Children of Robert and Clara Schumann, in Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-US
Schumann founded a new romantic school, moving away from the use of form for its own sake to the insistence on significant ideas. He created, with other like-minded individuals, a periodical called Die Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, (The New Journal of Music) which he directed for a decade. His aim was to stimulate the love of all that was sincerely artistic. Schumann was one of five children, born on 8th June 1810 in a small provincial town called Zwickau in northern Germany. His father was a bookseller and Schumann was able to read a considerable amount of classical literature. Schumann’s father died when he was aged 16 and his mother, seeing no financial prospect in pursuing the arts encouraged him to study law. Nevertheless, his mother allowed him at a later stage to discontinue studying law and commence serious piano study under Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig. It was at this time that Schumann wished to strengthen his fourth finger, and when using a mechanical device to do so, he ruined his hand for life, putting an end to his performing career. Another source states that Schumann at this time was poisoned by mercury, resulting in terminating his concert performing. So, he turned his attention to composing. He lived in the Wieck household, and this brought him into contact with Wieck’s daughter Clara, whom he later married.
Clara was nine years younger than Schumann. At the age of eight she was playing concertos by Mozart and Hummel and her father was intent on making her very famous. He took her on many long concert tours.
Initially Schumann wrote exclusively for the piano, then he commenced writing for the voice, possibly inspired by his love for Clara. Later on he composed symphonies, chamber music and choral works.
Friedrich Weick strongly opposed Clara and Robert’s marriage and after a period of time, Schumann sought legal action so he could marry her. The court ruled in Robert’s favour, stating the Wieck’s objections were baseless and trivial. Robert and Clara were married in September 1840.
Clara was instrumental in making Schumann’s music known to the public. Clara, being one of the greatest pianists of the day, played many of his compositions at her concerts. Schumann left approximately 500 compositions. His violin concerto, dedicated to the violinist Joseph Joachim, was not played publicly until 1937. He championed composers such as Chopin, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Lizst, he aided in the revival of Bach’s music and helped to introduce to the public several unknown Schubert works. He was an early supporter of Brahms, and Brahms was a lifelong advocate of Schumann’s music. Schumann influenced not only Brahms but Borodin, Grieg and Elgar not name a few.
In 1844 Schumann, his mental health began to deteriorate. In 1825 one of his sisters committed suicide and in 1826 his father died at the age of 53 and these events affected Schumann's mental health. Schumann toured Russia successfully in 1844 however this left him exhausted and suffering from severe depression., The family moved to Dresden as it was advised that he should not hear too much music. However, this period of his life passed and in 1850 he was appointed the conductor at Dusseldorf. His indifferent conducting skills and erratic behaviour caused friction with the players and he resigned his position in 1853. Nevertheless, he began suffering from mental illness and in 1854 he attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge into the Rhine. His last two years were spent in an asylum near Bonn.
Composing for the piano was Schumann’s most natural form of expression. Schumann allowed the character piece to come into its own and his music was replete with literary associations. His music contains personal and literary illusions and references. Schumann does not use Alberti bass accompaniments from the Classical Period, not does he use scale passages. His style is chordal and he often uses dotted rhythms and syncopations. Cross-accents and unexpected sforzandi feature in his compositions. And he use of pedal is innovative for the time. He opposed virtuosic playing for its own sake. Another feature of his composing is the use of German words rather Italian words for tempo, dynamics and so on. He did use a few Italian words however most were German.
Marie Schumann, Marie-Louise (Loucky) Vonder Mühll, Eugenie Schumann und Clara Schumann in Basel (c. 1895). Creator unknown, Source Schumann Museum, License Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Album for the Young Op. 68
In the last decade of Schumann’s life, he began composing works aimed at satisfying the escalating demand for middle-class Hausmusik.
Schumann recognized that the literature at the time for young pianists was minimal and uninspiring for the player. He created musically interesting pieces specifically with children’s needs in mind. The Album for the Young not only revolutionized attitudes concerning music education but also inaugurated an entirely new genre of piano literature—programme music written explicitly for children. By 1848, it was recognized that childhood was a separate developmental phase.
This album was composed in 1848; he wrote “I don’t remember ever having been in such good musical form….The pieces simply poured out one after another”. He desired to write piano pieces for his oldest daughter, Marie. In a letter he wrote to Carl Reinecke in October 1848 he wrote “I wrote the first pieces for the Album specifically for the birthday of our oldest child, and then more pieces came to me one after another, it was as if I were once again starting to compose from the very beginning”.
Robert and Clara Schumann, from Alamy.com
When it was first published , it was divided into two parts so that each one could be bought separately. The first part was intended for “younger people” and the second part “for older people”. It has been stated that it is one of the few works that successfully manages to combine pedagogic intentions with artistic demands. The publication of the two parts was very successful, according to one source it was Schumann’s most profitable work.
Klaus Ronnau states that “this is one of the few works in the piano literature that successfully manages to combine pedagogic intentions with artistic demands; one might compare it with Bach’s Inventions or the Clavierbuchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann, or in more recent times with Debussy’s Children’s Corner and Bartok’s Mikrokosmos’’.
The book Schumann An Introduction to his Piano Works it states ‘ each composition is a miniature masterpiece, with perfect symmetry, balance and unity, expressing its essence with a minimum of notes, just as good poetry does with a minimum of words, moving to its own appropriate climax and imparting always something original and worth saying’.
Regarding the tempo of the pieces in the Album for the Young, when metronome marks do occur they are often at variance to what is the intended mood of the piece. Clara’s metronome marks are generally slower than Robert’s however a few are faster. One can assume that Schumann did not check his metronome marks against his actual performance of the pieces. According to Willard Palmer, the family metronome was out of order and the resulting tempos are always too fast.
References
The Literature of the Piano Ernest Hutcheson edited by Rudolph Ganz, published Hutchinson & Co Ltd, second impression 1975
Music for the Piano, A Short History F E Kirby, Amadeus Press, reprinted 2000.
The Pianist's Guide to Standard Teaching and Performance Literature, Jane Magrath, Alfred Publishing, 1995.
Album for the Young Op. 68 Schumann edited and annotated by Howard Ferguson, ABRSM, 1980.y
Schumann An Introduction to his Piano Works edited by Willard Palmer, Alfred Publishing, 2001.