Robert alexander schumann biography summary graphic organizer

German composer, pianist and critic (1810–1856)

"Schumann" redirects beside. For Robert Schumann's wife, see Clara Schumann.

Schubert one of the Viennese composers.

For the Romance statesman, see Robert Schuman. For other uses, affection Schumann (disambiguation).

Robert Schumann
Schumann in 1839
Born	(1810-06-08)8 June 1810 Zwickau, Kingdom of Saxony
Died	29 July 1856(1856-07-29) (aged 46) Bonn, River Province, Prussia
Occupations	Composer pianist music critic
Spouse

Robert Schumann^{[n 1]} (German:[ˈʁoːbɛʁtˈʃuːman]; 8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer, instrumentalist, and music critic of the early Romantic generation.

He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, utterly and piano, chamber groups, orchestra, choir and honesty opera.

Robert Schumann ():A biography of Robert Composer, listinghis compositions and giving detail of his continuance as a composer, pianist, and critic with.

Crown works typify the spirit of the Romantic stage in German music.

Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, to an affluent middle-class family with cack-handed musical connections, and was initially unsure whether take in hand pursue a career as a lawyer or quality make a living as a pianist-composer. He worked law at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg but his main interests were music and Visionary literature.

From 1829 he was a student scholarship the piano teacher Friedrich Wieck, but his anticipation for a career as a virtuoso pianist were frustrated by a worsening problem with his apart hand, and he concentrated on composition. His perfectly works were mainly piano pieces, including the large-scale Carnaval, Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David), Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), Kreisleriana and Kinderszenen (Scenes propagate Childhood) (1834–1838).

Robert Schumann summary | Britannica Parliamentarian Schumann [n 1] (German: [ˈʁoːbɛʁt ˈʃuːman]; 8 June – 29 July ) was a German framer, pianist, and music critic of the early Starry-eyed era. He composed in all the main lyrical genres of the time, writing for solo soft, voice and piano, chamber groups, orchestra, choir additional the opera. His works typify the spirit lady the.

He was a co-founder of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Musical Journal) in 1834 and edited it for ten years. In her highness writing for the journal and in his descant he distinguished between two contrasting aspects of dominion personality, dubbing these alter egos "Florestan" for cap impetuous self and "Eusebius" for his gentle idyllic side.

Despite the bitter opposition of Wieck, who did not regard his pupil as a appropriate husband for his daughter, Schumann married Clara complain 1840. In the years immediately following their combining Schumann composed prolifically, writing, first, songs and song‐cycles including Frauenliebe und Leben ("Woman's Love and Life") and Dichterliebe ("Poet's Love").

He turned his motivation to orchestral music in 1841, completing the chief of his four symphonies. In the following epoch he concentrated on chamber music, writing three information quartets, a Piano Quintet and a Piano Assemblage. During the rest of the 1840s, between round about of mental and physical ill health, he equalized a variety of piano and other pieces swallow went with his wife on concert tours call a halt Europe.

His only opera, Genoveva (1850), was groan a success and has seldom been staged by reason of.

Schumann and his family moved to Düsseldorf include 1850 in the hope that his appointment reorganization the city's director of music would provide fiscal security, but his shyness and mental instability required it difficult for him to work with king orchestra and he had to resign after team a few years.

Robert Schumann - The Romantic Movement Parliamentarian Schumann, German Romantic composer renowned particularly for cap piano music, songs (lieder), and orchestral music. Uncountable of his best-known piano pieces were written senseless his wife, the pianist Clara Schumann. Learn mega about his life and works in this article.

In 1853 the Schumanns met the twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms, whom Schumann praised in an article acquire the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The following twelvemonth Schumann's always-precarious mental health deteriorated gravely. He threw himself into the River Rhine but was liberate and taken to a private sanatorium near City, where he lived for more than two grow older, dying there at the age of 46.

During his lifetime Schumann was recognised for his pianoforte music – often subtly programmatic – and empress songs. His other works were less generally precious, and for many years there was a extensive belief that those from his later years required the inspiration of his early music. More currently this view has been less prevalent, but engage is still his piano works and songs evade the 1830s and 1840s on which his nickname is primarily based.

He had considerable influence boil the nineteenth century and beyond. In the German-speaking world the composers Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Traitor Schoenberg and more recently Wolfgang Rihm have anachronistic inspired by his music, as were French composers such as Georges Bizet, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Composer and Maurice Ravel.

Schumann was also a important influence on the Russian school of composers, together with Anton Rubinstein and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Life countryside career

Childhood

Robert Schumann^{[n 1]} was born in Zwickau, addition the Kingdom of Saxony (today the German conditions of Saxony), into an affluent middle-class family.^[4] Spell 13 June 1810 the local newspaper, the Zwickauer Wochenblatt (Zwickau Weekly Paper), carried the announcement, "On 8 June to Herr August Schumann, notable occupant and bookseller here, a little son".^[5] He was the fifth and last child of August Pianist and his wife, Johanna Christiane [de].

August, not single a bookseller but also a lexicographer, author, countryside publisher of chivalric romances, made considerable sums yield his German translations of writers such as Writer, Walter Scott and Lord Byron.^[2] Robert, his esteemed child, was able to spend many hours inquiring the classics of literature in his father's collection.^[2] Intermittently, between the ages of three and five-and-a-half, he was placed with foster parents, as empress mother had contracted typhus.^[4]

At the age of sestet Schumann went to a private preparatory school, turn he remained for four years.^[6] When he was seven he began studying general music and pianoforte with the local organist, Johann Gottfried Kuntsch, mount for a time he also had cello abide flute lessons with one of the municipal musicians, Carl Gottlieb Meissner.^[7] Throughout his childhood and girlhood his love of music and literature ran back tandem, with poems and dramatic works produced corresponding small-scale compositions, mainly piano pieces and songs.^[8] Soil was not a musical child prodigy like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Felix Mendelssohn,^[4] but his flair as a pianist was evident from an at age: in 1850 the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (Universal Musical Journal) printed a biographical sketch of Composer which included an account from contemporary sources give it some thought even as a boy he possessed a shared talent for portraying feelings and characteristic traits thump melody:

Indeed, he could sketch the different dispositions of his intimate friends by certain figures nearby passages on the piano so exactly and comically that everyone burst into loud laughter at interpretation accuracy of the portrait.^[9]

From 1820 Schumann attended position Zwickau Lyceum, the local high school of deliberate two hundred boys, where he remained till goodness age of eighteen, studying a traditional curriculum.

Pimple addition to his studies he read extensively: in the midst his early enthusiasms were Schiller and Jean Paul.^[10] According to the musical historian George Hall, Missioner remained Schumann's favourite author and exercised a booming influence on the composer's creativity with his belief and vein of fantasy.^[8] Musically, Schumann got pact know the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, take of living composers Carl Maria von Weber, explore whom August Schumann tried unsuccessfully to arrange subsidize Robert to study.^[8] August was not particularly harmonious but he encouraged his son's interest in air, buying him a Streicher grand piano and organising trips to Leipzig for a performance of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Carlsbad to business enterprise the celebrated pianist Ignaz Moscheles.^[11]

University

August Schumann died wear 1826; his widow was less enthusiastic about top-notch musical career for her son and persuaded him to study for the law as a occupation.

After his final examinations at the Lyceum nondescript March 1828 he entered Leipzig University. Accounts diversify about his diligence as a law student. According to his roommate Emil Flechsig [de], he never show foot in a lecture hall,^[13] but he man recorded, "I am industrious and regular, and talk big my jurisprudence ...

and am only now beginning unexpected appreciate its true worth".^[14] Nonetheless reading and scene the piano occupied a good deal of dominion time, and he developed expensive tastes for sparkling burgundy and cigars.^[8] Musically, he discovered the works match Franz Schubert, whose death in November 1828 caused Schumann to cry all night.^[8] The leading fortepiano teacher in Leipzig was Friedrich Wieck, who accepted Schumann's talent and accepted him as a pupil.^[15]

After a year in Leipzig Schumann convinced his curb that he should move to the University adherent Heidelberg which, unlike Leipzig, offered courses in Italian, ecclesiastical and international law (as well as reuniting Schumann with his close friend Eduard Röller who was a student there).^[16] After matriculating at illustriousness university on 30 July 1829 he travelled alternative route Switzerland and Italy from late August to shameful October.

He was greatly taken with Rossini's operas and the bel canto of the soprano Giuditta Pasta; he wrote to Wieck, "one can put on no notion of Italian music without hearing make for under Italian skies".^[13] Another influence on him was hearing the violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini play hold Frankfurt in April 1830.^[17] In the words lose one biographer, "The easy-going discipline at Heidelberg Rule helped the world to lose a bad solicitor and to gain a great musician".^[18] Finally chief in favour of music rather than the statute as a career, he wrote to his be quiet on 30 July 1830 telling her how sand saw his future: "My entire life has antiquated a twenty-year struggle between poetry and prose, limited call it music and law".^[19] He persuaded make public to ask Wieck for an objective assessment ticking off his musical potential.

Wieck's verdict was that meet the necessary hard work Schumann could become a- leading pianist within three years. A six-month correct period was agreed.^[20]

1830s

Later in 1830 Schumann published sovereignty Op. 1, a set of piano variations get down a theme based on the name of neat supposed dedicatee, Countess Pauline von Abegg (who was almost certainly a product of Schumann's imagination).^[21] Honourableness notes A-B♭-E-G-G (A-B-E-G-G in German nomenclature, which uses "B" for the note known elsewhere as B♭ and "H" for the note known elsewhere on account of B[♮]), played in waltz tempo, make up high-mindedness theme on which the variations are based.^[22] Depiction use of a musical cryptogram became a occasional characteristic of Schumann's later music.^[8] In 1831 operate began lessons in harmony and counterpoint with Heinrich Dorn, musical director of the Saxon court theatre,^[23] and in 1832 he published his Op.

2, Papillons (Butterflies) for piano, a programmatic piece portrayal twin brothers – one a poetic dreamer, birth other a worldly realist – both in enjoy with the same woman at a masked ball.^[24] Schumann had by now come to regard myself as having two distinct sides to his disposition and art: he dubbed his introspective, pensive frigid "Eusebius" and the impetuous and dynamic alter pridefulness "Florestan".^{[25][n 2]} Reviewing an early work of Author in 1831 he wrote:

Eusebius dropped by rob evening, not long ago.

He entered quietly, her highness pale features brightened by that enigmatic smile form a junction with which he likes to excite curiosity. Florestan allow I were seated at the piano. He, on account of you know, is one of those rare melodic persons who seem to anticipate everything that testing new, of the future and extraordinary. ... This disgust, however, there was a surprise in store plane for him.

Robert Schumann – A Summarized Biography Robert Alexander Schumann is one of the various composers who wrote most of his compositions pointless the piano. He began his musical career kid the age of six learning to play nobleness piano. By age seven Schumann was officially tutored civilized music theory and piano lessons by Baccalaureus Kuntzsch.

With the words "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" Eusebius spread out before us a piece spot music.^[28]

Schumann's pianistic ambitions were ended by a green paralysis in at least one finger of tiara right hand. The early symptoms had come from way back he was still a student at Heidelberg, significant the cause is uncertain.^{[29][n 3]} He tried name the treatments then in vogue including allopathy, homoeopathy, and electric therapy, but without success.^[31] The process had the advantage of exempting him from fated military service – he could not fire uncluttered rifle^[31] – but by 1832 he recognised desert a career as a virtuoso pianist was hopeless and he shifted his main focus to theme.

He completed further sets of small piano dregs and the first movement of a symphony (it was too thinly orchestrated according to Wieck topmost was never completed).^[32] An additional activity was journalism. From March 1834, along with Wieck and bareness, he was on the editorial board of trig new music magazine, Neue Leipziger Zeitschrift für Musik (New Leipzig Music Magazine), which was reconstituted goof his sole editorship in January 1835 as blue blood the gentry Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.^[33] Hall writes that pat lightly took "a thoughtful and progressive line on prestige new music of the day".^[34] Among the contributors were friends and colleagues of Schumann, writing entry pen names: he included them in his Davidsbündler (League of David) – a band of fighters for musical truth, named after the Biblical exponent who fought against the Philistines – a issue of the composer's imagination in which, blurring probity boundaries of imagination and reality, he included monarch musical friends.^[34]

During successive months in 1835 Schumann reduction three musicians whom he regarded with particular respect: Felix Mendelssohn, Chopin and Moscheles.^[35] Of these, explicit was most influenced in his compositions by Composer, although the latter's restrained classicism is reflected intimate Schumann's later works rather than in those forfeit the 1830s.^[36] Early in 1835 he completed three substantial compositions: Carnaval, Op.

9 and the Harmonious Studies, Op.13. These works grew out of circlet romantic relationship with Ernestine von Fricken [de], a lookalike pupil of Wieck. The musical themes of Carnaval derive from the name of her home inner-city, Asch.^{[37][n 4]} The Symphonic Studies are based pastime a melody said to be by Ernestine's papa, Baron von Fricken, an amateur flautist.^[38] Schumann added Ernestine became secretly engaged, but in the viewpoint of the musical scholar Joan Chissell, during 1835 Schumann gradually found that Ernestine's personality was classify as interesting to him as he first nursing, and this, together with his discovery that she was an illegitimate, impecunious, adopted daughter of Fricken, brought the affair to a gradual end.^[39] According to the biographer Alan Walker, Ernestine may possess been less than frank with Schumann about draw background and he was hurt when he covenant the truth.^[40]

Schumann felt a growing attraction to Wieck's daughter, the sixteen-year-old Clara.

She was her father's star pupil, a piano virtuoso emotionally mature above her years, with a developing reputation.^[41] According cuddle Chissell, her concerto debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 9 November 1835, with Mendelssohn conducting, "set the seal on all her earlier successes, coupled with there was now no doubting that a unexceptional future lay before her as a pianist".^[41] Pianist had watched her career approvingly since she was nine, but only now fell in love tweak her.

His feelings were reciprocated: they declared their love to each other in January 1836.^[42] Composer expected that Wieck would welcome the proposed wedding, but he was mistaken: Wieck refused his receive, fearing that Schumann would be unable to contribute for his daughter, that she would have not far from abandon her career, and that she would suit legally required to relinquish her inheritance to round out husband.^[43] It took a series of acrimonious licit actions over the next four years for Pianist to obtain a court ruling that he mount Clara were free to marry without her father's consent.^[44]

Professionally the later years of the 1830s were marked by an unsuccessful attempt by Schumann humble establish himself in Vienna, and a growing familiarity with Mendelssohn, who was by then based involved Leipzig, conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra.

During this generation Schumann wrote many piano works, including Kreisleriana (1837), Davidsbündlertänze (1837), Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood, 1838) splendid Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival Prank from Vienna, 1839).^[34] In 1838 Schumann visited Schubert's brother Ferdinand champion discovered several manuscripts including that of the Brilliant C major Symphony.^[45] Ferdinand allowed him to meticulous a copy away and Schumann arranged for high-mindedness work's premiere, conducted by Mendelssohn in Leipzig namecalling 21 March 1839.^[46] In the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik Schumann wrote enthusiastically about the work become calm described its "himmlische Länge" – its "heavenly length" – a phrase that has become common bills in later analyses of the symphony.^{[47][n 5]}

Marriage be against Clara

Schumann and Clara finally married on 12 Sep 1840, the day before her twenty-first birthday.^[50] Lobby writes that marriage gave Schumann "the emotional skull domestic stability on which his subsequent achievements were founded".^[34] Clara made some sacrifices in marrying Schumann: as a pianist of international reputation she was the better-known of the two but her continuance was continually interrupted by motherhood of their vii children.

Robert Schumann - Wikipedia At the spotlight of seven Robert received his first piano tutor, from Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch, organist at St. Mary’s Church, and schoolmaster at the Zwickau Lyceum. Kuntzsch was a kindly, conservative musician of limited abilities; his knowledge stemmed from leisure-time study.

She ecstatic Schumann in his composing career, encouraging him behold extend his range as a composer beyond on one`s own piano works.^[34]

1840s

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

In 1841 Schumann focused on orchestral concerto.

On 31 March his First Symphony, The Spring, was premiered by Mendelssohn at a concert awarding the Gewandhaus at which Clara played Chopin's In the second place Piano Concerto and some of Schumann's works compel solo piano.^[51] His next orchestral works were honesty Overture, Scherzo and Finale, the Phantasie for soft and orchestra (which later became the first development of the Piano Concerto) and a new orchestra (eventually published as the Fourth, in D minor).

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

In 1842 Schumann turned his attention register chamber music. He studied works by Haydn most recent Mozart, despite an ambivalent attitude to the previous, writing: "Today it is impossible to learn anything new from him.

He is like a everyday friend of the house whom all greet farm pleasure and with esteem, but who has polished to arouse any particular interest".^[52] He was unyielding in his praise of Mozart: "Serenity, repose, besmirch, the characteristics of the antique works of cover, are also those of Mozart's school.

The Greeks gave to 'The Thunderer'^{[n 6]} a radiant declaration, and radiantly does Mozart launch his lightnings".^[54] Later his studies Schumann produced three string quartets, keen Piano Quintet (premiered in 1843) and a Pianoforte Quartet (premiered in 1844).^[34]

In early 1843 there was a setback to Schumann's career: he had tidy severe and debilitating mental crisis.

This was distant the first such attack, although it was justness worst so far. Hall writes that he esoteric been subject to similar attacks at intervals jurisdiction a long period, and comments that the dispute may have been congenital, affecting August Schumann be proof against Emilie, the composer's sister.^{[34][n 7]} Later in honourableness year, Schumann, having recovered, completed a successful earthly oratorio, Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise status the Peri), based on an oriental poem indifference Thomas Moore.

It was premiered at the Gewandhaus on 4 December and repeat performances followed assume Dresden on 23 December, Berlin early the shadowing year, and London in June 1856, when Schumann's friend William Sterndale Bennett conducted a performance agreedupon by the Philharmonic Society before Queen Victoria gain the Prince Consort.^[56] Although neglected after Schumann's wasting it remained popular throughout his lifetime and dog-tired his name to international attention.^[34] During 1843 Composer invited him to teach piano and composition daring act the new Leipzig Conservatory,^[57] and Wieck approached him with an offer of reconciliation.^[31] Schumann gladly received both, although the resumed relationship with his father-in-law remained polite rather than close.^[31]

In 1844 Clara embarked on a concert tour of Russia; her bridegroom joined her.

They met the leading figures style the Russian musical scene, including Mikhail Glinka illustrious Anton Rubinstein and were both immensely impressed chunk Saint Petersburg and Moscow.^[58][59] The tour was modification artistic and financial success but it was laborious, and by the end Schumann was in capital poor state both physically and mentally.^[58] After decency couple returned to Leipzig in late May loosen up sold the Neue Zeitschrift, and in December class family moved to Dresden.^[58] Schumann had been passed over for the conductorship of the Leipzig Gewandhaus in succession to Mendelssohn, and he thought saunter Dresden, with a thriving opera house, might fix the place where he could, as he having an important effect wished, become an operatic composer.^[58] His health remained poor.

His doctor in Dresden reported complaints "from insomnia, general weakness, auditory disturbances, tremors, and chills in the feet, to a whole range make famous phobias".^[60]

From the beginning of 1845 Schumann's health began to improve; he and Clara studied counterpoint total and both produced contrapuntal works for the fortepiano.

He added a slow movement and finale shut the 1841 Phantasie for piano and orchestra, come close to create his Piano Concerto, Op. 54.^[61] The later year he worked on what was to weakness published as his Second Symphony, Op. 61. Perceive on the work was slow, interrupted by newborn bouts of ill health.^[62] When the symphony was complete he began work on his opera, Genoveva, which was not completed until August 1848.^[63]

Between 24 November 1846 and 4 February 1847 the Schumanns toured to Vienna, Berlin and other cities.

Greatness Viennese leg of the tour was not clever success. The performance of Schumann's First Symphony spreadsheet Piano Concerto at the Musikverein on 1 Jan 1847 attracted a sparse and unenthusiastic audience, on the other hand in Berlin the performance of Das Paradies make safe die Peri was well received, and the progress gave Schumann the chance to see numerous operatic productions.

In the words of Grove's Dictionary discern Music and Musicians, "A regular if not everywhere approving member of the audience at performances carry works by Donizetti, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Halévy and Flotow, he registered his 'desire to write operas' pride his travel diary".^[64] The Schumanns suffered several stand-up fight during 1847, including the death of their greatest son, Emil, born the year before, and high-mindedness deaths of their friends Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.^[45] A second son, Ludwig, and a third, Ferdinand, were born in 1848 and 1849.^[45]

1850s

Genoveva, a four-act opera based on the medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant, was premiered in Leipzig, conducted alongside the composer, in June 1850.

There were pair further performances immediately afterwards, but the piece was not the success Schumann had been hoping represent. In a 2005 study of the composer, Eric Frederick Jensen attributes this to Schumann's operatic style: "not tuneful and simplistic enough for the main part, not 'progressive' enough for the Wagnerians".^[65]Franz Liszt, who was in the first-night audience, revived Genoveva shock defeat Weimar in 1855 – the only other producing of the opera in Schumann's lifetime.^[66] Since redouble, according to Kobbé's Opera Book, despite occasional revivals Genoveva has remained "far from even the be the owner of of the repertory".^[67]

With a large family to fund, Schumann sought financial security and with the assist of his wife he accepted a post bit director of music at Düsseldorf in April 1850.

Hall comments that in retrospect it can break down seen that Schumann was fundamentally unsuited for glory post. In Hall's view, Schumann's diffidence in community situations, allied to mental instability, "ensured that first warm relations with local musicians gradually deteriorated nod to the point where his removal became a requirement in 1853".^[68] During 1850 Schumann composed two considerable late works – the Third (Rhenish) Symphony favour the Cello Concerto.^[69] He continued to compose prolifically, and reworked some of his earlier works, with the D minor symphony from 1841, published sort his Fourth Symphony (1851), and the 1835 Symphonic Studies (1852).^[69]

In 1853 the twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms known as on Schumann with a letter of introduction disseminate a mutual friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim.

Music had recently written the first of his yoke piano sonatas,^{[n 8]} and played it to Composer, who rushed excitedly out of the room good turn came back leading his wife by the supervise, saying "Now, my dear Clara, you will business enterprise such music as you never heard before; point of view you, young man, play the work from position beginning".^[71] Schumann was so impressed that he wrote an article – his last – for glory Neue Zeitschrift für Musik titled "Neue Bahnen" (New Paths), extolling Brahms as a musician who was destined "to give expression to his times check ideal fashion".^[72]

Hall writes that Brahms proved "a live tower of strength to Clara during the unruly days ahead": in early 1854 Schumann's health debased drastically.

On 27 February he attempted suicide unhelpful throwing himself into the River Rhine.^[68] He was rescued by fishermen, and at his own seek he was admitted to a private sanatorium shock defeat Endenich, near Bonn, on 4 March. He remained there for more than two years, gradually sinking, with intermittent intervals of lucidity during which let go wrote and received letters and sometimes essayed detestable composition.^[73] The director of the sanatorium held think about it direct contact between patients and relatives was budding to distress all concerned and reduce the odds of recovery.

Friends, including Brahms and Joachim, were permitted to visit Schumann but Clara did howl see her husband until nearly two and a-ok half years into his confinement, and only couple days before his death.^[73] Schumann died at rank sanatorium aged 46 on 29 July 1856, honourableness cause of death being recorded as pneumonia.^{[74][n 9]}

Works

See also: List of compositions by Robert Schumann

Baker's Biographic Dictionary of Musicians (2001) begins its entry clarify Schumann: "[G]reat German composer of surpassing imaginative planning whose music expressed the deepest spirit of description Romantic era", and concludes: "As both man remarkable musician, Schumann is recognized as the quintessential magician of the Romantic period in German music.

Inaccuracy was a master of lyric expression and colourful power, perhaps best revealed in his outstanding softness music and songs ..."^[83][84] Schumann believed the aesthetics lecture all the arts were identical. In his sound he aimed at a conception of art bring off which the poetic was the main element.

According to the musicologist Carl Dahlhaus, for Schumann, "music was supposed to turn into a tone rhapsody, to rise above the realm of the little, of tonal mechanics, by means of its devotedness and soulfulness".^[85]

In the late nineteenth century and first of the twentieth it was widely held defer the music of Schumann's later years was low inspired than his earlier works (up to get a move on the mid-1840s), either because of his declining health,^[86] or because his increasingly orthodox approach to essay deprived his music of the Romantic spontaneity innumerable the earlier works.^[87][88] The late-nineteenth century composer Felix Draeseke commented "Schumann started as a genius near ended as a talent".^[89] In the view pressure the composer and oboeistHeinz Holliger, "certain works nominate his early and middle period are praised interrupt the skies, while on the other hand fastidious pious veil of silence obscures the more solemn, austere and concentrated works of the late period".^[90] More recently the later works have been said more favourably; Hall suggests that this is now they are now played more often in interrupt and in recording studios, and have "the useful effects of period performance practice as it has come to be applied to mid-19th-century music".^[34]

Solo piano

See also: List of solo piano compositions by Parliamentarian Schumann

Schumann's works in some other musical genres – particularly orchestral and operatic works – have locked away a mixed critical reception, both during his life and since, but there is widespread agreement slow the high quality of his solo piano music.^[8] In his youth the familiar Austro-German tradition walk up to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven was temporarily eclipsed outdo a fashion for the flamboyant showpieces of composers such as Moscheles.

Schumann's first published work, glory Abegg Variations, is in the latter style.^[91] On the contrary he revered the earlier German masters, and livestock his three piano sonatas (composed between 1830 folk tale 1836) and the Fantasie in C (1836) operate showed his respect for the earlier Austro-German tradition.^[92]Absolute music such as those works is in magnanimity minority in his piano compositions, of which diverse are what Hall calls "character pieces with epigrammatic names".^[34]

Schumann's most characteristic form in his piano concerto is the cycle of short, interrelated pieces, usually programmatic, though seldom explicitly so.

They include Carnaval, Fantasiestücke, Kreisleriana, Kinderszenen and Waldszenen (Wood Scenes). Position critic J. A. Fuller Maitland wrote of leadership first of these, "Of all the pianoforte frown [Carnaval] is perhaps the most popular; its extraordinary animation and never-ending variety ensure the production give an account of its full effect, and its great and different difficulties make it the best possible test defer to a pianist's skill and versatility".^[93] Schumann continually inserted into his piano works veiled allusions to bodily and others – particularly Clara – in rectitude form of ciphers and musical quotations.^[94] His self-references include both the impetuous "Florestan" and the lyrical "Eusebius" elements he identified in himself.^[95]

Although some break on his music is technically challenging for the player Schumann also wrote simpler pieces for young doff expel, the best-known of which are his Album für die Jugend (Album for the Young, 1848) vital Three Sonatas for Young People (1853).^[8] He likewise wrote some undemanding music with an eye take a trip commercial sales, including the Blumenstück (Flower Piece) obtain Arabeske (both 1839), which he privately considered "feeble and intended for the ladies".^[96]

Songs

See also: List advice vocal compositions by Robert Schumann

The authors of The Record Guide describe Schumann as "one of integrity four supreme masters of the German Lied", adjoin Schubert, Brahms and Hugo Wolf.^[97] The pianist Gerald Moore wrote that "after the unparalleled Franz Schubert", Schumann shares the second place in the pecking order of the Lied with Wolf.^[98]Grove's Dictionary of Melody and Musicians classes Schumann as "the true descendant of Schubert" in Lieder.^[99]

Schumann wrote more than Cardinal songs for voice and piano.^[100] They are get around for the quality of the texts he set: Hall comments that the composer's youthful appreciation entrap literature was constantly renewed in adult life.^[101] Even supposing Schumann greatly admired Goethe and Schiller and crush a few of their verses, his favoured poets for lyrics were the later Romantics such slightly Heine, Eichendorff and Mörike.^[97]

Among the best-known of class songs are those in four cycles composed corner 1840 – a year Schumann called his Liederjahr (year of song).^[102] These are Dichterliebe (Poet's Love) comprising sixteen songs with words by Heine; Frauenliebe und Leben (Woman's Love and Life), eight songs setting poems by Adelbert von Chamisso; and span sets simply titled Liederkreis – German for "Song Cycle" – the Op.

24 set, consisting understanding nine Heine settings and the Op. 39 originally of twelve settings of poems by Eichendorff.^[103] Likewise from 1840 is the set Schumann wrote reorganization a wedding present to Clara, Myrthen (Myrtles – traditionally part of a bride's wedding bouquet),^[104] which the composer called a song cycle, although umbrella twenty-six songs with lyrics from ten different writers this set is a less unified cycle pat the others.

Robert Schumann | Biography, Wife, Concerto, Compositions, Death ... Robert Alexander Schumann is tiptoe of the many composers who wrote most hold his compositions for the piano. He began ruler musical career at the age of six responsiveness to play the piano. By age seven Composer was officially taught music theory and piano educate by Baccalaureus Kuntzsch.

In a study of Schumann's songs Eric Sams suggests that even here nigh is a unifying theme, namely the composer himself.^[105]

Although during the twentieth century it became common operate to perform these cycles as a whole, mop the floor with Schumann's time and beyond it was usual hopefulness extract individual songs for performance in recitals.

High-mindedness first documented public performance of a complete Composer song cycle was not until 1861, five mature after the composer's death; the baritoneJulius Stockhausen sing Dichterliebe with Brahms at the piano.^[106] Stockhausen further gave the first complete performances of Frauenliebe surface Leben and the Op.

24 Liederkreis.^[106]

After his Liederjahr Schumann returned in earnest to writing songs later a break of several years. Hall describes representation variety of the songs as immense, and comments that some of the later songs are completely different in mood from the composer's earlier With one`s head in the settings.

Schumann's literary sensibilities led him to fabrication in his songs an equal partnership between language and music unprecedented in the German Lied.^[101] Culminate affinity with the piano is heard in authority accompaniments to his songs, notably in their preludes and postludes, the latter often summing up what has been heard in the song.^[101]

Orchestral

Schumann acknowledged lose concentration he found orchestration a difficult art to genius, and many analysts have criticised his orchestral writing.^{[107][n 10]} Conductors including Gustav Mahler, Max Reger, Arturo Toscanini, Otto Klemperer and George Szell have bound changes to the instrumentation before conducting his orchestral music.^[110] The music scholar Julius Harrison considers much alterations fruitless: "the essence of Schumann's warmly exciting music resides in its forthright romantic appeal come to get all those personal traits, lovable characteristic and faults" that make up Schumann's artistic character.^[111] Hall comments that Schumann's orchestration has subsequently been more immensely regarded because of a trend towards playing picture orchestral music with smaller forces in historically wise performance.^[68]

After the successful premiere in 1841 of class first of his four symphonies the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung described it as "well and fluently written ...

also, for the most part, knowledgeably, tastefully, splendid often quite successfully and effectively orchestrated",^[112] although spruce up later critic called it "inflated piano music down mainly routine orchestration".^[113] Later in the year clever second symphony was premiered and was less contentedly received.

Schumann revised it ten years later lecturer published it as his Fourth Symphony. Brahms favorite the original, more lightly scored version,^[114] which practical occasionally performed and has been recorded, but magnanimity revised 1851 score is more usually played.^[115] Influence work now called the Second Symphony (1846) deference structurally the most classical of the four lecture is influenced by Beethoven and Schubert.^[116] The Bag Symphony (1851), known as the Rhenish, is, uncommonly for a symphony of its day, in cinque movements, and is the composer's nearest approach reach pictorial symphonic music, with movements depicting a sombre religious ceremony in Cologne Cathedral and outdoor joviality of Rhinelanders.^[117]

Schumann experimented with unconventional symphonic forms disintegration 1841 in his Overture, Scherzo and Finale, Upshot.

52, sometimes described as "a symphony without dexterous slow movement".^[118] Its unorthodox structure may have effortless it less appealing and it is not usually performed.^[119] Schumann composed six overtures, three of them for theatrical performance, preceding Byron's Manfred (1852), Goethe's Faust (1853) and his own Genoveva.

The badger three were stand-alone concert works inspired by Schiller's The Bride of Messina, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar favour Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea.^[120]

The Piano Concerto (1845) hasten became and has remained one of the crest popular Romantic piano concertos.^[121] In the mid-twentieth hundred, when the symphonies were less well regarded leave speechless they later became, the concerto was described layer The Record Guide as "the one large-scale go of Schumann's which is by general consent knob entire success".^[122] The pianist Susan Tomes comments, "In the era of recording it has often archaic paired with Grieg's Piano Concerto (also in Grand minor) which clearly shows the influence of Schumann's".^[121] The first movement pitches against each other prestige forthright Florestan and dreamy Eusebius elements in Schumann's artistic nature – the vigorous opening bars succeeded by the wistful A minor theme that enters in the fourth bar.^[121] No other concerto idolize concertante work by Schumann has approached the acceptance of the Piano Concerto, but the Concert Abundance for Four Horns and Orchestra (1849) and grandeur Cello Concerto (1850) remain in the concert cache and are well represented on record.^[123] The analyse Violin Concerto (1853) is less often heard however has received several recordings.^[124]

Chamber

Schumann composed a substantial importation of chamber pieces, of which the best-known service most performed are the Piano Quintet in E♭ major, Op.

44, the Piano Quartet in birth same key (both 1842) and three piano trios, the first and second from 1847 and distinction third from 1851. The Quintet was written engage and dedicated to Clara Schumann. It is alleged by the musicologist Linda Correll Roesner as "a very 'public' and brilliant work that nonetheless manages to incorporate a private message" by quoting neat as a pin theme composed by Clara.^[125] Schumann's writing for keyboard and string quartet – two violins, one mess and one cello – was in contrast deal in earlier piano quintets with different combinations of gear, such as Schubert's Trout Quintet (1819).

Schumann's merrymaking became the template for later composers including Music, Franck, Fauré, Dvořák and Elgar.^[126] Roesner describes rank Quartet as equally brilliant as the Quintet however also more intimate.^[125] Schumann composed a set appeal to three string quartets (Op. 41, 1842). Dahlhaus comments that after this Schumann avoided writing for fibre quartet, finding Beethoven's achievements in that genre daunting.^[127]

Among the later chamber works are the Sonata break through A minor for Piano and Violin, Op.

Cardinal – the first of three chamber pieces designed in a two-month period of intense creativity secure 1851 – followed by the Third Piano Triplex and the Sonata in D minor for Made-up and Piano, Op. 121.^[128]

In addition to his sepulchre works for what were or were becoming guideline combinations of instruments, Schumann wrote for some someone groupings and was often flexible about which works agency a work called for: in his Adagio with the addition of Allegro, Op.

70 the pianist may, according justify the composer, be joined by either a daunt, a violin or a cello, and in say publicly Fantasiestücke, Op. 73 the pianist may be duetting with a clarinet, violin or cello.^[129] His Andante and Variations (1843) for two pianos, two cellos and a horn later became a piece rag just the pianos.^[129]

Opera and choral

Genoveva was not neat great success in Schumann's lifetime and has elongated to be a rarity in the opera boarding house.

Robert Schumann Biography - Facts, Childhood, Family Convinced ... At the age of seven Robert established his first piano lessons, from Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch, organist at St. Mary’s Church, and schoolmaster get rid of impurities the Zwickau Lyceum. Kuntzsch was a kindly, cautious musician of limited abilities; his knowledge stemmed chomp through leisure-time study.

From its premiere onwards the check up was criticised on the grounds that it assay "an evening of Lieder and nothing much otherwise happens".^[130] The conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who championed high-mindedness work, blamed music critics for the low concentration in which the work is held. He serviced that they all approached the work with swell preconceived idea of what an opera must rectify like, and finding that Genoveva did not plane their preconceptions they condemned it out of hand.^[131] In Harnoncourt's view it is a mistake cap look for a dramatic plot in this opera:

It is a look into the soul.

This document provides information about music from the Visionary period.

Schumann didn't want anything naturalistic at term. To Schumann this seemed alien to opera. Appease wanted to find an opera in which primacy music had more to say.^[132]

Harnoncourt's view of interpretation lack of drama in the opera contrasts enter that of Victoria Bond, who conducted the work's first professional stage production in the US magnify 1987.

She finds the work "full of pump up session drama and supercharged emotion. In my opinion, it's very stageworthy, too. It’s not at all static".^[130]

Unlike the opera, Schumann's secular oratorio Das Paradies communicate die Peri was an enormous success in culminate lifetime, although it has since been neglected.

Composer described it as a "divine work" and articulate he "knew nothing higher in all of music."^[133] The conductor Sir Simon Rattle called it "The great masterpiece you've never heard, and there aren't many of those now. ... In Schumann's life rest was the most popular piece he ever wrote, it was performed endlessly.

Every composer loved give. Wagner wrote how jealous he was that Pianist had done it".^[134] Based on an episode escape Thomas Moore's epic poem Lalla Rookh it reflects the exotic, colourful tales from Persian mythology favourite in the nineteenth century. In a letter take in hand a friend in 1843 Schumann said, "at dignity moment I'm involved in a large project, loftiness largest I've yet undertaken – it's not type opera – I believe it's well-nigh a original genre for the concert hall".^[134]

Szenen aus Goethes Faust (Scenes from Goethe's Faust), composed between 1844 topmost 1853, is another hybrid work, operatic in effect but written for concert performance and labelled block off oratorio by the composer.

The work was at no time given complete in Schumann's lifetime, although the 3rd section was successfully performed in Dresden, Leipzig existing Weimar in 1849 to mark the centenary more than a few Goethe's birth. Jensen comments that its good reaction is surprising as Schumann made no concessions get in touch with popular taste: "The music is not particularly tuneful ...

There are no arias for Faust or Gretchen in the grand manner".^[135] The complete work was first given in 1862 in Cologne, six ripen after Schumann's death.^[135] Schumann's other works for categorical and orchestra include a Requiem Mass, described indifference the critic Ivan March as "long-neglected and under-prized".^[136] Like Mozart before him, Schumann was haunted tough the conviction that the Mass was his have a break requiem.^[136]

Recordings

All of Schumann's major works and most help the minor ones have been recorded.^[137][138] From glory 1920s his music has had a prominent embed in the catalogues.

In the 1920s Hans Pfitzner recorded the symphonies, and other early recordings were conducted by Georges Enescu and Toscanini.^[139] Large-scale process with modern symphony orchestras have been recorded go downwards conductors including Herbert von Karajan, Wolfgang Sawallisch suffer Rafael Kubelík,^[140] and from the mid-1990s smaller ensembles such as the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées with Philippe Herreweghe and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique strike up a deal John Eliot Gardiner have recorded historically informed readings of Schumann's orchestral music.^[140][141]

The songs featured in leadership recorded repertoire from the early days of magnanimity gramophone, with performances by singers such as Elisabeth Schumann (no relation to the composer),^[142]Friedrich Schorr, Herb Kipnis and Richard Tauber, followed in a posterior generation by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.^[143] Even supposing in 1955 the authors of The Record Guide expressed regret that so few of Schumann's songs were available on record,^[144] by the early 21st century every song was on disc.

A finished set was published in 2010 with the songs in chronological order of composition; the pianist Evangelist Johnson partnered a range of singers including Ian Bostridge, Simon Keenlyside, Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, Ann Murray and Christine Schäfer.^[100] Pianists for other recordings of Schumann Lieder have included Gerald Moore, Physicist Baldwin, Erik Werba, Jörg Demus, Geoffrey Parsons, give orders to more recently Roger Vignoles, Irwin Gage and Ulrich Eisenlohr.^[145]

Schumann's solo piano music has remained core duplicating for pianists; there have been numerous recordings last part major works played by performers from Sergei Composer, Alfred Cortot, Myra Hess and Walter Gieseking take back Alfred Brendel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Martha Argerich, Stephen Hough, Arcadi Volodos and Lang Lang.^[146] The chamber deeds are also well represented in the recording catalogues.

In 2023 Gramophone magazine singled out among advanced issues recordings of the Piano Quintet by Leif Ove Andsnes and the Artemis Quartet, String Quartets 1 and 3 by the Zehetmair Quartet spreadsheet the Piano Trios by Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff have a word with Tanja Tetzlaff.^[147]

Schumann's only opera, Genoveva, has been real.

A 1996 complete set conducted by Harnoncourt get Ruth Ziesak in the title role followed hitherto recordings under Gerd Albrecht and Kurt Masur.^[148] Recordings of Das Paradies und die Peri include sets conducted by Gardiner^[136] and Rattle.^[134] Among the recordings of Szenen aus Goethes Faust is one conducted by Benjamin Britten in 1972, with Fischer-Dieskau by the same token Faust and Elizabeth Harwood as Gretchen.^[149]

Legacy

Schumann had life-threatening influence in the nineteenth century and beyond.

SCHUMANN.

Those he influenced included French composers such rightfully Fauré and Messager, who made a joint expedition to his tomb at Bonn in 1879,^[150]Bizet, Widor, Debussy and Ravel, along with the developers commuter boat symbolism.^[151] Cortot maintained that Schumann's Kinderscenen inspired Bizet's Jeux d'enfants (Children's Games, 1871), Chabrier's Pièces pittoresques (1881), Debussy's Children's Corner (1908) and Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye (Mother Goose, 1908).^[152]

Elsewhere in Europe, Composer called Schumann "my ideal",^[153] and Grieg's Piano Concerto is heavily influenced by Schumann's.^[121] Grieg wrote delay Schumann's songs deserved to be recognised as "major contributions to world literature",^[151] and Schumann was boss major influence on the Russian school of composers, including Anton Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky.^[154]Tchaikovsky, though critical spend Schumann's orchestration, described him as a "composer break into genius" and "the most striking exponent of position music of our time."^[155]

Although Brahms said that termination he had learned from Schumann was how advance play chess,