Robert Schumann, Tone-Poet, Prophet and Critic

The first of the Schumann children, Marie and Elise, were born in 1841 and 1843, respectively. The succeeding ones were Julie, Emil, Ludwig, Ferdinand, Eugenie and Felix. Alone, Marie and Eugenie lived to what one can call a ripe old age. The hereditary Schumann illness passed on to another generation.

* * *

Dresden promised to be a pleasant home for the Schumanns and their growing family. The town was a center of art and literature. Painters, sculptors, architects, writers, musicians assembled there, lured by an art-loving Court. Among the prominent musical figures of the town were Ferdinand Hiller, Karl Gottlieb Reissiger and Richard Wagner. Reissiger was, of course, a mediocrity of the sorriest kind. Hiller, on the other hand, was a pupil of Hummel and a friend of Berlioz, Liszt and Mendelssohn and the Schumanns were thoroughly at home in his company. Wagner was a horse of another color! It is everlastingly to be regretted that temperamental differences kept him and Schumann from amalgamating, for their liberal artistic slants and their incorruptible idealism should have made them fellow fighters in the cause of musical progress. Unfortunately the pair seemed almost to bristle at each other’s approach. Had Wagner matured in his art as early as Schumann in his, or could they have known one another in the fine frenzy of Schumann’s early Davidsbündler days the story might have been of an inspiring artistic relationship.

Wagner had been a contributor to Schumann’s Zeitschrift and had entertained a flattering idea of some of Robert’s earlier music. Rightly enough, he noted in it “much ferment but also much originality”. He continued to like “Paradise and the Peri” and the Piano Quintet and, afterwards, during his Swiss exile, he went so far as to entreat Clara to play at one of her Zurich concerts the “Symphonic Studies”. But thrown frequently together in Dresden the two repelled rather than attracted each other. Wagner, who talked incessantly, complained that one could get nowhere with a person who refused to open his mouth; Schumann, that one could not possibly exchange ideas with a man who never allowed one the opportunity to say a word. Moreover, Wagner’s far-darting and flamboyant ideas were unintelligible to poor Schumann and even frightened him. And so the two seemed everlastingly at cross purposes.

Wagner gave Schumann a score of his “Tannhäuser” as soon as it appeared in a lithographed form. Writing to Mendelssohn Robert repudiated the music as weak, forced, amateurish, deficient in melody and wanting in form. Not long afterwards he went to hear the work and took back much of what he had said, declaring that the impression created by a stage performance was very different and that, though the score did not radiate the “pure sunlight of genius” the opera, nevertheless, exercised on the hearer “a mysterious magic which held one captive”. He had been deeply moved by much of it; and he praised the technical effects and above all the instrumentation (a thing for which Schumann himself had always been reproved). Yet in another missive he declared that Wagner could not write four consecutive bars of “correct” music, that he was, all in all, a “bad musician”. From the viewpoint of his own art Robert was to a certain degree logical in his claims. But his prophetic vision and artist’s conscience refused to let him reject the work outright. Nor should we judge him too severely for his conclusions. After “Tannhäuser” he never heard a note of Wagner’s music. However he might have reacted to “Tristan” it is hardly possible that Schumann could have brought himself to dismiss Wagner as a “bad musician” if he had been spared to hear “Die Meistersinger”!

Schumann was present when Wagner read one evening to an assemblage of acquaintances his “Lohengrin” libretto. Like a number of other listeners he could not grasp just what method Wagner could employ in setting such a text to music. Furthermore he was upset that another had beat him to the subject of the swan knight, which he had half a mind to utilize for an opera himself.

* * *

Ill health pursued Schumann more and more implacably during the six odd years of his Dresden sojourn. He had moments when things seemed to brighten. At other times the slightest mental effort produced sleepless nights, auricular delusions, new and terrifying symptoms which came to haunt him as others disappeared. He was morbid, irritable, had visions of “dark demons” and was assailed by “melancholy bats”.

Music sometimes helped and sometimes hindered. Nevertheless the Dresden period saw the creation of some of his greatest works—the completion in 1845, of the A minor Piano Concerto, by the addition of the Intermezzo and the Finale to the Phantasie written in 1841; the magnificent C major Symphony, with its melting Adagio, its breathless scherzo, its resplendent finale; the “Scenes from Faust”, the Overture and incidental music to Byron’s “Manfred” and the opera, “Genoveva”.

Limitations of space forbid us to consider in any detail works like the Piano Concerto, the C major Symphony and the rugged “Manfred” Overture—so different in its sombre, moody character from the romantic effusions of Schumann’s earlier day. But the opera, “Genoveva” though branded a failure contains superb music, beginning with the overture which, in its different fashion, ranks with the one to “Manfred”. The prayer of the fated Genoveva in the last act is a long scena comparing in its far-flung lyric line with the noblest vocal pieces Schumann ever wrote.

* * *

Clara cared tenderly for her ailing husband and left nothing undone to comfort him. She would use all her culinary skill to make it certain that his meals would be bright spots in his often troubled days. A friend who met her returning from market in one instance inquired what she was carrying in a strange-looking packing. “Something to tempt my poor husband’s appetite—mixed pickles”, she answered. They had friends in a certain Major Serre and his wife who had a country estate at a place called Maxen, near Dresden, and she took Robert there from time to time to benefit by the pleasant country surroundings. But his stay in Maxen was spoiled by the view from one of the windows of a lunatic asylum nearby. And as the years passed and his condition deteriorated the sight of an asylum brought his melancholy to an almost intolerable stage.

It was to Maxen that Clara brought him and her children when, during the revolutionary uprising in May, 1849, they found it necessary to flee from Dresden till order was restored. Pretending to take her husband for a walk she picked her way at sundown through the fields and hills surrounding the city and reached the Serre estate in the small hours of the morning, terrified by the armed mobs they continually met and the sounds of shooting in the distance. Then, without waiting to rest or refresh herself, Clara had to set out for Dresden once more to bring the children to a place of safety. Back in Maxen she restrained her feelings with difficulty when she was met by contemptuous allusions from her aristocratic hosts to “canaille” and “rabble”. “How men have to fight for a little freedom!” she confided in her diary. “When will the time come when all men will have equal justice? How is it possible that the belief can so long have been rooted among the nobles that they are of a different species from the bourgeois?”

In the fall of 1849 Schumann received a letter from Ferdinand Hiller, on the point of leaving Düsseldorf, inquiring whether he would be disposed to succeed him as Musical Director in that Rhenish town. The salary was good, the duties heavy but stimulating. Schumann reflected that Dresden had never shown itself in the least inclined to give the illustrious artist couple within its gates the faintest official recognition. Hiller’s offer seemed promising. Robert started to look up information about Düsseldorf. In an old geography book he found that the town’s attractions included “three convents and a lunatic asylum”. Nevertheless, they decided in its favor.

They took a cool farewell from Dresden and arrived in Düsseldorf on Sept. 2, 1850. They were greeted with extreme cordiality, wined and dined, serenaded and threatened with the exhausting honors of dances, picnics and excursions. Until they could find a suitable house and garden they were lodged in the best (and most expensive!) hotel. The Music Committee turned itself inside out to make life pleasant for its new conductor and his illustrious artist-wife. Robert was forty, seemingly in the prime of life but actually past his best creative period, and glad that an apparently desirable opportunity was opening up to him at last.

* * *

Tragic deception! Whether or not Schumann realized it from the first, the Düsseldorf period was the beginning of the end. It quickly became obvious that Robert had no ability whatever as a conductor, none of the dominating qualities to impose his wishes on orchestras or choral masses. He could think of no better methods of correcting a defect of execution than to ask his players or singers to repeat a passage over and over, without ever making plain to them what he wanted. The performers became listless, inattentive or downright rebellious. Things grew progressively worse and the decline of musical standards in Düsseldorf became town talk. The worry and physical strain involved told sorely in Schumann’s afflicted nervous constitution. He developed an embarrassing habit of dropping his baton at rehearsals, till he hit on the scheme of fastening it to his wrist with a piece of string! “There, now it can’t fall again!”, he sheepishly told a friend who gazed at his arm in questioning wonder. His mental ailment bit by bit robbed him of the alertness, concentration, presence of mind, “even the ability to speak audibly”. Clara, unable apparently to recognize the truth, suspected intrigues on every hand. Her blood “boiled” over the “disrespectful behaviour of some of the choir” at a rehearsal of the “St. Matthew Passion” and she developed a particular enmity against the well-meaning if uninspired conductor, Julius Tausch, who gradually took over some of Schumann’s most taxing labors.

Robert’s taciturnity had been growing on him for years but it finally took utterly fantastic forms. We are told that in Düsseldorf he could not say: “Ladies and gentlemen, our next rehearsal will be tomorrow at seven”, without breaking down once or twice. In another case a certain Carl Witting was commissioned to visit Schumann in order to settle a debated point about the tempi in the “Manfred” Overture. After putting his question to the composer who was smoking a cigar (Robert had been an inveterate smoker from his youth) he received for all answer only the query: “Do you smoke?” Witting said he did and waited respectfully. Schumann neither offered a cigar nor gave a reply. Two more inquiries brought only another “Do you smoke?” The persistent silence finally impelled Witting to take his leave, thinking one knows not what. Still another idiosyncrasy of Robert’s later days was to frequent a restaurant, order a glass of wine or beer and leave without attempting to pay. The proprietor was not disturbed, but simply gave Schumann what amounted to a charge account and sent the bills to Clara.

One of the first excursions Robert and Clara took after their arrival in Düsseldorf was to Cologne. Schumann was charmed by the surrounding countryside and deeply impressed by an ecclesiastical ceremony he witnessed in the Cologne Cathedral. The visit provided the inspiration for the Symphony in E flat, the so-called “Rhenish”, published as the third, actually the fourth in date of composition (if we except the 1851 revision of the earlier D minor). The resplendent work has a freshness and a youthful ardor which seem to belie the composer’s encroaching mental impairment. The climax of the symphony is its monumentally conceived fourth movement in which Schumann strove to picture the solemnity he had witnessed in that stately fane. The other movements abound in those shifted accents and other rhythmic surprises which were always a hallmark of the composer’s style.

One marvels at the quantity if not always at the quality of Schumann’s Düsseldorf compositions. These include overtures to Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Goethe’s “Hermann und Dorothea” and Schiller’s “Braut von Messina”; the “Pilgrimage of the Rose”, the “Peri”; a fine Cello Concerto in A minor, and a violin concerto in D minor, written for Joseph Joachim, but secreted for years in the Berlin State Library and, though once tried out by Joachim, never played or published till recent years on the plea that it might by its weakness diminish Schumann’s reputation. As a matter of fact the concerto, which is typical late Schumann, seems to have been much too severely judged by Joachim and even Clara herself.

* * *

The impossible situation in Düsseldorf could not continue. At first the Schumanns resolved to leave and settle down in Vienna. But that scheme proved impractical. The sorry conductorship came to its inevitable end. The Schumanns, much relieved, set out on a tour of Holland which had triumphal results for Clara. Back in Düsseldorf, though no longer in an official capacity, Robert on Sept. 30, 1853, was handed a card inscribed “Herr Brahms from Hamburg”. Next day he scribbled in a diary: “Visit from Brahms (a genius)”. And there began one of the most touching friendships in musical history, one that long survived the mortal Schumann and continued for the duration of Clara’s years on earth.

To Joseph Joachim, who had armed the twenty year old North German with the introduction he presented, Robert instantly wrote “in prophetic style” the words: “This is he who should come”. And only a few days later, another concerning “Johannes the true Apostle—the young eagle that has flown so suddenly and unexpectedly from the hills to Düsseldorf....” Then snatching his long unused editorial pen he began that famous essay, “New Paths”, published on Oct. 28, 1853, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and which definitely started Brahms on the path of glory leading to deathlessness.

Brahms, Joachim, Albert Dietrich, J. O. Grimm—these perhaps more than any others were the men whose friendship was the chief solace of Schumann in his now rapid decline. He still took his walks with Clara and the children. With his lips pursed as if whistling and his hands clasped behind him he was a familiar figure as he wandered in a kind of abstraction through the parks of Düsseldorf. New and alarming symptoms steadily manifested themselves. In 1854 he had “marked and painful auditory sensations”, including a maddening affliction that took the shape of hearing melodies in two conflicting keys at once. His speech was heavier and his demeanor grew more and more apathetic. With increasing hallucinations he developed a morbid enthusiasm for spiritism and table rappings. He had dreams in which the spirits of Schubert and Mendelssohn dictated musical themes to him; or else he heard angelic voices which presently changed to the howling of demons threatening him with torments. On Feb. 26, 1854, he rose in a state of terrible melancholy, begged to be sent to an asylum and began to pack up the things he wished to take with him. Clara, wishing to speak to their friend and physician, Dr. Hasenclever, left the room for a moment. Suddenly Schumann opened his bedroom door and—vanished! A few minutes later he was brought back, dripping with water. Half clad, he had gone out, thrown himself into the Rhine but was saved from drowning by some fishermen who had seen the suicidal leap. On March 4 he was taken at his own wish to the private asylum of Dr. Richarz at Endenich, near Bonn. He left in a carriage accompanied by two doctors. Clara, from whom he took only a perfunctory leave, stayed behind, crushed. Someone had handed Schumann flowers as he drove away. He gave a few of them to Dr. Hasenclever, who afterwards took them to Clara. For a while his condition seemed to improve. He worked now and then at his music, composed a few variations on the theme he claimed to have received from the spirit of Schubert and wrote a piano accompaniment for some of the Paganini Capriccios. But by 1855 all hope was abandoned and in 1856 Clara, on a concert tour in England, was informed that Robert was “irretrievably lost”. Soon a telegram summoned her to Endenich “if she still wanted to see her husband alive”. With Brahms, who for nearly two years had watched over Robert and the sorely tried Clara with unexampled devotion, she went to the sanatorium, saw Robert and believed that, though he seemed to converse with spirits, he recognized and welcomed her after the long separation. On July 29, 1856, he was, in Clara’s words “to be freed from his troubles; at four in the afternoon he passed gently away. His last hours were peaceful and so he passed in sleep, unnoticed—nobody was with him at the moment. I saw him half an hour later. Joachim had come from Heidelberg on receiving our telegram....”

* * *

Two days afterwards Schumann was laid to rest in the lovely Old Cemetery at Bonn. Members of the Düsseldorf “Concordia”, which had serenaded the Schumanns on their arrival from Dresden six years earlier, were the pallbearers. Hiller, Joachim and Brahms walked in front, Clara, alone and unobserved, far behind—“certainly as he would have wished”. Forty years later, on Whit-Sunday, 1896, she was reunited with him in the same tomb, in the presence of her surviving children and a few friends, chief of these the faithful Brahms, himself barely a year from his end.

COMPLETE LIST OF RECORDINGS
by
THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK

COLUMBIA RECORDS

Under the Direction of Bruno Walter

Barber—Symphony No. 1

Beethoven—Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (“Emperor”) (with Rudolf Serkin, piano)

Beethoven—Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (“Eroica”)

Beethoven—Symphony No. 5 in C minor

Beethoven—Symphony No. 8 in F major

Beethoven—Violin Concerto in D major (with Joseph Szigeti)

Brahms—Song of Destiny (with Westminster Choir)

Dvorak—Slavonic Dance No. 1

Mahler—Symphony No. 4 in G major (with Desi Halban, soprano)

Mahler—Symphony No. 5 in C minor

Mendelssohn—Concerto in E minor (with Nathan Milstein, violin)

Mendelssohn—Midsummer Night’s Dream—Scherzo (with Nathan Milstein, violin)

Mozart—Cosi fan Tutti—Overture

Mozart—Symphony No. 41 in C major (“Jupiter”), K. 551

Schubert—Symphony No. 9 in C major

Schumann, R.—Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (“Rhenish”)

Smetana—The Moldau (“Vltava”)

Strauss, J.—Emperor Waltz

Under the Direction of Artur Rodzinski

Bizet—Carmen—Entr’acte (Prelude to Act III)

Bizet—Symphony in C major

Brahms—Symphony No. 1 in C minor

Brahms—Symphony No. 2 in D major

Copland—A Lincoln Portrait (with Kenneth Spencer, Narrator)

Gershwin—American in Paris

Ibert—“Escales” (Ports of Call)

Liszt—Mephisto Waltz

Moussorgsky—Gopak (The Fair at Sorotchinski)

Moussorgsky-Ravel—Pictures at an Exhibition

Prokofieff—Symphony No. 5

Rachmaninoff—Concerto No. 2 in C minor (with Gyorgy Sandor, piano)

Rachmaninoff—Symphony No. 2 in C minor (with Robert Casadesus, piano)

Saint-Saens—Concerto No. 4 in C minor (Robert Casadesus, piano)

Sibelius—Symphony No. 4 in A minor

Tschaikowsky—Nutcracker Suite

Tschaikowsky—Suite “Mozartiana”

Tschaikowsky—Symphony No. 6 in B minor (“Pathetique”)

Wagner—Lohengrin—Bridal Chamber Scene (Act III, Scene 2) (with Helen Traubel, soprano and Kurt Baum, tenor)

Wagner—Lohengrin—Elsa’s Dream (Act I, Scene 2) (with Helen Traubel, soprano)

Wagner—Siegfried Idyll

Wagner—Tristan und Isolde—Excerpts (with Helen Traubel, soprano)

Wagner—Die Walkure—Act III (Complete) (with Helen Traubel, soprano and Herbert Janssen, baritone)

Wagner—Die Walkure—Duet (Act I, Scene 3) (with Helen Traubel, soprano and Emery Darcy, tenor)

Wolf-Ferrari—“Secret of Suzanne”, Overture

Under the Direction of Efrem Kurtz

Herold—Zampa—Overture

Khatchaturian—Gayne—Ballet Suite Dances

Khatchaturian—Ballet Suite No. 2

Shostakovich—Symphony No. 9

Wieniawski—Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor (with Isaac Stern, violin)

Under the Direction of Darius Milhaud

Milhaud—Suite Francaise

Under the Direction of Leopold Stokowski

Khatchaturian—“Masquerade Suite”

Under the Direction of Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky—Firebird Suite

Stravinsky—Fireworks (Feu d’Artifice)

Stravinsky—Four Norwegian Moods

Stravinsky—Le Sacre du Printemps (The Consecration of the Spring)

Stravinsky—Scenes de Ballet

Stravinsky—Suite from “Petrouchka”

Stravinsky—Symphony in Three Movements

Under the Direction of John Barbirolli

Bach-Barbirolli—Sheep May Safely Graze (from the “Birthday Cantata”)

Berlioz—Roman Carnival Overture

Brahms—Symphony No. 2, in D major

Brahms—Academic Festival Overture

Bruch—Concerto No. 1, in G minor (with Nathan Milstein, violin)

Debussy—First Rhapsody for Clarinet (with Benny Goodman, clarinet)

Debussy—Petite Suite: Ballet

Mozart—Concerto in B-flat major (with Robert Casadesus, piano)

Mozart—Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183

Ravel—La Valse

Rimsky-Korsakov—Capriccio Espagnol

Sibelius—Symphony No. 1, in E minor

Sibelius—Symphony No. 2, in D major

Smetana—The Bartered Bride—Overture

Tschaikowsky—Theme and Variations (from Suite No. 3 in G)

Under the Direction of Sir Thomas Beecham

Mendelssohn—Symphony No. 4, in A major (“Italian”)

Sibelius—Melisande (from “Pelleas and Melisande”)

Sibelius—Symphony No. 7, in C major

Tschaikowsky—Capriccio Italien

Under the Direction of Andre Kostelanetz

Gershwin—Concerto in F (with Oscar Levant, piano)

VICTOR RECORDS

Under the Direction of Arturo Toscanini

Beethoven—Symphony No. 7, in A major

Brahms—Variations on a Theme by Haydn

Dukas—The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Gluck—Orfeo ed Euridice—Dance of the Spirits

Haydn—Symphony No. 4, in D major (The Clock)

Mendelssohn—Midsummer Night’s Dream—Scherzo

Mozart—Symphony in D major (K. 385)

Rossini—Barber of Seville—Overture

Rossini—Italians in Algiers—Overture

Rossini—Semiramide—Overture

Verdi—Traviata—Preludes to Acts I and III

Wagner—Excerpts—Lohengrin—Die Götterdämmerung—Siegfried Idyll

Under the Direction of John Barbirolli

Debussy—Iberia (Images, Set 3, No. 2)

Purcell—Suite for Strings with four Horns, Two Flutes, English Horn

Respighi—Fountains of Rome

Respighi—Old Dances and Airs (Special recording for members of the Philharmonic-Symphony League of New York)

Schubert—Symphony No. 4, in C minor (Tragic)

Schumann—Concerto in D minor (with Yehudi Menuhin, violin)

Tschaikowsky—Francesca da Rimini—Fantasia

Under the Direction of Willem Mengelberg

J. C. Bach—Arr. Stein—Sinfonia in B-flat major

J. S. Bach—Arr. Mahler—Air for G string (from Suite for Orchestra)

Beethoven—Egmont Overture

Handel—Alcina Suite

Mendelssohn—War March of the Priests (from Athalia)

Meyerbeer—Prophete—Coronation March

Saint-Saens—Rouet d’Omphale (Omphale’s Spinning Wheel)

Schelling—Victory Ball

Wagner—Flying Dutchman—Overture

Wagner—Siegfried—Forest Murmurs (Waldweben)

Special Booklets published for
RADIO MEMBERS
of
THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK

POCKET-MANUAL of Musical Terms, Edited by Dr. Th. Baker (G. Schirmer’s)

BEETHOVEN and his Nine Symphonies by Pitts Sanborn

BRAHMS and some of his Works by Pitts Sanborn

MOZART and some Masterpieces by Herbert F. Peyser

WAGNER and his Music-Dramas by Robert Bagar

TSCHAIKOWSKY and his Orchestral Music by Louis Biancolli

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH and a few of his major works by Herbert F. Peyser

SCHUBERT and his work by Herbert F. Peyser

MENDELSSOHN and certain MASTERWORKS by Herbert F. Peyser

These booklets are available to Radio Members at 25c each while the limited supply lasts.

During its 18th consecutive year on the CBS network, the regular Sunday afternoon broadcast series of the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra again proved to be an “unforgettable demonstration of the power of music in a democracy.” These broadcasts represent the oldest continuous series of serious music in American radio.

Much of the immortal music performed by world-famous artists on these broadcasts may he permanently preserved in the brilliant recordings available on Columbia Masterworks Records. Among the various works of Schumann included in the Columbia Masterworks Catalog are:

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 97 (“Rhenish”). Bruno Walter conducting the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. Set MM-464

Dichterliebe. Lotte Lehmann, soprano, with Bruno Walter, piano. Set MM-486

Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44. Rudolf Serkin, piano, with the Busch Quartet. Set MM-533

Scenes of Childhood, Op. 15. Maryla Jonas, piano. Set MX-290

Kreisleriana, Op. 16 (Eight Fantasies). Arabesque in C Major, Op. 18, Claudio Arrau, piano. Set MM-716

Transcriber’s Notes

• A few palpable typos were silently corrected.
• Illustrations were shifted to the nearest paragraph break.
• Copyright notice is from the printed exemplar. (U.S. copyright was not renewed: this ebook is in the public domain.)