We know Robert Schumann in many ways: as a visionary composer, a seasoned journalist, a cultured man of letters, and a genius who, having passed his mantle on to the young Brahms, succumbed to mental illness in 1856. Drawing on recent pathbreaking research, this collection offers new perspectives on this seminal nineteenth-century figure.
In Part I, Leon Botstein and Michael P. Steinberg assess Schumann's efforts to place music at the center of German culture, in public and private sectors. Bernhard R. Appel offers a probing source study of one of Schumann's most personal works, the Album für die Jugend, Op. 68, while John Daverio considers the generic identity of Das Paradies und die Peri, and Jon W. Finson reexamines the first version of the Eichendorff Liederkreis. Gerd Nauhaus investigates Schumann's approach to the symphonic finale, and R. Larry Todd considers the intractable issue of quotations and allusions in Schumann's music. Part II presents letters and memoirs, including unpublished correspondence between Clara Schumann and Felix and Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. In Part III, conflicting critical views of Schumann are juxtaposed. Some of these sources are translated into English for the first time.
Originally published in 1994.
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Writing about Robert Schumann inevitably involves literature, politics, and psychology as well as music, and this collection of essays is no exception. The seven studies of the man and his music cover the composer's inspirations, his sources, and his relations with numerous interesting people. Leon Botstein sets the pace with "History, Rhetoric, and the Self," a fascinating overview of the first half of the 19th century. Four sets of letters by and about Schumann provide a personal impression of the man, and a set of contemporary criticisms of his music expose his public work. This well-rounded and interesting picture of the composer and his times belongs in most academic music collections.
Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
