ROBERT SCHUMANN, the loving critic, admirer, and disciple of Schubert
in the province of song, was in most respects a man of far different
type. The son of a man of wealth and position, his mind and tastes
were cultivated from early youth with the utmost care. Schumann is
known in Germany no less as a philosophical thinker and critic than as
a composer. As the editor of the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, he
exercised a powerful influence over contemporary thought in
art-matters, and established himself both as a keen and incisive
thinker and as a master of literary style. Schumann was at first
intended for the law, but his unconquerable taste for music asserted
itself in spite of family opposition. His acquaintance with the
celebrated teacher, Wieck, whose gifted daughter, Clara, afterwards
became his wife, finally established his career; for it was through
Wieck's advice that the Schumann family yielded their opposition to
the young man's bent.
Once settled in his new career, Schumann gave himself up to work with
the most indefatigable ardour. The early part of the present century
was a halcyon time for the _virtuosi_, and the fame and wealth that
poured themselves on such players as Paganini and Liszt made such a
pursuit tempting in the extreme. Fortunately, the young musician was
saved from such a career. In his zeal of practice and desire to attain
a perfectly independent action for each finger on the piano, Schumann
devised some machinery, the result of which was to weaken the sinews
of his third finger by undue distension. By this he lost the effective
use of the whole right hand, and of course his career as a _virtuoso_
practically closed.
Music gained in its higher walks what it lost in a lower. Schumann
devoted himself to composition and æsthetic criticism, after he had
passed through a thorough course of preparatory studies. Both as a
writer and a composer Schumann fought against Philistinism in music.
Ardent, progressive, and imaginative, he soon became the leader of the
romantic school, and inaugurated the crusade which had its parallel in
France in that carried on by Victor Hugo in the domain of poetry. His
early pianoforte compositions bear the strong impress of this fiery,
revolutionary spirit. His great symphonic works belong to a later
period, when his whole nature had mellowed and ripened without losing
its imaginative sweep and brilliancy. Schumann's compositions for the
piano and orchestra are those by which his name is most widely
honoured, but nowhere do we find a more characteristic exercise of his
genius than in his songs, to which this article will call more special
attention.
Such works as the "Études Symphoniques" and the "Kreisleriana"
express much of the spirit of unrest and longing aspiration, the
struggle to get away from prison-bars and limits, which seem to have
sounded the key-note of Schumann's deepest nature. But these feelings
could only find their fullest outlet in the musical form expressly
suited to subjective emotion. Accordingly, the "Sturm and Drang" epoch
of his life, when all his thoughts and conceptions were most unsettled
and visionary, was most fruitful in lyric song. In Heinrich Heine he
found a fitting poetical co-worker, in whose moods he seemed to see a
perfect reflection of his own--Heine, in whom the bitterest irony was
wedded to the deepest pathos, "the spoiled favourite of the Graces,"
"the knight with the laughing tear in his scutcheon"--Heine, whose
songs are charged with the brightest light and deepest gloom of the
human heart.
Schumann's songs never impress us as being deliberate attempts at
creative effort, consciously selected forms through which to express
thoughts struggling for speech. They are rather involuntary
experiments to relieve oneself of some woeful burden, medicine for the
soul. Schumann is never distinctively the lyric composer; his
imagination had too broad and majestic a wing. But in those moods,
peculiar to genius, where the soul is flung back on itself with a
sense of impotence, our composer instinctively burst into song. He did
not in the least advance or change its artistic form, as fixed by
Schubert. This, indeed, would have been irreconcilable with his use of
the song as a simple medium of personal feeling, an outlet and
safeguard.
The peculiar place of Schumann as a song-writer is indicated by his
being called the musical exponent of Heine, who seems to be the other
half of his soul. The composer enters into each shade and detail of
the poet's meaning with an intensity and fidelity which one can never
cease admiring. It is this phase which gives the Schumann songs their
great artistic value. In their clean-cut, abrupt, epigrammatic force
there is something different from the work of any other musical
lyrist. So much has this impressed the students of the composer that
more than one able critic has ventured to prophesy that Schumann's
greatest claim to immortality would yet be found in such works as the
settings of "Ich grolle nicht" and the "Dichterliebe" series--a
perverted estimate, perhaps, but with a large substratum of truth. The
duration of Schumann's song-time was short, the greater part of his
_Lieder_ having been written in 1840. After this he gave himself up to
oratorio, symphony, and chamber-music.
* * * * *
Note by the Editor.--The above account of Robert Schumann does not
give an adequate impression of the composer; the following remarks are
therefore appended, based in most part upon J. A. Fuller Maitland's
"Schumann" in _The Great Musicians_ Series. In 1832 the poet
Grillparzer, in a critical article published in the _Wiener
Musikalische Zeitung_, recognises that Schumann "belongs to no school,
but creates of himself without making parade of outlandish ideas, ...
he has made himself a new ideal world in which he moves about as he
wills, with a certain original _bizarrerie_." Moscheles, a friend of
Schumann, wrote in his diary--"For mind (Geist) give me Schumann. The
Romanticism in his works is a thing so completely new, his genius so
great, that to weigh correctly the peculiar qualities and weakness of
this new school I must go deeper and deeper into the study of his
works." In the _Gazette Musicale_ for November 12, 1837, Franz Liszt
wrote a thoroughly sympathetic criticism of the composer's works, as a
whole, and says--"The more closely we examine Schumann's ideas, the
more power and life do we discover in them; and the more we study
them, the more we are amazed at the wealth and fertility which had
before escaped us." And Hector Berlioz, the great French Romanticist,
looked upon him "as one of the most remarkable composers and critics
in Germany." As a musical critic Schumann ranks very high. In 1834 he,
with several friends, started a critical paper, _Neue Zeitschrift für
Music_, in order "no longer to look on idly, but to try and make
things better, so that the poetry of art may once more be duly
honoured." The paper was very successful, and had a considerable
influence in the musical world--more especially as it supplied a
distinct want, for at the time of its appearance "musical criticism in
Germany was of the most futile kind, silly, superficial admiration of
mediocrity--Schumann used to call it 'Honey-daubing'--or the
contemptuous depreciation of what was new or unknown; these were the
order of the day in such of the journals as deigned to notice music at
all." Schumann possessed all the qualities which are required in a
musical critic, and it is said of him that in that capacity he has
never been excelled. His aims were high and pure--to quote his own
words, "to send light into the depth of the human heart--that is the
artist's calling,"--and the chief object of his critical labour was
"the elevation of German taste and intellect by German art, whether by
pointing to the great models of old time, or by encouraging younger
talents." His connection with the paper lasted ten years as a constant
contributor, though he continued to write for it from time to time.
The last article published by him in it was one written in favour of
Johannes Brahms, who had been sent to him with a letter of
introduction by Joseph Joachim, the violinist, "recommending to his
notice a young composer of whose powers the writer had formed the
highest opinion." "At once Schumann recognised the surpassing
capabilities of the young man, and wrote to Joachim these words, and
nothing more--'Das ist der, der kommen musste' ('This is he was wanted
to come')." The article was entitled "New Paths," and is one of his
most remarkable writings. "In it Schumann seems to sing his 'Nunc
Dimittis,' hailing the advent of this young and ardent spirit, who was
to carry on the great line of composers, and to prove himself no
unworthy member of their glorious company." The concluding sentence of
the article, which contained the composer's last printed words, is not
a little remarkable, for it gives fullest expression to that principle
which had always governed his own criticism. "In every age there is a
secret band of kindred spirits. Ye who are of this fellowship, see
that ye weld the circle firmly, so that the truth of art may shine
ever more and more clearly, shedding joy and blessing far and near."
As a man Schumann was kind-hearted, generous, devoid of jealousy, and
always ready and willing to recognise merit, great or small, in those
with whom he came in contact. It was always easier for him to praise
than to blame; so much so that in conducting an orchestra in
rehearsal, it became impossible for him to find fault with the
performers when necessity arose, and, if they did not find out their
mistakes themselves, he allowed them to remain uncorrected! Although a
faithful friend, he was eminently unsociable; he was very reserved and
silent, and this peculiarity became more marked towards the latter
part of his life, when his terrible malady was spreading its shadow
over him. An amusing account of his silence is given in E. Hanslick's
_Musikalischen Stationen_--"Wagner expressed himself thus to the
author in 1846--'Schumann is a highly gifted musician, but an
_impossible_ man. When I came from Paris I went to see Schumann; I
related to him my Parisian experiences, spoke of the state of music in
France, then of that in Germany, spoke of literature and politics; but
he remained as good as dumb for nearly an hour. One cannot go on
talking quite alone. An impossible man!'" Schumann's account,
apparently of the same interview, is as follows:--"I have seldom met
him; but he is a man of education and spirit; he talks, however,
unceasingly, and that one cannot endure for very long together."
Schumann has been described "as a man of moderately tall stature,
well-built, and of a dignified and pleasant aspect. The outlines of
his face, with its intellectual brow, and with its lower part
inclining slightly to heaviness, are sufficiently familiar to us all;
but we cannot see the dreamy, half-shut eyes kindle into animation at
a word from some friend with whom he felt himself in sympathy." A
description of him by his friend, Sterndale Bennett, is amusing, on
the words of which S. Bennett wrote a little canon--
"Herr Schumann ist ein guter Mann,
Er raucht Tabak als Niemand kann;
Ein Mann vielleicht von dreissig Jahr,
Mit kurze Nas' und kurze Haar."
("Herr Schumann is a first-rate man,
He smokes as ne'er another can;
A man of thirty, I suppose,
Short is his hair, and short his nose.")
Schumann's latter days were very sorrowful, for he was afflicted with
a great mental distress, caused, we are told by one of his
biographers, by ossification of the brain. He was haunted by
delusions--amongst others, by the constant hearing of a single musical
note. "On one occasion he was under the impression that Schubert and
Mendelssohn had visited him, and had given him a musical theme, which
he wrote down, and upon which he set himself to write variations." He
suffered from attacks of acute melancholy, and at length, during one
of them, threw himself into the Rhine, but was, fortunately, rescued.
At length it became necessary to confine him in a private asylum,
where he was visited by his friends when his condition permitted it.
He died on July 29, 1856, in presence of his wife, through whose
exertions, in great part, we, in England, have become acquainted with
his pianoforte works.
[Decoration]
_CHOPIN._