What about Schumann..?

Pianists are lucky when it comes to Robert Schumann, who left us a treasury of immortal works. We are lucky also because we have the challenge and necessity of unraveling the secrets embedded in his music, so as to come up with a sympathetic interpretation. His music is so bound up in his heightened imagination that it is neigh impossible to get near his "truth" without a great deal of reading, both his own writings and particularly works by Jean-Paul Richter, ETA Hoffmann, and various other German writers of his time.

I have long felt that Schumann is more for the pianist than for the general audience. He lacks the immediate charm of Chopin, and the more overt playful quality of Mendelssohn. What he does have, in large doses, is passion. It is a throughly Germanic type passion, that involves both the head and the heart. His tenderness is heart breaking at times, especially in Kreisleriana and the less played Humoresque. There is something always very noble about his melodic writing, made even more complex with the underlying counterpoint. One can just see Robert and Clara spending an evening playing Bach, absorbed in his counterpoint. We have to remember J S Bach was enjoying the great revival set in motion by Mendelssohn, and the impact on the Romantics was enormous.

Pressure must have been a daily double dose for Schumann, what with seven children to provide for. His output is big, even in spite of the detours of depression and illness. Clara certainly had her hands full. How on earth she continued her career with all these children and a demanding husband defies understanding. But, there must have been great love in that marriage. One feels it tremendously in the great Fantasy, Opus 17. Such originality of expression makes it a landmark in his compositions, and nowhere does he reveal himself more than in this work.

In this Bicentenial Year of Chopin and Schumann, perhaps Chopin is getting the greater play. That is understandable in light of Schumann's more complex nature and his more introverted half. But I feel he somehow is better off this way, making those who turn to his music work a little harder at getting to know him.

Schumann reveals his fatherly love in the Kinderszenen and the Album for the Young. What is revealing about both is that, for the greater part, they are not pieces for children at all, but an adults view of a child's world. They do reveal Schumann's great love of children and their imaginative play world...almost the same for him in adulthood, where he succeeds in creating a unique world of imagination, fantasy and passion.