Lecture Seven
Continuation of Lieder, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin.
"The study of the history of music and the hearing of masterworks of different epochs will quickly cure you of vanity and self-adoration" … "To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist." Robert A. Schumann
Today we will be taking our mid-term listening exam and there will be a take-home written exam due next week. This will be a class to speak about four giants of the small form of the 19th century: Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin.
With so many composers writing short selections, we could spend the entire semester listening to examples of this new form. Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf and Gustav Mahler are the most prominent of many composers of Lieder throughout the 19th century for whom Schubert was the inspiration. In France the chief composers were Gabriel Fauré, Ernest Chansson, and Rinaldo Hahn, Cesar Franck, and Claude Debussy. These, and other composers, will be covered in MUS 234, Vocal Literature.
At the end of this page are translations of songs that I would like you all to listen to, even if we do not have time to cover them in class. There will be a link to each song plus CD’s left in the piano lab for your use. In addition there will be a CD of shorter piano selections.
However, we begin with piano music:
Featured Music: (These and other musical examples will be played as time allows)
Schumann: Piano Concerto, Op. 54, 1st Movement
Phantasiestucke (Suite for Piano) Grillen, Aufschwung
Du meine Seele, du mein Herz, Mondnacht
Schubert: Gretchen am Spinnerad (song) Ave Maria “Wanderer” Fantasy
Du Bist die Ruh (song) Symphony #8, “Unfinished”
Liszt: Liebestraume, Rigoletto Fantasie, St Francis de Paule Walking on the Waves
Chopin: Scherzo in C# minor Fantasie Impromptu
Liszt Schumann
TWO VIRTUOSO PIANISTS AND COMPOSERS IN THE ROMANTIC ERA
Prof. Sue Talley
Nowhere was the excess of the Romantic Era better represented than in the lives of the virtuoso pianists of the 19th Century, several of whom were fine composers. While showmanship was equally at home on the opera stage and with violinists such as Joaquim and Paganini, we will concentrate upon the remarkable progress of two of the virtuoso pianist/composers, who were, in their time, Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt, phenomena with a similar appeal nearly two hundred years ago that popular singers have today.
FREDERIC CHOPIN
The more restrained of these as a composer, but perhaps the most influential, was Frederic Chopin (1810-1849. He was born on February 22, at Zalzowa-Wola, a small village near Warsaw, Poland. His father was Nicolas Chopin, an emigré from France to Poland, and his mother, Justina Krzyzanowska, who came from the minor nobility, was a lady-in-waiting to a Countess. Nicolas was a schoolteacher and was an artist and intellectual who attracted others like himself to their home. The Chopins were comfortable but not rich; they had two children, Ludwika and Frederic; all of them either sang or played an instrument.
Chopin reacted to music with tears with an infant, but they were tears of excitement and joy, not dislike. He started lessons at the age of six, taking piano from Adalbert Zwyny, a Czech, who trained the boy in the sound technique of The Well-Tempered Clavier of J. S. Bach. So Chopin had that fine background in common with Mendelssohn and the Schumanns. Because Chopin was a child prodigy, he was quite spoiled by the aristocrats around him, something which he never quite got over all his life, whatever poverty he might have had to endure. He was a snob; he was anti-semitic; he was painfully conscious of “style.” He once complained that, after all, to be in good taste, one had to have white gloves, and they did cost so much money! He had very little formal education, but the education he had in music was good; his composition teacher in Warsaw, by the name of Elsner, seemed to let him have his own way to quite an extent, and evidently that was what his particular temperament needed. He barely passed his courses at the Lyceé in Warsaw. But then, he got what he wanted from his education—and not everyone with a college degree can say that.
By the time he was a young adult, Chopin was a rather feeble and “dandified” person, used to the salons of the aristocrats, longing for adventure as most young people do. In 1828, he first got a glimpse of Berlin, and saw, but did not introduce himself to, the great and popular Mendelssohn. He was so excited that he plunged into musical studies, and composition, with a vengeance when he got home, and was almost pushed over the edge by his enthusiasm for Paganini. He fell in love with a pretty soprano, but didn’t have the nerve to tell her, so finally his father put him out of his sufferings by sending him to Vienna in the summer of 1829.
Chopin had some success in Vienna; his early composition, Variations for Piano and Orchestra on Mozart’s “Là ci darem,” from the opera Don Giovanni, was a hit, and for the most part, so was he. He must have had a winsome personality, to balance the observation that he was rather “insignificant looking,” and that his tone was not very big. In fact, Chopin remained a salon type player, although contradictory reports indicate that he could put a lot of muscle into his playing when necessary. Reports of Chopin as a “sickroom pianist” (by a musical rival, John Field, incidentally) were contradicted by the thunderous music he apparently drew out of his own Polonaises. He returned to Warsaw long enough to make up his mind about the soprano, having experienced the requisite disappointment in love, and on November 1, 1830, he left Poland to make his home in Paris.
And Paris was his home for all the rest of Chopin’s life. It was the home of Louis-Philippe, and the headquarters for glamour; Chopin’s more intimate selections fit right in to the salons of the wealthy. He was already well enough known as “a pianist whose delicate style and exquisite nuances made overhearing him in a large hall something of a problem.” [Siegmeister, p. 472] The rather cool reception his playing first received caused him to become quite depressed and resolve to come to America, but he was talked out of that scheme, and, after making the acquaintance of the Baron de Rothschild and few other patrons of the arts, he found himself rather comfortably ensconced in Parisian society.
Chopin, for all of this foppishness and snobbery as a Parisian “dandy,” and in spite of the way he succeeded in turning his life into a Romantic tragedy, was a truly original composer, and a revolutionary in his own right. His music is always recognizableafter a few bars,, and is characterized by chromaticism, the use of remote keys with many sharps and flats (perhaps to show off his remarkable technique), delicate pedal effects, Polish dance forms, and a certain flexibility of tempo, which can get out of hand all too easily if the pianist is not careful, and become sentimental in the extreme. Chopin was primarily a pianist, and it was for the piano that he almost entirely wrote. Incidentally, “his” ballet, Les Sylphides, was a collection of his waltzes that were stuck together in what Siegmeister refers to as “an appalling choreographic museum.” [p. 473] The Waltzes, charming as some are, are considered Chopin’s least significant contributions to music by some critics. He wrote very little in the traditional forms, although he is guilty of writing four sonatas and two piano concertos. His great contributions to music included his Etudes, or studies, written to solve many of the pianist’s problems, and to create them, as well; his delightful “Krakowiak” Rondo for piano and orchestra, the Preludes, Nocturnes (the idea of which he took from John Field, an original but rather second-rate composer from Ireland), Impromptus, the Polonaises, based upon virile dances from his native land, and Mazurkas, also from a Polish dance form in three with a very strong first beat. The Mazurkas are, in many ways, his most profound, or personal, compositions. Their style is intimate, but they reveal a great deal about the composer’s state of mind.
The great musicians were very kind to Chopin. You will remember that Schumann kindly said, “Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!” upon hearing his first compositions. (Chopin was ungrateful for the extravagant remark, or pretended to be.) Liszt referred to Chopin’s “bold dissonances and strange harmonies,” and said that he was “one of those original beings, adrift from all bondage.” But if his virtuosity disappointed some, it was very much appreciated by his fellow pianists. Mendelssohn declared that Chopin was “one of the very first of all. He produces new effects, like Paganini on his violin, and accomplishes things nobody could formerly have thought practicable.” Stephen Heller, himself a composer of some note and a fine pianist, described Chopin’s playing: “His slim hands would suddenly expand and cover a third of the whole keyboard. It was like the opening of the mouth of a serpent about to swallow a rabbit whole.” Schumann described his playing of the Aeolian Harp etude in glowing terms, explaining that it was “an undulation of the A flat major chord, brought out more loudly here and there with the pedal, but exquisitely entangled in the harmony. We followed a wondrous melody on the sustained tones, while in the middle a tenor voice broke clearly from the chords and joined the principal melody…” [from a record jacket featuring Peter Frankl playing Chopin and Liszt, (Vox Productions), so old that I paid one dollar for it, in college.]
When you listen to the music of Chopin, do not expect fugues and thick textures. It is somewhat frothy music, but that is not to take away from its depth; it is entertaining, but that is not to say “shallow.” It may lack the profundity Beethoven; at least, it is a different kind of profundity. He was, it seems, threatened by Beethoven in some way. Chopin’s sorrows were very different from Beethoven’s. He developed tuberculosis, and the last ten years of his life were very hard, “spent in a depressing alternation of triumphs, sickness, and misery.” [Sachs, page 281] In 1838, he tried to change his climate to improve his chances with the tuberculosis. A female author by the name of George Sand, a strong-willed, cigar-smoking feminist, but evidently with a kind heart, accompanied him to the Balearic Islands, where he hoped for a cure. Chopin died in Paris on October 17, 1849. He had not reached his 40th birthday.
FRANZ LISZT
What a different character was Franz Liszt (1811-1886)! Born one year after Chopin, he and the gifted Pole were frequently compared, and probably owed a great deal to one another. But Liszt lived to meet, and often to help, every great composer of the 19th century. Like Chopin, he loved his native country, and composed many fine nationalistic works. But he was a Hungarian, not a Pole. Gypsy blood seemed to flow in his veins and pour out in his Hungarian Rhapsodies and in many other compositions. His music was full of fire and excitement. Although the piano was the centerpiece of his life and composition, he was far less limited in scope of composition than was Chopin. His kindly concern for other musicians, his support of musicians from all parts of Europe, and his family connections with Richard Wagner were enough to immortalize him in classical music, even if he had not been a brilliant pianist and a fine composer.
Franz’ father, Adam Liszt, was a steward in the service of the Esterhàzy family, an obscenely wealthy family that has played a huge part in the patronage of music.. From the onset of his musical education, Liszt showed brilliance and intelligence. At the age of seven, he was visibly a child prodigy; at eight, he was composing; at nine, he was making concert appearances, and at ten he was studying with Carl Czerny and Salieri in Vienna, already subsidized by the requisite group of patrons of the art. Supposedly kissed by Beethoven as a child, he lived to see the history of romantic music, in which he played so great a part, unfold before his eyes.
By the time he was sixteen, Franz Liszt was burned out, and wanted to quit everything and make a career in the Catholic Church. The desire for hermitage stayed with him all of his very confusing and confused life, until he finally realized his desire many years later.
Liszt never married; his career was such that he had to be content with guest appearances, including a pretty long liaison with the Countess d’Agoult which resulted in three children, two of which died, and the third of which, Cosima, became the wife of Hans von Bülow, whom she, in turn, later deserted for Richard Wagner. Like Chopin, however, Liszt later joined up with a cigar-smoking writer. This one, Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, Liszt had met in Kiev. I might just add that the former lover, Countess d’Agoult, also wrote under a masculine pen-name, Daniel Stern. What could it have been with these take-charge feminists that fascinated Chopin and Liszt to such an extent? The Princess was apparently not particularly attractive, but she had a religious intensity that may have appealed to Liszt, the idealist, who always struggled with his relationship with God. Cynical writers have said that Liszt’s religion was a pretense; I do not think so. It is just that he had unusual temptations and a time schedule, thanks to his own kindness and generosity as well as his desire to make up for all the education he had lost while touring—who can judge? Who has a right to judge? At any rate, his oratorio, Christus, is very moving, and Saint Elizabeth is even better known.
Going to a piano concert by Franz Liszt must have been an extraordinary treat, indeed, not only from the standpoint of watching and listening to the great composer and interpreter himself, but from the standpoint of watching the audience. In women, he produced hysteria. According to the Harold Schonberg (from The Great Pianists, 1963):
…ladies flung their jewels on the stage instead of bouquets. They shrieked in ecstacy and sometimes fainted. Those who remained mobile made a mad rush to the stage to gaze upon the features of the divine man. They fought over the green gloves he had purposely left on the piano. One lady fished out the stub of a cigar that Liszt had smoked. She carried it in her bosom until the day she died. Other ladies came away with…broken strings from the piano…these were mounted in frames and worshiped.
Equally remarkable was a description of such an event by a man. Henry Reeves, an Englishman who heard Liszt in Paris, who added to the excitement by stating that in the midst of his incomparable piano-playing, Liszt himself fainted dead away, and had to be revived offstage in order to complete the concert.
Kind but conceited, Liszt moved among the royalty of Europe with the same kind of disdain as Beethoven had shown—only more so. He accepted no pay from his pupils, and even though many of them were “groupies,” virtually without talent, but somehow necessary to his ego, I think. The ladies kissed his hands. He would listen to a student, sweep him or her ruthlessly off the bench, and demonstrate the selection in a manner that was said to be indescribably beautiful.
Liszt encouraged and helped many, many pianists and composers. First among these, whose daughter married him, of course, was Richard Wagner, whose story is so intertwined with that of Liszt that we will hear much more of the great pianist in the future. Edvard Grieg brought his concerto to Liszt, the latter read it at sight and pronounced it good. Liszt started a society especially for the encouragement of what he called “the new music,” which was representative of the Romantic spirit: unfettered, highly emotional, personal, and using fantastic new forms and stories for its projection. He tried very hard to express his faith in his music, and may have resented his unbelieving son-in-law a little bit because he had taken the theme, Parsifal, a story inspired by the Christian tradition of the Holy Grail, as the subject of one of his operas.
Liszt’s Orchestration: it is possible that Liszt did not do his own orchestrations, but gave the ideas and conceptions to an assistant, Joachim Raff. This is not because he lacked understanding of the instruments, but because of time constraints. Even some painters did the same—they articulated the conception of a work, and left it to assistants to carry out. Liszt’s orchestrations were somewhat imitative of the orchestrations of Berlioz and Meyerbeer, who will be discussed in a forthcoming lecture. His symphonic works included one on the “Faust” theme and one on the theme of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In choral works, he carefully and tastefully subordinated the orchestra to the vocal parts.
Liszt’s Style: Liszt’s compositions, like Chopin’s, were characterized by a great deal of chromaticism. Rhythmic or melodic distortion were used to create mood. Liszt did not use the four-movement symphonic form, but used three movements in the Faust and two in the Dante. His music was meant for people to hear; it was so obvious that it was accessible to the untutored, and that was a very important development. Emotion was the most important element, and, in the words of one critic, “feeling had overcome reason.” [Bekker, p. 170] Yet Bekker adds,
Liszt is one of the most stimulating figures in all fields of music, as a pianist, as a composer (if we consider form and harmonic innovations), as a conductor, as a writer. Nevertheless a kind of tragic neglect has persecuted him and burdened both his work and the appreciation of his personality up to the present time. [page 171]
This is absolutely true. For a very long time, certain of Liszt’s songs were overplayed to the extent that the public got sick of them. Quite frankly, they got overplayed because they were beautiful, and it was so refreshing to hear beautiful, understandable music, after some of the magnificently worthwhile but difficult works of people such as Brahms. Chopin, Liszt, and even Brahms himself, for awhile, went in for dance music, and the music inspired by the people from which they came. There is something very profound and successful about being yourself in music—and representing the place from which you come. But simplicity is often unfairly regarded with a touch of scorn. Beyond that, Liszt was full of contradictions, and for all his religious feelings, he did have very public affairs with married women, to the scandal of all of Europe. He was generous to a fault, but he could also be scornfully critical of those more conservative composers with whom he was inevitably compared, and with whom he disagreed. If there was great beauty in his works, there was also a flair for the melodramatic, which was an unfortunate offsping of the age, and which the greatest composers managed to place in balance.
During the last years of his life, when he had fulfilled his dream to become a servant of the Church, he was visited by Walter Damrosch, then a young man, in his little shrine in Weimar. Young Damrosch was extremely shy in the presence of such a man and had gone by just to pay his respects. He never dreamed that Liszt would have time for him. However, said Damrosch,
He spoke of my father and mother with such love that I forgot some of my timidity…He then asked me how long I expected to stay in Weimar. I said two days and that I was going to Ems for a cure and then to Bayreuth to hear the first Parsival perfomances (an opera by Richard Wagner). A curious change came over Liszt as I spoke. He repeated several times,l “Two days, ha, yes, ‘Parsifal,’ of course,” and then he picked up a box of cigars. “Well, at least you’ll take a cigar before you leave Weimar?” “No, maestro, thank you very much, but I do not smoke.”…Sensing a certain frigidity in the air, and feeling that so unimportant a person as myself must not take any more time of the great Liszt, I withdrew.
That evening I went to a historic little theatre…and to my astonishment, in he first intermission one of the servants came to me and asked if I were Herr Damrosch…Kappelmeister Lassen wished to see me... He said, ‘What did you do to the master this morning? I came in just after you left and found him in tears. He said, “A young son of Damrosch called on me this morning. I thought of course he would stay here and study with me, but instead of that he told me he was only going to stay two days. The young generation have forgotten me completely. They think nothing of me and have no respect for us older men of bygone days. Am I a hotel in which one takes a room for a night, then to pass on elsewhere?”
Needless to say, I was overcome at such a dreadful development of such an innocent remark of mine…Lassen, seeing my unhappy state, told me to go the next morning at eight o’clock and explain everything to Liszt…I tossed and turned all night. Punctually at eight o’clock I knocked at Liszt’s door…I burst into tears and managed to stammer out my great admiration for him…I suddenly felt his arms around me and a very gentle kiss placed upon my forehead…He led me to a chair and began to reminisce about my father and mother…then he invited me to come that afternoon to a piano class, and I left, feeling very much relieved at the outcome of my visit. [From My Musical Life, by Walter Damrosch. Scribner’s, NY, 1926]
There we see the vulnerability of a man whom the world had so hysterically embraced, when, in his old age, he lived at Weimar and students came to him. From it, however, we can take warning that very often, those who are “great” and “powerful” in this world are still deeply lonely. Liszt might have been such a man; but he had a great gift. Whatever his feelings, he could pour them out in his music.
FORBIDDEN LOVE, POETIC EXUBERANCE, DEPRESSION, INSANITY:
ROBERT SCHUMANN, THE ARCH-ROMANTIC
Prof. Sue Talley
In the 19th century, one of the very popular themes for operas and symphonies was the story of Romeo and Juliet. It had all the ingredients of Romanticism, and the Romantics played it to the hilt.
The concept of the sensitive, suffering artist became a cliché. Almost all the composers of the Romantic Era managed to make themselves miserable. Nobody did it better than Robert Schumann, who had a good and generous spirit, wonderful talent, and a lovely family, but who unhappily inherited the madness which apparently ran in his family. One suspects that his ailment might have been schizophrenia, which is known to be an inherited disease. Unfortunately, in that age it must have been even harder for the mentally ill than it is today.
Robert was born in Saxony on June 8, 1810, to a bookseller with a “nervous disorder,” August Schumann. His sister, Emilia, did commit suicide, and the thought that he might go insane haunted Robert his entire life. His father died when he was 16, and his mother sent Robert to Leipzig to study law. However, Robert preferred music to law, and Leipzig was a very musical town. Robert absorbed music and literature like a sponge, but he was 18 before he started taking serious musical instruction, from Friedrich Wieck. Wieck was a formidable pedagogue and had a young daughter, Klara, whose prodigious piano playing proved his ability as a teacher. Robert moved into the Wieck household. Klara was a child of nine at the time, and had been studying music seriously for four years, under the stern tutelage of her father. Klara admired Robert, but being much younger than he, she called him “Herr Schumann.”
Klara Schumann was indeed a musical marvel, and was a busy concert-artist by the time she was twelve years old. Her father was not unkind to her, but he looked upon her with great pride. Klara thoroughly enjoyed the presence in the home of Robert, who could invent wonderful, ghostly stories, and who wrote beautiful compositions which she could include in her programs.
The Wieck home was a center for Romantic composers. United in the interest of Romanticism were Mendelssohn, born in 1809, Schumann and Chopin, both born in 1810, Liszt, in 18ll, and Wagner, in 1813. While Chopin went his own way in composition, to the admiration of the entire group, within Liszt and Wagner were the seeds of schism which ultimately carried music along new paths. For all his severity, Wieck was a champion of true musicianship, and he taught the fugues of J.S. Bach along with the music of Schubert and Beethoven. Robert, always susceptible to bouts of infatuation, became engaged to another student in the Wieck household, to the annoyance of Klara, but that relationship quietly died out.
A very important thing that came out of the Wieck household was the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, a paper with contributions and criticisms by Schumann, under the pseudonyms of Florestan and Eusebius, Wieck, under the name of Meister Raro, Klara, called “Chiarina,” and Felix Meritis—Felix Mendelssohn, of course. Music criticism took on a new importance because of the participation of this group of friends, called the “Davidsbund.” Robert used the names “Florestan” and “Eusebius” interchangeably, depending upon his mood. But he tried to be a gracious and yet honest critic.
In 1834, Robert began to realize that he had fallen in love with Klara. Almost everyone figured that out but her father, who must have been a little slow catching on. Robert and Klara had assumed that they would have Wieck’s approval, but it would be six years before they could overcome her father’s hostility in a court of law. It is possible that Wieck understood how hard life would be for Klara if she married Robert; however, the lengths he went to, to break up the relationship, make one suspect that part of his motivation was simply that Klara was the living showcase of his talents, and he was reluctant to share that showcase even with a man who was a remarkable composer, and someone who was very much in love with his daughter.
Klara and Robert married on September 12, 1840. Robert’s wedding-present to his wife was a magnificent gift of lieder which he had composed. It included Die Lotus-Blume, Du bist wie eine Blume, Der Nussbaum, and Du meine Seele. From the first tribute Schumann wrote for Klara—the F# minor Sonata—to the song cycle called “Myrtles,” Schumann wrote at the inspiration of his fianceé some of his best compositions. The Concert Allegro was written, which was to be the first movement of his piano concerto.
The Schumanns enjoyed four years of unalloyed happiness in the first years of their married life. Robert was able to complete his first Symphony, the “Symphony of Spring,” as he called it. In 1841, their first child, Marie, was born. Things were not easy for the couple financially, and it was not until 1843 that Wieck finally apologized for his bad attitude and sought a reconciliation with his daughter and her husband. They readily forgave him, but the relationship they had was a bit stiff. Nevertheless, when Papa Wieck died in 1873, he remembered Klara generously in his will.
In 1843, a girl named Elise was born. Robert and Klara had to venture as far as St. Petersburg, Russia, on a concert tour, in order to make enough money to feed their growing family (there were eventually 8 children). Robert suffered his first severe nervous breakdown, tortured by loud musical tones in his ears and all kinds of hallucinations, at this time. Klara was a very gracious woman and a patient mother who would always set aside her practicing if one of her children came into the room, according to her daughter, Marie. It must have been very difficult for her to balance her home life with a demanding concert tour. The family moved to Dresden to help Robert convalesce from his mental problems, and he continued to compose. He met two important people in Dresden: Ferdinand Hiller and Richard Wagner. Even though Wagner spoke unkindly of Robert’s music at times, Schumann was a generous critic and made room for the thoughts and ideas of his friend. Klara, on the other hand, stated, “To me this was not music, though I do not deny that Wagner has great dramatic power.”
Felix Mendelssohn, Schumann’s great friend, passed away in November of 1847. Schumann suffered greatly with the loss of his dear friend. The relationship the Schumanns had with Liszt and Wagner became less and less strong, as Liszt may have been jealous of both Klara, who was such a famous pianist, and Robert. In any case, the usually-generous Liszt was not quite himself with respect to the Schumanns. In his piano classes, he would mockingly say, “Frau Schumann plays it this way,” and do something ridiculous, for example.
There was a son named Ludwig born to the Schumanns in 1848, and he had to be shut up in an asylum for 25 years. When he was himself, Ludwig was a wonderful and well-spoken person, but he apparently had inherited the same tendency to mental illness as his father had. The times were difficult, also; Wagner had helped lead an insurgency against the monarchy, and Robert was threatened with induction into the military. Klara had to hide him in the closet when soldiers knocked at the door, and the Schumanns fled the city for some weeks.
The Schumann’s friend, Hiller, arranged for Robert to take the conductorship of the Dusseldorf Orchestra, in 1850. Unfortunately, Robert’s kind nature and sensitive temperament could not stand the pressure, and he was faced with mutiny from the orchestra after a year of conducting. He kept composing, but had to give up the orchestra as he became less and less attuned to reality. However, it was in Dusseldorf, in 1853, that Robert met two very important people—the violinist, Joachim, and the composer, Brahms. Klara referred to young Brahms as “Robert’s Johannes,” and both the Schumanns were of great encouragement to him. However, a year later, Robert attempted to throw himself, after his wedding-ring, into the Rhine, leaving a note to Klara: “Dear Klara, I am going to throw my wedding-ring into the Rhine. Dol the same with yours, and then the two will be united.” [Burk, Clara Schumann, page 18]
Two years after he was pulled out of the river, Robert Schumann died in an asylum at Endendich, near Bonn. A child was born after Robert’s admittance to the asylum, and Klara named him Felix, after their faithful friend, Felix Mendelssohn.
A WORD ABOUT KLARA SCHUMANN
Klara Schumann was born into a world of great importance for pianists. She conscientiously used her great skill in the propagation of what she felt was the best in the Romantic tradition: the music of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Brahms. In addition, she brought to the attention of the public works of the long-neglected master, J. S. Bach, and some of the later sonatas of Beethoven. She lived at the center of keyboard composition for the 19th century: Germany found itself in the forefront of an era, setting the standards of musical taste for the world.
She had an unusually challenging life. Robert’s death was tragic in the true sense of the word; it was Klara’s fate to bear his suffering as well as her own. She showed unusual fortitude on his behalf, as well as tireless concern and effort on behalf of her children. Indeed, rather than being defeated by suffering, she used it as a well-spring of growth. It is rare that an example can be found of such unanimous enthusiasm for a parent as Klara Schumann’s children expressed in her behalf.
In a burst of enthusiasm for piano technique, Robert ruined his chances to be a great interpreter of his own music. Klara not only showcased his music, but the music of many great composers. There is some controversy surrounding the relationship of Klara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. The reverence in which both parties held Robert Schumann should be sufficient to let the matter rest.
Schubert and Schumann: A Summary
Even though the names of these composers are similar, and both wrote art songs, their music is not so much alike that it is confusing. Schubert is the one who died only one year after Beethoven. He composed almost 600 songs, which contain some of the finest art songs ever written. These include “Gretchen am Spinnerad,” (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel), “Ave Maria,” “Die Forelle” (The Trout), and several song cycles, such as “Die Schöne Mullerin,” or “The Beautiful Miller’s Daughter.” Song cycles generally have a theme, such as a story. Schubert used some of the themes as the basis for other music he wrote, such as the “Trout Quintet,” or the “Wanderer Fantasy.” He also wrote piano sonatas, which are pretty long, in general, and symphonies, which also are pretty long. His most famous symphony is #8, the “Unfinished” Symphony.
Franz Schubert never married, and died in poverty and relative obscurity, without having many of his works published. Nevertheless, those who knew him and his music admired both him and his works.
Robert Schumann, on the other hand, did marry Klara Wieck (sometimes spelled “Clara”) and had 8 children. He had a wonderful family, but because of the insanity which he inherited, he led a very difficult life. His wife was a great concert pianist (considered by many to be the best in her day, which was quite a compliment, since she had to compete with some of the best who ever lived), and she presented many of Robert’s works to the public. Schumann wrote some songs (lieder) also, and they were wonderful for the piano as well as for the voice. Probably his most famous of these is called “Widmung” (Dedication), and was part of the cycle he gave Klara when they were finally able to get married. “Widmung,” or “Du meine Seele, du mein Herz,” quotes the Schubert song, “Ave Maria, in the last bars. Schumann also wrote magnificent piano compositions, such as the “Fantasiestücke” (Fantasy Pieces), a wonderful Concerto in A Minor for Piano and Orchestra, and many, many more distinguished pieces. His style is a little “darker,” in general, than Schubert’s, although his expressions of joy are also very intense. He was the Romantic par excellence; his forms were generally more free than the Classical masters. They reflected his moods and inner feelings very intensely.
Finally the translations of the songs I would like you to listen to.
Berlioz: Les Nuits dete: Third Song
My beautiful love is dead
My beautiful love is dead, I shall weep always; Into the tomb, she has taken My soul and my love. Without waiting for me, She has returned to heaven. The angel which took her there Did not want to take me. How bitter is my fate! Ah! without love, to go to sea! The white creature Is lying in the coffin; How all in Nature Seems bereaved to me! The forgotten dove Weeps and dreams of the one who is absent; My soul cries and feels That it has been abandoned. How biter is my fate, Ah! without love, to go to sea! Above me the immense night Spreads itself like a shroud; I sing my romanza That heaven alone hears.Duparc: [We may not have time to cover him in class but he was a French composer. He studied the piano and composition with Franck, writing works that he later destroyed; this loss, together with a crippling psychological condition that caused him to abandon composition at the age of 36, has resulted in a legacy of just 13 songs (composed 1868-84). An important influence is Wagner, seen in the ambitious harmonic structure of Chanson triste and the shifting chromaticism of Soupir. Yet Duparc's feeling for poetic atmosphere and the craftsmanship he used to communicate it, as in the sinister drama of La manoir de Rosemonde, were unique, giving the French mélodie a rare musical substance and emotional intensity. From 1885 he led a quiet life, remaining close to Ernest Chausson and cultivating his aesthetic sensibility through reading and drawing].
Ecstasy
On your pale breast my heart is sleeping A sleep as sweet as death Exquisite death, death perfumed By the breath of the beloved On your pale breast my heart is sleeping
Mandoline: The givers of serenades
The givers of serenadesAnd the lovely women who listenExchange insipid wordsUnder the singing branches. There is Thyrsis and AmyntasAnd there's the eternal Clytander,And there's Damis who, for many aHeartless woman, wrote many a tender verse. Their short silk coats,Their long dresses with trains,Their elegance, their joyAnd their soft blue shadows, Whirl around in the ecstasyOf a pink and grey moon,And the mandolin prattlesAmong the shivers from the breeze.
In prayer
If the voice of a child can reach You, O my Father, Listen to the prayer of Jesus, on his knees before You! If You have chosen me to teach your laws on earth, I will know how to serve You, noble King of kings, O Light! On my lips, Lord, place the salutary truth, In order that he who doubts should with humility revere You! Do not abandon me, give me the necessary gentleness, To ease suffering, to relieve sorrow, the misery! Reveal Yourself to me, Lord, in whom I believe and hope: For You I wish to suffer and to die on the cross, at Calvary! Canteloube Baïlèro Pastré, dè dèlaï l'aïo, as gaïré dé boun tèms? Dio lou baïlèro lèro, lèro, lèro, lèro, baïlèro, lô!È n'aï pa gaïre, è dio, tu?
Baïlèro lèro, lèro, lèro, lèro, baïlèro, lô! Pastré, lou prat faï flour, li cal gorda toun troupel! Dio lou baïlèro lèro, lèro, lèro, lèro, baïlèro, lô! L'erb es pu fin' ol prat d'oïci! Baïlèro lèro, lèro, lèro, lèro, baïlèro, lô! Pastré, couci foraï, en obal io lou bel riou! Dio lou baïlèro lèro, lèro, lèro, lèro, baïlèro, lô! Es pèromè, té baô çirca! Baïlèro lèro, lèro, lèro, lèro, baïlèro, lô!
Schubert:
Who's riding so late through night, so wild?
Who's riding so late through night, so wild?It is the father who's holding his child;He's tucked the boy secure in his arm,He holds him tight and keeps him warm. My son, why hide you your face in fear?"See you not, father, the Erl King near?The Erl King in his crown and train?"My son, 'tis but a foggy strain." Sweet lovely child, come, go with me!What wonderful games I'll play with thee;Flowers, most colorful, yours to behold.My mother for you has garments of gold." My father, my father, and can you not hearWhat Erl King is promising into my ear?"Be calm, stay calm, o child of mine;The wind through dried leaves is rustling so fine." Wouldst thou, fine lad, go forth with me?My daughters should royally wait upon thee;My daughters conduct each night their song festTo swing and to dance and to sing thee to rest." My Father, my father, and can you not seeErl King's daughters, there by the tree?" My son, my son, I see it clear;The ancient willows so grey do appear." I love thee, I'm aroused by thy beautiful form;And be thou not willing, I'll take thee by storm."My father, my father, he's clutching my arm!Erl King has done me a painful harm!" The father shudders and onward presses;The gasping child in his arms he caresses;He reaches the courtyard, and barely inside,He holds in his arms the child who has died.
Good Night from the Winterreise (Winter journey)
As a stranger I arrived,As a stranger again I leave.May was kind to meWith many bunches of flowers.The girl spoke of love,Her mother even of marriage, -Now the world is bleak,The path covered by snow. I cannot choose the timeOf my departure;I must find my own wayIn this darkness.With a shadow cast by the moonlightAs my traveling companionI'll search for animal tracksOn the white fields. Why should I linger, waitingUntil I am driven out?Let stray dogs howlOutside their master's house;Love loves to wanderGod has made her soFrom one to the other.Dear love, good night! I will not disturb you in your dreaming,It would be a pity to disturb your rest;You shall not hear my footstepsSoftly, softly shut the door!On my way out I'll write"Good Night" on the gate,So that you may seeThat I have thought of you.
The weather-vane
The wind plays with the weathervaneAtop my beautiful beloved's house.In my delusion I thoughtIt was whistling at the poor fugitive. If he had seen it before,The crest above the house,Then he never would have looked forA woman's fidelity in that house. The wind plays with hearts withinAs on the roof, but not so loudly.What is my suffering to them?Their child is a rich bride.
The trout
In a bright little brookthere shot in merry hastea capricious trout: past it shot like an arrow. I stood upon the shoreand watched in sweet peacethe cheery fish's bathin the clear little brook. A fisher with his rodstood at the water-side,and watched with cold bloodas the fish swam about. So long as the clearness of the waterremained intact, I thought,he would not be able to capture the troutwith his fishing rod. But finally the thief grew wearyof waiting. He stirred upthe brook and made it muddy,and before I realized it, his fishing rod was twitching:the fish was squirming there,and with raging blood Igazed at the betrayed fish. [ At the golden fountain of youth, you linger so confidently; But think of the trout, and if you see danger, flee! Mostly it is from lack of cleverness that maidens miss the angling seducers. So beware! otherwise you may bleed too late! ]A sleep as sweet as death
Schumann (Frauenliebe und leben)
Since I saw him
Since I saw him I believe myself to be blind, where I but cast my gaze, I see him alone. as in waking dreams his image floats before me, dipped from deepest darkness, brighter in ascent. All else dark and colorless everywhere around me, for the games of my sisters I no longer yearn, I would rather weep, silently in my little chamber, since I saw him, I believe myself to be blind.
Thou ring on my finger
Thou ring on my finger, my little golden ring, I press thee piously upon my lips piously upon my heart. I had dreamt it, the tranquil, lovely dream of childhood, I found myself along and lost in barren, infinite space. Thou ring on my finger, thou hast taught me for the first time, hast opened my gaze unto the endless, deep value of life. I want to serve him, live for him, belong to him entire, Give myself and find myself transfigured in his radiance. Thou ring on my finger, my little golden ring, I press thee piously upon lips, piously upon my heart.
Now thou hast given me, for the first time, pain
Now thou hast given me, for the first time, pain, how it struck me. Thou sleepst, thou hard, merciless man, the sleep of death. The abandoned one gazes straight ahead, the world is void. I have loved and lived, I am no longer living. I withdraw silently into myself, the veil falls, there I have thee and my lost happiness, O thou my world!
Brahms
In the churchyard
The day was heavy with rain and disturbed by storms; I was walking among many forgotten graves, with weathered stones and crosses, the wreaths old, the names washed away, hardly to be read. The day was disturbed by storms and heavy with rain; on every grave froze the words "we were." The coffins slumbered calmly like the eye of a storm, and on every grave melted quietly the words: "we were healed."
Raindrops from the Trees
Raindrops from the treesFall in the green grass,Tears from my gloomy eyesMake my cheeks wet. When the sun again shines,The grass will be twice as green:And on my cheeks, twice as much will my hot tears glow.
Chopin
Handsome lad
Young and tall and handsome, Oh, he's my choice and my liking! What more handsome would you seek? Raven hair and golden cheek! Just an eyelid's flicker Will make my heart beat quicker. What more handsome would you seek? Raven hair and golden cheek! When we're dancing together All eyes turn to us. What more handsome would you seek?
Here is a list of Song composers and links to their websites.
Brahms, Johannes, 1833-1897.
Chabrier, Emmanuel, 1841-1894.
Chausson, Ernest, 1855-1899.
Debussy, Claude, 1862-1918.
Delius, Frederick, 1862-1934.
Foster, Stephen Collins, 1826-1864.
Faure, Gabriel, 1845-1924
Mahler, Gustav, 1860-1911.
Schubert, Franz, 1797-1829.
Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856.
Strauss, Richard, 1864-1949.
Wolf, Hugo, 1860-1903.
Other composers who also wrote some songs: