United States or Togo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Schumann's compositions for the piano and orchestra are those by which his name is most widely honored, 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.
The marriage project was not favored by Papa Wieck, much as he liked the young composer who had so long been his pupil and a member of his family circle. The father of Clara looked forward to a brilliant artistic career for his daughter, perhaps hoped to marry her to some serene highness, and Schumann's prospects were as yet very uncertain.
I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; I dare say I could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once and no trying at all. iii
His accomplishment as a sheer musician was greater than either Gounod's or Schumann's, though far from being equal to Brahms' for Brahms as a master of the management of notes stands with the highest, with Bach, Mozart, and Wagner; while as a voice and a new force in music neither Brahms nor Schumann nor Gounod can be compared with him other than unfavourably.
A visit to Italy in the spring of 1890, afforded rest, refreshment and many pleasant incidents. The "Four Serious Songs," were published in the summer of 1896. At this time Brahms had been settled in his rooms at Ischl scarcely a fortnight when he was profoundly shaken by news of Clara Schumann's death. She passed peacefully away in Frankfort, and was laid beside her husband, in Bonn, May 24.
In the afternoon I sought Boehner, and asked him to walk with me. As soon as we had alluded to the one subject that bound us together, I requested him to tell me, what had not yet been given to the world, the details of Schumann's insanity and death. Then, as one who takes up a heavy burden to bear it, he proceeded:
The musicians knew Schumann's work, and he rejoiced at finding friends of his art in a far-away country. "But," says Reissman, "this was destined to be his last happiness." For the dread affliction which throws a spell of horror across his life and his wife's devotion, did not long delay in seizing upon him after his marriage.
Both have the heroic quality, both are free from mawkishness and are of the greater Chopin, the Chopin of the mode masculine. Niecks makes a valuable suggestion: "In playing these nocturnes op. 48 there occurred to me a remark of Schumann's, when he reviewed some nocturnes by Count Wielhorski.
If we must measure a symphony mainly by the slow movement, we cannot avoid, with all the languorous beauty, a certain conventionality of mood, stressed with an exotic use of the appoggiatura, while in the Scherzo is a refined savagery of modern cacophony. The directions are all in French; we are reminded of Schumann's departure from the Italian fashion.
No, no, that was quite enough; the men tore each other to bits; still that might pass, after all; but what an end to the evening it was, that feminine fraud, cooing and titillating herself with thoughts of Beethoven's and Schumann's music! Fortunately, Gagniere suddenly rose. He knew what o'clock it was even in the depths of his ecstasy, and he had only just time left him to catch his last train.
Word Of The Day