
accords perfectly with the
final words: Up! Children, hasten to life! Up! Schumann does not
give the Requiem the
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37
traditional funeral music treatment and significance. Rather,
his setting is bittersweet and
poetic. The Requiem fr Mignon is one of the most appealing and
moving productions in
Schumanns choral compositions, for in it he has recaptured the
grace and beauty of the
original Mignon character.
The Late Works and Hausmusik
Upon close observation of Schumanns music for and about
children, one finds
that all the works, except the Kinderszenen, were composed
during the last six years of
his career (1848-1853). This raises a point of contention: the
value and quality of the
music that Schumann composed during his final years. The
frequently repeated claim is
that Schumanns mental disorder had affected his late works. They
have been perceived
as undistinguished, academic, incoherent, and uninspired.
Wasielewski, the first
biographer of Schumann, denies any merit to the works that were
composed about a year
before the final mental collapse of the composer.21 Frederick
Niecks in his book
considers that evidence of Schumanns approaching breakdown came
during his years in
Dresden (1845-1850): His creative powers were already on the
wanethe occasional
successes cannot blind us to the frequent dimnesses.22 The
opinion expressed by Victor
Basch was quite typical: Not one of the works enumerated in it
[the list of compositions
between 1851 and 1853] has survived, and they reveal an
undoubted decline in the
21 Wasielewski, 180.
22 Niecks, 4.
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38
composers creative power.23 Ronald Taylor, in his 1982 biography
of Schumann,
concludes that the music of the composers late years was created
under the influence of
a deteriorated mind: These late works of Schumanns fail to live
up to their promise and
leave an uncomfortable sense of dissatisfaction and confusion
which the characteristic
works of his early imagination do not.24
But Schumann had been mentally unstable all his life. He had
been tormented by
fears of insanity since the age of eighteen, and had
contemplated suicide on at least three
occasions in the 1830s. A brief summary of Schumanns clinical
history, provided by
Eliot Slater, shows that Schumann was generally in good spirits,
despite some mild
depression, during the years between 1849 and 1853, and he
showed no evidence of
schizophrenic symptoms in that period of time.25 Eric Frederick
Jensen, in his new book
on Schumann, offers new evidence that Schumann had returned to
sufficient health to
justify his removal from confinement a year before his death.26
Unfortunately,
Schumanns physicians completely misunderstood the nature of his
illness and
overlooked his sanity; therefore, this led to the fact that his
mental disorder was
exacerbated by the treatment he received at Endenich.27 More
recent research has
reevaluated Schumanns late music, attempting to refute the
unconvincing common
dismissal of his late works as the result of an unstable
mind.
23 Victor Basch, Schumann: A Life of Suffering, trans. Catherine
Alison Phillips (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1931), 199.
24 Taylor, 276.
25 Eliot Slater, Schumanns Illness, in Schumann and His World,
409-10.
26 Jensen, 318-26.
27 Ibid., 330.
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39
During the last six years of his creative life, including his
astonishingly
productive period in Dresden in 1848-1849 and his final career
in Dsseldorf in 1850-
1853, Schumann wrote more than eighty compositions, which are in
excess of half of his
entire works. Among them one can find all the major
genresconcerto, symphony,
orchestral compositions, chamber music, piano pieces, dramatic
works, as well as solo
songs and choral music. These late works demonstrate a change of
musical style
noticeable in Schumanns late years, featured by the rich
development of motivic
combinations, increasing angularity of themes, more complicated
harmony, often-
continuous and asymmetrical melodies, cyclical interconnections
of movements, and
compression in form. It seems that Schumann in his late career
decided to make an
attempt to move with the times and to look for something new,
not to repeat himself. Like
the prejudice against his mental illness, unfavorable criticisms
directed to Schumanns
late works were created partly due to the development of this
late style. It has been
generally thought that his late music bears little comparison to
the works written in his
early years. The innovations seemed not to be comprehended and
appreciated by
Schumanns contemporaries. But he is still Schumann, and his
essential spirit is still
there. Of course it is true that not all of these late works are
masterpieces or the most
attractive, but they are consistently high in quality28 and
continue to show Schumann
still at the height of his powers. Genoveva (Op. 81, opera),
Manfred (Op. 115, incidental
music), the Cello Concerto (Op. 129), the Third Symphony (Op.
97), the Violin Sonatas
(Op. 105, 121), the Violin Concerto (WoO 23), the Requiem (Op.
148), Scenes from
Goethes Faust (WoO 3), and the last songs of Des Sngers Fluch
(Op. 139), to mention
28 Daverio, 459.
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40
a few, are among some of the most significant music written by
Schumann in his late
career.
Aside from his creation of large-scale forms, Schumann also in
his late years
devoted himself extensively to compositions of various types of
Hausmusik, including
piano music, songs, choral partsongs, and chamber music.
Hausmusik, as the word
indicates, is a German term for modest music to be practiced and
performed at home by
family and friends for their own entertainment, particularly
among the middle class as
opposed to the aristocracy. Its German national traits represent
seriousness, simplicity,
and Volksthmlichkeit in opposition to the frivolous, artificial
French national
characteristics.29 It is in a sense of domestic music
makingprivate and intimate,
distinct from that of the concert music in public style.
Schumanns works falling into the category of Hausmusik cover a
broad range of
genres. In addition to piano music written for and about
children (Op. 68, 82, 85, 109,
118, and 130), Schumann composed numerous playful sets mainly
for adult amateurs: a
four-hand piano work Bilder aus dem Osten, Op. 66; vocal
compositions Spanisches
Liederspiel, Op. 74 (for one, two, and four voices and piano),
Vier Duette, Op. 78 (for
soprano and tenor), and the Song Album for the Young, Op. 79;
choral compositions
Romanzen und Balladen, Op. 67 and 75; and chamber works for
various solo instruments
and piano, including the Adagio und Allegro for horn, Op. 70,
the Phantasiestcke for
clarinet, Op. 73, the Fnf Stcke im Volkston for cello, Op. 102,
the Drei Romanzen for
oboe, Op. 94, along with the Mrchenbilder, Op. 113 and the
Mrchenerzahlungen, Op.
132, which both have already been discussed earlier in this
chapter.
29 Anthony Newcomb, Schumann and the Marketplace: From
Butterflies to Hausmusik, in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. R.
Larry Todd (New York: Schirmer Books, 1990), 272.
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41
The earliest use of the term Hausmusik was in a series of
articles entitled The
History of Hausmusik in Past Centuries in the Neue Zeitschrift
fr Musik between
1837 and 1839 by the Leipzig organist and musicologist Carl
Ferdinand Becker.30 The
term soon gained common use and retained a sociological
significance. With its
entertaining and pedagogical functions, Hausmusik became the
focus of a musical and
cultural movement in Germany in the 1840s and beyonda movement
concerned with a
way of life founded in peaceful domestic harmony, reflected also
in the domestic
architecture and the decorative arts and painting of the period.
In the visual arts the best
example of the movement is represented by Ludwig Richters
engraving Hausmusik
(1856), made for the frontispiece of Wilhelm Heinrich Riehls
song collection under the
same title. According to John Daverio, Hausmusik amounts to a
quintessential
Biedermeier31 taste: withdrawal from the outer tumult into that
most hallowed of spaces,
the domestic interior, its security ensured by generational and
cultural ties.32
Schumanns Hausmusik in his late career reflected this taste.
Anthony Newcomb in his
essay reports Schumanns change of aesthetic attitude in the
1840s:
In explaining this abrupt change of direction, we might
reasonably reject the conclusion that Roberts spring of youthful
romantic inspiration ran dry around 1840; also the conclusion that
his mind was showing early signs of the disintegration that was to
lead him to the mental institution some fourteen years later. He
had recognized that the [early] style of music that he found most
natural and by which he placed most store had not found public
acceptance and would seemingly never gain
30 Daverio, 404.
31 A term applied to bourgeois life and art in German-speaking
countries in Europe between 1815
(the Treaty of Vienna) and 1848 (the year of revolutions).
Derived from the name of a fictitious schoolmaster, it is used in
music as a description of the everyday musical culture of the
period rather than as a designation of a school or a common
creative mood.
32 Daverio, 405.
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42
him the kind of public recognition that he needed to survive
professionally. He had to try something else.33
After Schumanns marriage to Clara in 1840, there was a hiatus of
writing solo
piano music. Not until 1845, did he devote himself to a series
of contrapuntal studies (Op.
56, 58, 60, and 72) for the pedal piano. When Schumann returned
to piano music in 1848
with the Bilder aus dem Osten, Op. 66, and the Album for the
Young, Op. 68, his ideal
now was both the socially and musically important Hausmusik. As
the central point of the
musical and cultural movement in the mid-century, the concept of
Hausmusik had
profound effects on Schumann. After surveying Schumanns piano
music from the 1830s,
Newcomb concludes:
The changed aesthetic goals represented in the late pieces both
for piano and for small ensemble were part of an important cultural
movement in Germanys musical world of the 1840sa movement embraced
with deep conviction by at least part of Schumanns always divided
personality. This movement and Schumanns response to it are primary
factors in the changes in Schumanns aesthetic attitudes.34
While Schumanns Hausmusik resulted from social context, it was
at the same
time closely related to his personal life. After their marriage,
Schumann and Clara created
a household centered on music and their children. As a devoted
and involved father, he
participated actively in his childrens livesplay, recreational
activities, and education. It
is not strange that music was also an important part of their
lives. The children studied
the piano with their mother and other teachers. In a letter of 5
May 1843 to Carl
Kossmaly, who was a composer and writer on musical subjects,
Schumann expressed his
idea of future direction of composition:
33 Newcomb, 267-68.
34 Ibid., 270.
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43
Times have changed with me too. I used to be indifferent to the
amount of notice I received, but a wife and children put a
different complexion upon everything. It becomes imperative to
think of the future, desirable to see the fruits of ones labournot
the artistic, but the prosaic fruits necessary to life; these fame
helps to bring forth and multiply.35
Inspired by his family life, which always provided him with
peace and stability,
Schumann composed some Hausmusik for private use. As he
confessed in a letter of 6
October 1848 to Carl Reinecke: They [the pieces from the Album
for the Young] are
peculiarly dear to my heart, and truly belong to family
life.36
Financial motivation was often another major reason for
Schumanns creation of
Hausmusik.37 Domestic music making flourished in the nineteenth
century. Affordable
by many of the middle-class, the piano became the principal
domestic instrument. For
this reason, easy piano works, piano duets, and
piano-accompanied songs, all intended for
home consumption, became the mainstay of nineteenth-century
music printing and
publishing. Not surprisingly, the Album for the Young, Schumanns
most admired
Hausmusik work, met with great success after its appearance in
December 1848.
Schumann told his friend Ferdinand Hiller in April that the work
had found speedy
circulation.38 He also wrote to Franz Brendel on September18,
1849: The Album for
Youth has found a better market than almost any recent work: I
have this from
the publisher himself; and the same is true of many of my
songs.39 Schumann received a
35 Schumann, The Letters, 242.
36 Wasielewski, 242.
37 Jensen, 231.
38 Schumanns letter of 10 April 1849 to Hiller, in Wasielewski,
245.
39 Ibid., 246.
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44
generous payment of 226 talers for the work.40 Since his
composition of Hausmusik paid
so well at the time, he therefore would instinctively think of
writing something in a
similar vein to maintain the financial success. The result was a
flood of Hausmusik
throughout much of 1849. Schumann succeeded admirably.
Financially, what he earned
in 1849 for his compositions reached the highest level by far
(1275 talers).41 Musically,
he found the quality of what was popular then, thus ensuring the
musics appeal to the
public. In the hands of Schumann, Hausmusik, particularly his
piano music for children,
reached notable artistic heights.
40 Appel, 182. He also reports that the publisher later offered
Schumann an additional payment for the unexpected success of the
work.
41 Jensen, 231.
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CHAPTER THREE
THE KINDERSZENEN AND THE ALBUM FOR THE YOUNG
The Kinderszenen: Schumann as a Poet
In early 1838 Schumann composed three piano cycles in rapid
succession: the
Novelletten, Op. 21, the Kinderszenen, Op. 15, and Kreisleriana,
Op. 16. The first two
works are in fact connected. Schumann originally intended to
publish them together as a
single collection of pieces, in which the Kinderszenen served as
a beginning to the
Novelletten.1 But the final decision was to put them into
separate publication.
Like many of Schumanns works, the Kinderszenen appear to have
been inspired
by Clara, for as he wrote to her on March 17, 1838:
Ive discovered that nothing spurs the imagination more than
anticipation and longing for something or other; that was the case
in these last days when I was just waiting for your letter and
filled books with compositionsstrange things, mad things, even
friendly thingsyou will really be surprised when you play themI
often feel that Im going to burst because of all the music in meand
before I forget what I composedit was like a musical response to
what you once wrote me, that I sometimes seemed like a child to
youin short, it was just as if I were wearing a dress with flared
sleeves, and I wrote about 30 droll little pieces, from which Ive
selected twelve, and Ive called them Kinderszenen. You will enjoy
them, but, of course, you will have to forget that you are a
virtuosothere are titles like FrighteningAt the FiresideCatch me if
you canSuppliant Child The Knight of the Hobby-HorseFrom Foreign
CountriesFunny Story, etc., and what not. In short, youll find
everything, and at the same time they are as
1 Daverio, 165; Jensen, 168.
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46
light as air.2
In fact, the published set in September 1839 consists of
thirteen pieces, each with a
separate title.3 Following his usual practice, Schumann added
these titles after he had
composed them, as further guide to their interpretation.
Although there was no dedicatee,
Schumann, in his heart, wrote these pieces for Clara. He
described the nature of the work
to her as light and gentle and happy like our future.4 In a
letter dated April 15, 1838,
Schumann told Clara that the Kinderszenen will probably be
finished when you arrive; I
like them very much; I impress people a lot when I play them,
especially myself.5 The
Kinderszenen were also among Claras favorites:
They belong only to the two of us, dont they? And they are
always on my mind; they are so simple, warm, so quite like you; I
cant wait till tomorrow when I can play them again.6
From the technical view, the Kinderszenen contain no great
difficulties, simple
and accessible to children, yet Schumann did not by any means
have interpretation by
children in mind. Unlike his later Album for the Young, which
Schumann wrote for his
children to play, the Kinderszenen were retrospective glances by
a parent and for grown
folks, as the composer emphasized in a letter to Carl Reinecke
on October 6, 1848.7
2 The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1, 123-24.
3 Robert Polansky claims that the sketches of pieces rejected
from the Kinderszenen are located in one of Schumanns manuscripts,
dated from early in 1838, now in the possession of the Library of
Congress. It contains a mixture of sketches and fair copies of
piano pieces, some of which later become part of the Albumbltter,
Op