Journal articles on the topic 'Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann'

Abstract The critics of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik idealized the private performance as an enlightened alternative to the public concert, and it was in private settings that Clara Wieck Schumann typically played Robert Schumann's music in the early years of her career. In the winter of 1839-40 she was in Berlin, abandoned by her father, Friedrich Wieck, and struggling to continue her career on her own. At Schumann's suggestion she performed his Sonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22 in a public soirée. Afterwards Schumann decided his music was too personal for a public audience, and his major piano works were not heard again until the year of his death.

Background. The problematics associated with the personal and creative relationships between Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, as well as the nature of their reflection in art, have been worrying the minds of researchers for more than a century and a half. One of significant, but little-studied aspects is the embodiment of Schumann’s images and associations in the four-handed piano works by J. Brahms. The article objective is revealing of the semantic specifics of the reflection of Robert Schumann creativity in the Variations by Johannes Brahms on the Theme by R. Schumann, op. 23. The study methodology determined by its objectives is integrative and based on the combination of general scientific approaches and musicological methods. The leading methods of research are the semantic, compositional-dramaturgic and genre-stylistic analyses. Results. Acquaintance with Robert and Clara Schumann (soon transformed into a romantic friendship) was a landmark, turning point in the life and work of J. Brahms. It was R. Schumann, who at some time first called young Chopin a “genius” and who also predicted to Brahms – at that time (in 1853) to almost no-known young musician – a great future in his latest article “New Ways” (after long literary silence), where the appearance of new genius solemnly proclaimed. The long hours of companionship of Brahms with Robert and Clara Schumann were filled of conjoint piano playing, very often – in four hands. Addiction to the four-handed duet playing was vividly reflected in the creativity of both, Schumann and Brahms. Creativity of J. Brahms is one of the highest peaks in the history of the genre of a four-handed piano duet. A special place among Brahms’ piano four-handed duets is occupied by the only major cyclical composition – the Variations on the Theme of R. Schumann op. 23 in E Flat Major, 1861. Variations op. 23 were written by the composer for the joint four-handed performance by Clara and Julia Schumann – the wife and the daughter of R. Schumann. The author dedicated his composition to Julie Schumann, with whom he was secretly in love at that time. The theme of variations is the melody, which was the last in the creative fate of R. Schumann. This theme was presented to Schumann in his night visions by the spirits of Schubert and Mendelssohn; the composer managed only to write down the theme and begin to develop it on February 27, 1854, on the eve of the tragic attack of madness, which led him to the hospital in Endenich. Brahms’s ethical and aesthetic task was to preserve for humanity the last musical thought of the genius and perpetuate his memory, creating an artistic monument to his great friend and mentor. Brahms’ idea is connected with the composer’s philosophical thoughts about death and immortality, about the meaning of being and the greatness of the creative spirit. This idea is even more highlighted due to the genre synthesis of the “strict tune” of the choral and the mourning march “in memory of a hero”. The level of associativity of each of these genre spheres is extremely high. It includes a huge range of musical and artistic phenomena The significant associative semantic layer of music of Variations is connected, of course, with Robert Schumann’s creativity. Brahms most deeply penetrates into the world of musical thinking of Schumann, turning to the favorite Schumann’s principle of free variation. The embodiment of this idea becomes both the tonal plan of the cycle, and the peculiarities of the genre characteristic of individual variations, and the psychological accuracy of specific figurative decisions, and the logical unity of the artistic whole with emphasizing of semantic significance of private details. In Schumann style, Brahms wrote the first four variations of op. 23. (Strictly speaking, the very idea of a “musical portrait” of a friend and like-minded person comes from the Schumann’s “Carnival” and “Kreisleriana”). Tonalities in the Variations get the semantic importance: E flat major as friendly and bright and E flat minor as intensely passionate. The tonal sphere “E flat major – E flat minor” for Brahms is the symbol of unity of the sublime and earthly, bright and gloomy, tragically passionate and calmly contemplative, it is a kind of image of the Universe, the Macrocosm that created by the individual musical thinking of the composer. The features of philosophical programmaticity of generalized type inherent in the Brahms conception predetermined the peculiarities of the figurative dramaturgy of Op. 23, reflecting the development and interaction of the main emotional-semantic lines of the cycle – lyrical, sublime tragic, fantastic, heroic and triumphal. The circle of the figurative development of the cycle is closed by the Schumann’s theme, creating an intonational-thematic and semantic arch framing the entire composition. The main theme of the Variations acquires here – as a result of a long and tragic dramatic way – features of a lyrical epitaph, a farewell word: “Exegi monumentum” – «I erected the monument»… Conclusions. In general, the music of Variations by J. Brahms on the Theme by R. Schumann is striking in its moral and philosophical depth, the power of artistic and ethical influence, emotional and figurative abundance and significance, compositional completeness and clarity of the dramatic solution. Variations on the theme by R. Schumann are a unique musical monument to the genius of Robert Schumann, created by the genius Johannes Brahms in honor and eternal memory to his great friend and teacher in the name of Music, Friendship and Love.

Background. The article is devoted to studying of versatile aspects of life and work of the outstanding German pianist and composer Clara Josephine Wieck Schumann (1819–1896) on little-known in domestic musicology materials of the European scientific literature. The review of scientific sources also includes the rare works given personally to the author by the relative of Clara Schumann, Frau Hannelore Österschritt, which is the great-granddaughter of her step-brother on the mother’s side, W. Bargiel. The above large array of systematized chronological and literary sources gives an idea of the scale and aspects of studying such a scientific problem as the analysis of Clara Schumann’s creative heritage to date. It turns out that her phenomenon as a supernova on the German sky made Europeans see a woman in a different way – as a creator, a bright personality, a public figure, a successful performer. The purpose of the article is the description and systematization of European science sources, covering the figure of Clara Wieck Schumann. Research methodology are based on general scientific approaches necessary for the disclosure of the topic, including logical, historical, chronological, source-study methods needed to synthesize and systematize of scientific sources. Results. The figure of Сlara Wieck Schumann – an outstanding female composer, a successful concert pianist, a teacher, a wife, a mother and a Muse of two brilliant composers of Romanticism – was so bright that she was able to break the all previous ideas of that time about the role of a woman in society. This is evidenced by the impressive scale of the interest of researchers to her personality and creativity, the interest, which has not been extinguished in Europe for almost two centuries. Build on the literature of European scientists from different countries devoted to Clara Wieck Schumann, one can come to the conclusion that during her lifetime the work of this prominent woman was arousing the great interest of musicologists and critics (G. Schilling, F.-J. Fétis, H. Riemann), and her musical works were known and demanded. One of the most important issues that are considered in scholarly works is Clara’s personality as a representative of women who have broken the centuries-old ideas and foundations about the place of latter in society. Some of the authors (La Mara, Eva Weissweiler) tried to prove the secondary character of feminine creativity, based on cliché about that Clara Schumann herself was not always sure of the value of her musical compositions. Other researchers (F. Liszt, E. Wickop, C. Dahlhaus) argued that the work of Clara Schumann occupies a special, leading place among the history of well-known women-composers. After the death of the composer interest to her musical creativity began to fade away. Confirmation of this is almost complete absence of her works in concert programs of pianists, and even not a complete edition of the compositions of the musician. Despite this, during the twentieth century, Clara Schumann’s work continues to be carefully studied by the researchers of Germany (B. Litzmann, W. Kleefeld, K. Höcker, R. Hohenemser, A. Meurer, E. Wickop), France (R. Pitrou), England (P. Susskind, J. Chissell, N. Reich). During the last forty years, interest to Clara Wick Schumann’s creativity has grown substantially, possibly due to activation of the feminist movements in the world. Clara became one of the main objects of research about women who wrote and performed musical compositions. The culmination of this process can be called the emergence of the fundamental monograph by Janina Klassen “Clara Wieck-Schuman. Die Virtuosin als Komponistin” (1990), where the composer’s creative efforts are most fully analyzed, as well as valuable references to rare historical sources are given, including the letters from the Robert Schumann’s house in Zwickau, which have not yet been published. Conclusions. Thus, the presented large array of literary sources, being systematized by chronology and the subjects, gives an idea of the state of the studying and analysis of the cultural heritage of Clara Wieck Schumann today. The author hopes that the information collected will ease orientation in finding answers to questions arising to musicologists who explore her creativity. Summing up, we can present the generalized classification of the literature considered. So, Clara’s diaries including the records making by her father and relating to the early period of her creation, give the understanding of how the pianist’s outlook was formed. Estimative judgments about the value of composition as an important area of Clara’s creation should be sought in her epistolary heritage, in particular, in the correspondence with R. Schumann and J. Brahms. At the same place one should to look for the motives and emotional boundaries of her creativity. Answers the many questions that may arise to a performer who interprets of Clara Schumann’s music can be found in the fundamental biographical study by B. Litzmann and the articles by F. Liszt. A large layer of modern researches, which has been published since the 80s of the twentieth century, cannot be discounted as the authors rely on modern methods of analysis. Therefore, it is as if the resolved problems are being considered on a new level: from the research of forgotten pages of “XIX century women’s music” (J. Klassen), new data about Clara’s life outlook formation, and ending with issues of her music style. All these aspects give the opportunity to “collect” the creative and personal “portrait” of a genius woman of the nineteenth century.

A resenha aqui apresentada remete ao livro La música para Clara [A música para Clara], da autora chilena Elizabeth Subercaseaux. Lançada em 2014, a biografia romanceada da compositora alemã Clara Schumann (1819-1896) tem como diferencial o tom intimista adotado pela autora, que é tataraneta de Clara e Robert Schumann, herdeira, portanto, dos genes do casal que marcou a História da Música Ocidental por suas contribuições ao estilo romântico que vigorou no século XIX.

The poetic trope and aesthetic category of "distance" is central to Novalis's and Jean Paul Richter's definition of the Romantic, as embodied in dying sound and distant music. In the "young poetic future" proposed by the composer and critic Robert Schumann in the 1830s, romantic distance figures prominently, exemplified by the relationship between the endings of Jean Paul's Flegeljahre and Schumann's Papillons, Op. 2. Distance also provides the key for a new understanding of the relationship between analysis and poetic criticism in Schumann's review of Schubert's Great C-Major Symphony; between texted and untexted music in his Piano Sonata, Op. 11; between music and landscape in Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6; and between the composer and his distant beloved in the Fantasie, Op. 17 and the Novelletten, Op. 21. The article presents new evidence of Schumann's reference to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte and Clara Wieck's Romance variée, Op. 3 in the Fantasie, and to Clara's Valses romantiques, Op. 4 in Davidsbündlertänze.

On 1 October 1842, Robert Schumann sent Hans Christian Andersen a copy of his recently published Fünf Lieder op. 40, a song collection consisting of settings of four poems by Andersen as well as an anonymous ‘Neugriechisch’ poem, all translated into German by Adelbert von Chamisso. Although Clara Schumann had become acquainted with the poet earlier that year during a concert tour that took her through Copenhagen, Robert had yet to meet him, and the letter included with op. 40 was the first time that he addressed Andersen directly.

In her contemporaries’ imaginations Clara Schumann transcended aesthetic pitfalls endemic to virtuosity. Scholars have stressed her performance of canonic repertory as a practice through which she established this image. In this study I argue that her concerts of the 1830s and 1840s also staged an elevated form of virtuosity through showpieces that inhabited the flagship genres of popular pianism and that, for contemporary critics, possessed qualities of interiority that allowed them to transcend merely physical or “mechanical” engagement with virtuosity. They include Henselt's études and variation sets, Chopin's “Là ci darem” Variations, op. 2, and Clara's own Romance variée, op. 3, Piano Concerto, op. 7, and Pirate Variations, op. 8. Her 1830s and early 1840s programming offers a window onto a rich intertwining of critical discourse, her own and her peers’ compositions, and her strategies as a pianist-composer. This context reveals that aspirations about elevating virtuosity shaped a broader, more varied field of repertory, compositional strategies, and critical responses than we have recognized. It was a capacious, flexible ideology and category whose discourses pervaded the sheet music market, the stage, and the drawing room and embraced not only a venerated, canonic tradition but also the latest popularly styled virtuosic vehicles. In the final stages of the article I propose that Clara Schumann's 1853 Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, op. 20, alludes to her work of the 1830s and 1840s, evoking the range of guises this pianist-composer gave to her virtuosity in what was already a wide-ranging career.

In the last decade, musicologists have definitively put to rest the lingering concern that Robert Schumann misunderstood poetic irony in his settings of Heinrich Heine's poetry. My contribution to this project begins with Robert's written correspondence with his fiancée Clara Wieck in the years leading up to their marriage in 1840. Relying on passages in the letters that have previously received little or no critical attention, I closely observe the lovers’ views about the workings of ironic language in their relationship, especially concerning the technique that scholars of Heine's poetry have called the Stimmungsbruch (‘breaking of mood’): a sudden reversal of tone that punctures a poem's lyric beauty and maliciously invalidates its apparent sincerity. Clara detested this gesture when it came from Robert in everyday life or in his letters; she insisted that Robert share his negative feelings openly, even though Robert knew that this would distress her. The letters thus provide a helpful context in which to understand Schumann's idiosyncratic compositional treatment of the Stimmungsbruch in ‘Dein Angesicht’ (1840). Using the evidence of the letters, I argue that Heine's poem would likely have had strong personal associations for Robert and Clara. In his setting, Robert thus transformed the poem's dual Stimmungsbruch to reflect pain honestly without inflicting it at the same time. Focusing primarily on the torturous dialectic between major and minor in the song, I show how Robert has the protagonist absorb the thrust of Heine's damaging Stimmungsbruch into himself, keeping the beloved out of harm's way while still allowing the dark, throbbing energy of the wound to radiate from beneath the surface.

A dobra schumanniana é um concerto-instalação que consiste em performances videográfica e pianística desenvolvidas em ambiente especialmente produzido para tal finalidade. A composição videográfica é projetada simultaneamente tanto nas paredes do ambiente quanto em tela especial, envolvendo completamente um palco central, circular e elevado, onde está localizado um piano. Através de processamento digital em tempo real, as imagens da performance pianística são mescladas à projeção mapeada de um vídeo pré-editado. Este composto videográfico não só busca traduzir a consonância da multiplicidade que atravessa a obra schumanniana com o paradigma estético processual que caracteriza o mundo contemporâneo, como também alia a expressão artística da performance pianística e da videoinstalação à prática da pesquisa organizada e do estudo crítico continuamente renovado, ressaltando a atualidade das proposições arquitetadas pelos gênios da cultura, Robert e Clara Schumann, e Johannes Brahms. Desse modo, o foco de a dobra schumanniana corrobora a coetaneidade de obras poéticas distantes no tempo.

Background. The performance practice of recent decades demonstrates an obvious tendency to expand and update the repertoire due to the use of the works of those composers whose pieces had “lost” over time against to the pieces of their more famous contemporaries. At the same time, in sociology, psychology, culturology, gender issues are largely relevant. Musicology does not stand aside, applying the achievements of gender psychology in the study of composer creativity and musical performing (Tsurkanenko, I., 2011; Gigolaeva-Yurchenko, V., 2012, 2015; Fan, Liu, 2017). In general, the issue of gender equality is quite acute in contemporary public discourse. The indicated tendencies determine the interest of many musicians and listeners in the work of women-composers (for example, recently, the creativity by Clara Schumann attracts the attention of performers all over the world, in particular, in Ukraine the International Music Festival “Kharkiv Assemblies” – 2018 was dedicated to her works). The theme of the proposed work is also a response to the noted trends in performing practice and musicology discourse. For the first time in domestic musicology an attempt is made to give a brief overview of the life and career of another talented woman, whose name is little known in the post-Soviet space. This is a Swedish violinist, composer and pianist Amanda Röntgen-Maier (1853–1894), a graduate of the Stockholm Royal College of Music and the Leipzig Conservatory, a contemporary of Clara Schumann, J. Brahms, E. Grieg, with whom she and her husband – composer, pianist, conductor Julius Röntgen – were associated for enough long time by creative and friendly relationships. In the post-Soviet space, not a single work has been published that would be dedicated to the works of A. Maier. In European and American musicology, the composer’s personality and creative heritage is also not widely studied. Her name is only occasionally mentioned in works examining the musical culture and, in particular, the performing arts of Sweden at that time (Jönsson, Å., 1995, 151–156; Karlsson, Å., 1994, 38–43; Lundholm, L., 1992, 14–15; Löndahl, T., 1994; Öhrström, E., 1987, 1995). The aim of the proposed study is to characterize Amanda Meier’s creative heritage in the context of European romanticism. Research results. Based on the available sources, we summarized the basic information about the life and career of A. Maier. Carolina Amanda Erica Maier (married Röntgen-Maier ) was born on February 20, 1853 in Landskrona. She received the first music lessons from his father, Karl Edward Mayer, a native of Germany (from Württemberg), who worked as a confectioner in Landskrona, but also studied music, in particular, in 1852 he received a diploma of “music director” in Stockholm and had regular contracts. In 1869, Amanda entered to the Kungliga Musikaliska akademien (Royal College of Music) in Stockholm. There she learns to play several instruments at once: the violin, cello, piano, organ, and also studies history, music theory and musical aesthetics. A. Maier graduated from Royal College successfully and became the first woman who received the title of “Musik Direktor”. The final concert, which took place in April 1873, included the performance of the program on the violin and on the organ and also A. Maier’s own work – the Romance for Violin. In the spring of 1874, Amanda received the grant from the Royal College for further studies at the Leipzig Conservatory. Here, Engelbert Röntgen, the accompanist of the glorious orchestra Gewandhaus, becomes her teacher on the violin, and she studies harmony and composition under the guidance of Karl Heinrich Karsten Reinecke and Ernst Friedrich Richter. Education in Leipzig lasts from 1874 to 1876. In the summer and autumn of 1875, A. Maier returns to Landskron, where she writes the first major work – the Concerto for violin and orchestra in one-movement, D minor, which was performed twice: in December 1875 in Halle and in February 1876 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of K. Reinecke. The further career of A. Maier, both performing and composing, developed very successfully. She made several major concert trips between 1876 and 1880: to Sweden and Norway, to Finland and St. Petersburg; she also played to the Swedish king Oscar II (1876); concerts were held with constant success. While studying in Leipzig, A. Maier met her future husband (the son of her violin teacher) Julius Röntgen, composer and conductor. They married 1880 in Landskrona. Their personal relationships included active creative communication, both playing music together, and exchanging musical ideas, getting to know each other’s works. Part of his chamber opuses, for example, the cycle of Swedish folk dances, A. Maier created in collaboration with her husband. An analogy with life of Robert and Clara Schumann may take place here, although the Röntgen spouses did not have to endure such dramatic collisions that fell to the lot of the first. After the wedding, Röntgen family moved to Amsterdam, where Julius Röntgen soon occupies senior positions in several music organizations. On the contrary, the concert and composing activities of A. Maier go to the decline. This was due both, to the birth of two sons, and to a significant deterioration in her health. Nevertheless, she maintains her violin skills at the proper level and actively participates in performances in music salons, which the family arranges at home. The guests of these meetings were, in particular, J. Brahms, K. Schumann, E. Grieg with his wife and A. Rubinstein. The last years of A. Maier’s life were connected with Nice, Davos and Norway. In the fall of 1888 she was in Nice with the goal of treating the lungs, communicating there with her friends Heinrich and Elizabeth Herzogenberg. With the latter, they played Brahms violin sonatas, and the next (1889) year A. Maier played the same pieces with Clara Schumann. Amanda Maier spent the autumn of 1889 under the supervision of doctors in Davos, and the winter – in Nice. In 1890, she returned to Amsterdam. His last major work dates back to 1891 – the Piano Quartet in D minor. During the last three years of her life, she visited Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where she performed, among other, her husband’s works, for example, the suite “From Jotunheim”. In the summer of 1889, A. Maier took part in concerts at the Nirgaard Castle in Denmark. In 1894, she returned to Amsterdam again. Her health seems stable, a few hours before her death she was conducting classes with her sons. A. Maier died July 15, 1894. The works of A. Maier, published during the life of the composer, include the following: Sonata in H minor (1878); 6 Pieces for violin and piano (1879); “Dialogues” – 10 small pieces for piano, some of which were created by Julius Röntgen (1883); Swedish songs and dances for violin and piano; Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello E minor (1891). Still unprinted are the following works: Romance for violin and piano; Trio for violin, cello and piano (1874); Concert for violin and orchestra (1875); Quartet for piano, violin, viola and clarinet E minor; “Nordiska Tonbilder” for violin and piano (1876); Intermezzo for piano; Two string quartets; March for piano, violin, viola and cello; Romances on the texts of David Wiersen; Trio for piano and two violins; 25 Preludes for piano. The composer style of A. Mayer incorporates the characteristic features of the Romantic era, in particular, the Leipzig school. Lyric elements prevail in her works, although the composer is not alien to dramatic, heroic, epic images (the Piano Quartet E minor, some pieces from the Six Songs for Violin and Piano series). In the embodiment of such a circle of images, parallels with the musical style of the works of J. Brahms are quite clearly traced. In constructing thematic structures, A. Maier relies on the melody of the Schubert-Mendelssohn type. The compositional solutions are defined mainly by the classical principles of forming, which resembles the works of F. Mendelssohn, the late chamber compositions of R. Schumann, where the lyrical expression gets a clear, complete form. The harmonic language of the works of A. Maier gravitates toward classical functionality rather than the uncertainty, instability and colorfulness inherent in the harmony of F. Liszt, R. Wagner and their followers. The main instrument, for which most of the opuses by A. Maier was created, the violin, is interpreted in various ways: it appears both, in the lyrical and the virtuoso roles. The piano texture of chamber compositions by A. Maier is quite developed and rich; the composer clearly gravitates towards the equality of all parties in an ensemble. At the same time, piano techniques are reminiscent of texture formulas by F. Mendelssohn and J. Brahms. Finally, in A. Mayer’s works manifest themself such characteristic of European romanticism, as attraction to folklore, a reliance on folk song sources. Conclusions. Periods in the history of music seemed already well studied, hide many more composer names and works, which are worthy of the attention of performers, musicologists and listeners. A. Mayer’s creativity, despite the lack of pronounced innovation, has an independent artistic value and, at the same time, is one of such musical phenomena that help to compile a more complete picture of the development of musical art in the XIX century and gain a deeper understanding of the musical culture of this period. The prospect of further development of the topic of this essay should be a more detailed study of the creative heritage of A. Maier in the context of European musical Romanticism.

Este trabalho é parte de um projeto de pesquisa mais abrangente, cujo objetivo é a tradução comentada e anotada dos <em>Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker</em> (Coletânea Integral de Escritos sobre Música e Músicos) do compositor alemão Robert Schumann à luz de sua relação com o Romantismo alemão – literatura e estética – e com os fundamentos da crítica musical. Neste artigo introdutório, procuro oferecer uma visão panorâmica do interesse de Schumann pelas línguas estrangeiras – o cerne de sua formação no <em>Gymnasium</em> de Zwickau – e de sua atividade como tradutor de poetas gregos e latinos. A transposição para a música de sua experiência literária como escritor, leitor, tradutor e editor revela Schumann sob dois aspectos: de um lado, como porta-voz, na música, dos expoentes do Classicismo alemão e de poetas de sua geração e, de outro, como um leitor voraz que, em suas composições, faz uma interpretação muito pessoal do cânone literário de sua época.

O presente artigo apresenta duas compositoras e virtuosas do piano nascidas no século XIX, que compartilham, entre outras características, a de terem sido provedoras de suas famílias numa época em que as mulheres tinham acesso restrito à atuação profissional - principalmente no campo da música erudita. O objetivo é comparar as trajetórias pessoais e profissionais da alemã Clara Schumann e da venezuelana Teresa Carreño, discutindo o impacto destes modelos na história das mulheres na música.

Diese Bibliographie verzeichnet Erstdrucke von Kompositionen Robert Schumanns (neben vollständigen Werken auch längere Skizzen, Früh- und Alternativfassungen), die nicht in den Arbeiten von Kurt Hofmann und Siegmar Keil erfaßt sind. Die wichtigsten sind: "Der Korsar" , die Klavierbegleitung zur Suite III C-Dur für Violoncello solo von Bach , die Violinfassung des Cellokonzerts a-moll op. 129 und der Konzertsatz d-moll für Klavier und Orchester. (Autor)

According to new findings the name of Robert Schumann has to be striked off the list of famous people with bipolar disorder. The author has reviewed hundreds of hitherto unknown sources, daily notes of his psychiatrists, letters, diaries, among others. Schumann turned out to have been an alcoholic, who suffered from delirium tremens, 4 days, misdiagnosed as madness by his physicians. The famous suicidal attempt by jumping into the Rhine was just a floating rumour, not reality. Schumann was admitted to a privately owned madhouse. In spite of all his painstaking he could not free himself. His wife did not want him back. Finally he died from malnutrition and pneumonia. – Schumann always worked as easy as Mozart, according to the financial needs of his fast growing family. Attributing this to a manic state is erroneous. Already in young age Schumann had trained his “inner hearing”, he just wrote down, what he had heart. Only once in his life Schumann said himself to have been a melancholic, but that was for making up a plausible excuse for an intimate relationship to an other girl, pretending medical advice against melancholia. – All of these scattered sources are available only in German language. In two books I have written lengthy quotations in order to ease the access. However, there is no English translation available.

Robert Schumann ist in der Neuen Musik häufig rezipiert worden. Ein Beispiel hierfür sind die "Sieben Fragmente für Orchester in memoriam Robert Schumann" von Aribert Reimann, die innerhalb des vielgestaltigen Schaffens von Reimann dessen Schwerpunkte Lied und Oper deutlich erkennen lassen.