Robert Schumann

German composer

• Born: June 8, 1810
• Birthplace: Zwickau, Saxony (now in Germany)
• Died: July 29, 1856
• Place of death: Endenich, near Bonn, Prussia (now in Germany)

Schumann was important not only as a composer of music during the Romantic period but also as an editor of Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which did much to establish standards of musical criticism.

Early Life

Robert Alexander Schumann (SHEW-mahn) was the youngest of five children—four sons and one daughter—of a publisher of scholarly books; his mother was the daughter of a surgeon. His father’s publishing business was sufficiently prosperous for his parents to enroll him in a private preparatory school for his early education. Already, at his father’s instigation, he was studying the piano, the instrument that would remain his favorite throughout his life. After the preparatory school, Schumann attended the Zwickau Lyceum, where he studied the classics as well as the piano. Literature and music, then, were both strong interests of the young Schumann and remained so throughout his life.

At the lyceum, Schumann played the piano in concerts, read widely in classical Greek and Roman authors, and studied such German writers as Friedrich von Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He even wrote some poetry, although when he attempted to recite from memory one of his poems before the student body, his mind went blank, and he stood in silent embarrassment on the stage. This incident may have contributed significantly to Schumann’s aversion to public speaking throughout his life.

Schumann spent his formative years if not in affluence at least at a comfortable material level. In 1826, however, tragedy struck when his elder sister Emilie, who was afflicted with typhus fever and a terrible skin disease, committed suicide. August Schumann was crushed by this event and himself died a few weeks later. Schumann, too, was deeply affected by his sister’s death and from that time forward could never bring himself to attend a funeral, not even his mother’s. Schumann’s mother, Johanna, and Gottlob Rudel, the guardian appointed to look after Robert’s share of August’s estate, agreed that the boy should pursue a legal career. With no one to support his own desires, Schumann acquiesced, although he knew that he would never lose his love of music. In an 1828 letter to a friend describing his feelings upon leaving the lyceum, he wrote, “Now the true inner man must come forward and show who he is.”

Enrolling first at the University of Leipzig, Schumann found the study of law even more boring than he had feared. Influenced by a friend at Heidelberg, who wrote of the exciting university life there, Schumann persuaded his mother and Rudel that he should go to Heidelberg to continue his study. He was, however, anything but the model student, spending his time in taverns and restaurants instead of in the pursuit of his legal studies. He also spent much time with Anton Thibaut, a law professor much interested in music. Schumann spent many hours at Thibaut’s home, making and enjoying music.

On July 30, 1830, Schumann wrote what he called the most important letter in his life: one to his mother, pleading that he be permitted to give up his legal studies and journey to Leipzig to study piano with Friedrich Wieck, who promised to turn the young Schumann into a great pianist. Johanna Schumann agreed, and at the age of twenty Robert Schumann began his musical career.

Life’s Work

Schumann had met Wieck in Leipzig. A kind of self-made man, the latter’s early life was the opposite of Schumann’s. Poor, and often forced to rely on charity for food and for money to cover his education, he developed into an autocrat with a violent temper. Following his own system of instruction, he set himself up as a piano teacher. He saw the clear relationship between playing the piano and singing and trained his students to strive for a “singing touch” at the keyboard. His prize student was his own daughter Clara. Viewing her almost as an extension of himself, Wieck carefully molded and developed her talent to a level that made her something of a sensation across Europe. In 1832, when Schumann came to study with Wieck, Clara was thirteen years old. The relationship between them grew over the next several years from one of elder brother and younger sister to one of love.

On one occasion, when Wieck had taken Clara on a performing tour, Schumann, perhaps in an effort to find a technique to help him catch up with the talented Clara, fashioned a sling of sorts to keep one finger out of the way while the others were being exercised. Exactly what happened to his hand is not clear. Schumann himself only said that it was lamed. Some scholars suggest that no injury actually occurred and that Schumann may have suffered motor damage from an overdose of mercury, a substance then widely prescribed for syphilis. Whatever the cause, the effect was devastating to the young pianist. He tried numerous cures to no avail.

When Wieck discovered that the relationship between Schumann and Clara was becoming more than simply friendship, he flew into a rage, vowing that his daughter was destined to be a concert pianist, not a hausfrau. Love, however, was not to be daunted, and the two young people applied to the courts for permission to marry. The wedding took place on September 12, 1840, and the couple settled in Leipzig, an important musical center of the time.

An ardent admirer of Franz Schubert’s piano music, Schumann, up to the time of his marriage, had written only for the piano. In 1840, however, he turned his creative efforts to Lieder (art songs), many of which were in celebration of his love for Clara. These Lieder show clearly Schumann’s attention to form and reflect the same power of emotion and flow of melody as do Schubert’s, although the harmonics are more complex. Schumann probably realized that such art songs gave him the opportunity to blend his feeling for poetry and his genius for melody. In these songs, as one might expect, the piano has a more significant role than it does in those of other composers of Lieder.

Schumann’s gift with words was evidenced also in his editorship of Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (new journal for music), a magazine that served as an outlet for the writings of young Romantic musicians in Germany. Indeed, when Schumann first met Felix Mendelssohn in 1835, he was more noted for his work with this magazine than for his music, a situation that led Mendelssohn to see him first as a kind of dilettante. Schumann, on the other hand, had only the highest regard for Mendelssohn as a composer.

If 1840 could be called Schumann’s year of songs, the next year could certainly be called the year of symphonies. Although he had flirted earlier with the idea of a symphony, he had never completed one. In 1841, he completed two. The First Symphony, whose initial idea came to Schumann from a poem about spring by Adolf Böttger, was completed in the remarkably short period of one month. Called the Spring Symphony , it is buoyant and fresh in its mood and is marked by a driving rhythmic energy. The Symphony in D Minor was also written in 1841, although it was not published until ten years later and is referred to as the Fourth Symphony. It was performed once in 1841, but because of the cold reception it received, Schumann withdrew it and put it aside until 1851, when he revised it. Schumann left no word as to what meaning lay behind the music of this symphony. It was no doubt Schumann’s intention, according to Brian Schlotel, that it be received as absolute music.

Schumann spent the year 1842 working primarily on string quartets, three of which he dedicated to Mendelssohn. This same year, he accompanied Clara on a concert tour to Hamburg. Although her marriage no doubt limited her career as a concert pianist, Clara was ever ready to play her husband’s compositions and to interpret them faithfully to her audiences. It was in a sense a perfect combination—Schumann’s talent as a composer complemented by his wife’s talent as a pianist.

In 1843, Schumann turned his efforts toward composing choral works, the most important of which was “Paradise and the Peri,” a work for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. Schumann conducted it himself December 4, 1843. Encouraged by the reception of this work, he composed a musical setting for Goethe’s Faust (1790-1831). Also at about this time, Schumann suffered a second physical breakdown, the first, less serious, having occurred in 1842. This second breakdown was marked by constant trembling, a number of phobias, and auricular delusions, and it made serious work impossible. Hoping that a total change of scene would be helpful, the Schumanns moved to Dresden.

While at Dresden, Schumann completed the Piano Concerto in A Minor (1845), the famous C Major Symphony (1846), and his only opera, Genoveva (1848). The latter was an unsuccessful attempt to emulate Richard Wagner’s German operas. In addition to composing, Schumann directed the Liedertafel, a male choral society. Neither of the Schumanns was particularly happy with the music scene in Dresden, and when the opportunity to become municipal director of music at Düsseldorf arrived, Schumann accepted. However, Schumann did not exhibit the same level of talent in conducting as he did in composing, and he was encouraged in 1852 to resign. After some argument, he finally left in 1853.

In 1850, Schumann completed his Symphony No. 3, the Rhenish , and also his Concerto for Cello and Orchestra. In the former, Schumann attempted to put into music his feelings about the Rhine, a river rich in scenery and legend. The full score of the symphony was completed in somewhat more than one month, and Schumann himself conducted it in Düsseldorf on February 6, 1851. Although his artistic talents and creative powers are apparent in this symphony, time for Schumann was running out. Within three years, in a period of utter depression, he attempted suicide by jumping into the river that had stimulated his imagination to compose the Rhenish. Although the suicide attempt was thwarted by some fishermen, death came soon enough. Schumann’s last years were spent at Endenich, a hospital for the insane. With his limbs in terrible convulsions and with the sounds of music filling his head, Schumann died on July 29, 1856.

Significance

Along with Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, and Anton Bruckner, Robert Schumann composed works that reflect the artistic energies of the Romantic movement in music. Schumann was also instrumental in developing critical standards for music. His periodical Neue Zeitschrift für Musik served as an outlet for musical criticism and as a support for struggling composers of the time, including Chopin and Brahms.

Schumann’s music itself reflects clearly the strong emotions and individualistic values of the Romantic period. Focusing early in his career on miniature pieces, Schumann exemplified the desire of Romantic composers to communicate directly and intensely with the listener. The year 1840 may be called Schumann’s year of songs, many of which were inspired by his wife, Clara. These beautiful flowing melodies testify to Schumann’s love of poetry and his desire to meld the literary with the musical.

Alternating periods of intense creative productivity with periods of deep depression, Schumann moved from miniatures and songs to larger works—symphonies, choral works, chamber music, piano concerti, and an opera. His four symphonies are generally considered the most significant contributions to that genre since Ludwig van Beethoven’s works. Although sometimes criticized for their somewhat heavy and unimaginative orchestrations, Schumann’s symphonies show his desire to experiment with both themes and form.

In his chamber music, Schumann made great use of the piano, sometimes to the consternation of some musicologists. Nevertheless, as John Gardner and others have pointed out, Schumann’s influence ranged widely among his contemporaries and successors in that genre. After the piano took over from the harpsichord during the late eighteenth century, the door was open for Schumann to give the former its deserved place in chamber music.

Except for the Piano Concerto in A Minor, some musicologists view Schumann’s concerti as representing a falling off of his creativity. Others argue, however, that Schumann, like other composers of the period, faced the challenge of “getting out from under” Beethoven and that his concerti are justified efforts in new directions of form and theme. He saw the concerto as a great art form, one that was to be treated not casually but nobly—but one that had to evolve if it were to remain vital.

Schumann completed his first symphony at the age of thirty, after having heard Schubert’s Symphony in C Major in 1839. Certainly influenced by Beethoven’s work in the symphony, Schumann nevertheless sought new forms in his own symphonies. Not generally considered a giant of symphonic composition, Schumann must still be viewed as having considerable importance in symphonic history. The same may be said for his choral music. Often neglected, this music came late in Schumann’s life, when his mental problems increasingly interfered with his creative powers. Nevertheless, as Louis Halsey has argued, much of this music is of high quality. A man of restless personality and strong creative spirit, Schumann has been called the typical Romantic. Not a revolutionary to the same degree as Beethoven, he nevertheless made a significant contribution to music of the Romantic period.

Bibliography

Bedford, Herbert. Robert Schumann: His Life and Work. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925. A readable biography that traces Schumann’s career. Focuses on the cities in which Schumann lived and worked. Somewhat dated.

Brion, Marcel. Schumann and the Romantic Age. Translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury. New York: Macmillan, 1956. Places Schumann in the German Romantic tradition and examines his work against the background that influenced him. A good basic book on the composer.

Daverio, John. Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Comprehensive biography depicting Schumann as a tragic figure who experienced periods of creativity followed by bouts of depression. Daverio connects Schumann’s music to the events of his life and his passion for literature.

Jensen, Eric Frederick. Schumann. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Examination of Schumann’s life and music, based in part on newly published journals and letters. The book alternates biographical chapters with chapters analyzing Schumann’s music, describing how his life influenced his compositions.

Niecks, Frederick. Robert Schumann. London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1925. A standard biography that presents a meticulous and exhaustive record of Schumann as a man and as a composer.

Ostwald, Peter. Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985. Written by a psychiatrist, this is a fascinating study of the degenerative forces that brought Schumann to his death in a mental hospital. Relates Schumann’s music to his states of mind.

Schumann, Robert. The Musical World of Robert Schumann. Edited and translated by Henry Pleasants. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965. Presents a chronological arrangement of Schumann’s own writings on various composers of his time. A good view of Schumann the critic. Good for insights into various composers and their music.

Walker, Alan, ed. Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1972. A study of Schumann through thirteen essays by music scholars. Covers Schumann’s background as well as the various kinds of music he composed.