Across the breadth of the canon, the music of Robert Schumann lives perhaps most dear in my heart. In some way, his music, more than that of any other composer, demands that one have lived through experiences akin to his own, or at least attempt to understand his world through study of writings both about and of the man himself. Ultimately, and by proxy, one should fearlessly attempt to occupy a part of his indelible spirit.
Perhaps what is helpful in performing Schumann’s music is having lived experiences of equal measure across the entirety of his emotional gamut: from hellish darks to the most ebullient of highs. His spirit is ornately woven into his music more so than that of any other composer I have encountered; it tells the story of such an idiosyncratic individual, of an inner and outer world, and of an entire lifetime. In writing of Schumann, so do I equally acknowledge his inescapable le counterparts: Clara, Brahms, those adjacent, and the Davidsbündler, whose spirits all exist in harmonious interplay with one another.
Reciprocity as a concept is crucial when discussing Eusebius and Florestan; they speak through each other, cohabiting a single mind through their respective fortitudes. Though polar opposites, they find in Schumann a miraculous wellspring of creation where both egos - poetic and prosaic - coexist in song. This paradox is through-composed across his oeuvre: two figures oppositional in nature, yet deeply intertwined in spirit. It is through one person that they are unified.
I believe that a hallmark of great art is its innate expressivity, spoken always through the distinct language of the individual wielding the pen. The emotional complexities of the human spirit are miraculous; indeed, I maintain that certain individuals are touched by something beyond this corporeal existence.
In the practice of Schumann’s music, one summons Sehnsucht: a countryside never visited, perhaps not even material, yet uncannily familiar. In this world, make-believe creatures and humanlike figures exist as transient entities. It is this fantastical world and these tableaux that Schumann conjures so aptly through his music.
His world is a private and confusing one when taken at face value. I remember hearing a few of his large-scale works as a younger person, not understanding exactly what it was my ears were taking in. It was not until my late undergraduate years that I heard something ringing true in his music - a soundscape of sorts. I heard something important being said, but I was not yet sure what that was. I can only think back to my first musical catalysts: the Bach Cello Suites of Zuill Bailey and Simone Dinnerstein’s album of Bach and Schubert: Something Almost Being Said.
To an uninitiated ear, Schumann’s more complex works might be disorienting. Long debated is his handling of architecture. Notable is that he rarely followed the exacting structural paradigms of a Beethoven or Brahms - yet his approach to form was far from random. It is only through close study of his musical and literary underpinnings that one understands how his structural logic was fed by his poetic narrative. Diving into Schumann’s music is great fun in that one can read, practice, and then become a part of his life because of the plethora of material external to his musical output that is readily accessible, not to mention, unequivocally complementary to the zeitgeist. In this manner, what first seems disjunct eventually reveals a deeply integrated, cohesive whole - Beethovenian conventions notwithstanding. Schumann adored Beethoven! A great teacher of mine once said: “Keep it in the family…!” All of us, musicians, are united congenially - through lineage, pursuit of truth, and beauty. What a privilege it is.
Perhaps it is true that every creative must feel a degree of general discontentment with the present world, and in such a disposition, aspire to amend/draw attention to these woes via their art. Through catharsis, music remains the sustenance and a balm for us all. In the Davidsbündler, this principle stands overtly represented - where a league is dedicated to the philanthropic interests of culture. Here, Schumann writes in very comprehensive terms: his reverence for the world's beauty and, in turn, its detractors, all brought forth from the intensity wrought by love.
Ungeduldig from Op. 6 touches upon these certain dualities. The German “Geduldig” suggests maturity, tolerance, and enduring character; “Ungeduldig” suggests the exact opposite (F). This miniature encapsulates both worlds, speaking outwardly in an anxious, even fearful fashion that leaves one breathless. Interestingly, in experimentation, taking the Ungeduldig at a lento shifts the sentiment from angst to deep tragedy and nostalgia. Both manifestations spring from the becoming and unbecoming characteristics that love arouses within a person. A circle of fifths progression never fails to be deeply moving and simultaneously serve as a clean slate for whatever it expresses in context: when played a tempo, it smolders with indecision, but when played slowly, the alto voice becomes overwhelmingly tragic. What I mean to articulate is how fear, anxiety, and love are birthed from the same source; these emotions are all intertwined. As are tempi to a phrase, tone is to a sentence, and there is a universe amid every grain of sand, every atom…
Schumann’s music may be over-realized at times, yes, but I gaze upon him in a manner most admirably idiosyncratic: he was entirely free, and he would have it no other way. That is beautiful.
Where Schubert creates profundity through his economy of texture and centrality to harmony, many of Schumann’s large-scale works comprise many constituent parts - a whole built upon atomization. Much like the pointillistic second variation of Beethoven’s Op. 109, Schumann also operates within these tendencies, In the case of his Carnaval Op. 9, he creates a large ternary structure built from many small miniatures. Nothing here is dissimilar to how our universe functions via quantum mechanics: everything is built from atoms, and our perception is but a mere fraction of the undulating and overarching rhythms of the universe. No less, the closer we look, the larger we see connectivity across all things.
As Einstein spoke of his love for the violin, science, philosophy, and art are never truly removed from one another. One need only think of the beloved Leon Fleisher to understand a “cosmic view” on music at large. It is people like these who kiss the ontological.
Ultimately, you can only truly know Schumann's music from the groundwork and atoms themselves - the atoms being his very life. As in all our own lives, there is simply too much being articulated to just "hear and understand" another life with immediacy. As Scriabin said, one “must gaze with the naked eye into the eye of the sun itself.” Because of Schumann’s choice unto posterity through his output, we find ourselves gifted with a vehicle through which we can look into ourselves, the brightest thing of all.
The practice of music is a great catharsis, food for the soul that leaves one more alive than ever before. After every moment with music, we are reborn and perpetually reminded of being alive.
As Brahms wrote in retort to Joachim’s Frei aber einsam (FAE):
“Frei aber froh!”
May we all see life for what it is and choose to bask in the life-affirming. As a species, we are contagious, and our choices mark our absolute responsibility.
J.W.M.
Alter Spruch
In all und jeder Zeit
Verknüpft sich Lust und Leid:
Bleibt fromm in Lust und seid
Dem Leid mit Mut bereit
Old Saying
In each and every age
Joy and sorrow are mingled:
Remain pious in joy,
And be ready for sorrow with courage.