Robert Schumann - biography, photo, personal life of the composer. Schumann "Warum?" ("From what?"). From the series “Fantastic plays by Robert Schumann - biography of his personal life”

Message quote Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann - a love story.

Schumann Robert - "Dreams"

The great romantic composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856) began his life with extraordinary success, and ended it in a psychiatric clinic. He owed his ups and downs primarily to his beloved, the incomparable Clara Wieck (1819-1896). Perhaps Schumann would not have become so world famous if he had not met this brilliant pianist on his life’s path, whose performing genius must have forced the composer to rise to divine heights.

Robert Schumann was born in 1810 in Saxony in the provincial town of Zwickau and was the fifth child in big family burghers. His father, a well-known book publisher in the provinces, dreamed of his son becoming a poet or literary critic. Fate decreed otherwise: one day, having heard Paganini’s violin at a concert, the future composer bowed to music forever. The mother loved the boy more than other children, but she wanted her son to learn a “grain” profession; she dreamed that Robert would become a lawyer. The mother's desire initially prevailed - in 1828, young Schumann went to Leipzig, where he entered the university to study law.
However, the young man never gave up his dream of becoming a musician. One day, while walking around the city after class, he decided to visit the local psychiatrist Karus, whose wife, singer Agnes Karus, often had meetings famous musicians and music critics. That evening, the owner of a piano workshop and at the same time a piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck, was there with his nine-year-old daughter, who already showed great promise as a performer at such an early age. When the girl sat down at the instrument and placed her thin childish hands on the keys, the whole house fell silent, as if spellbound, and listened to little Clara’s play. There was no doubt: the girl had an amazing musical gift.

Clara Wieck was born in 1819 and was raised by a strict father who left his wife, taking his young daughter and her younger brothers to live with him and forbidding the children to see their mother. The vain Vic did not doubt for a moment that his Clara would become a great pianist: he was obsessed with the manic idea of ​​making his first-born - no matter whether it was a daughter or a son - a brilliant, world-famous musician. Thus, Vic longed to glorify his name for centuries.

The girl who was born was a very sick and weak child. Closed to herself, Clara began to speak only to four years and sometimes seemed completely deaf. Most likely, the girl’s stunted development is explained by the unhealthy atmosphere in the family and incessant quarrels between parents. Therefore, when they divorced, and little Clara’s father took her to Leipzig, the girl quickly spoke and showed her extraordinary abilities.

From then on, Clara’s whole life revolved around music: daily, many-hour lessons at the piano, grueling exercises, a strict regime, a ban on children’s games and fun. Frederick spared no expense: the most famous masters of music, teachers of writing and reading, English and French came to his daughter. All this made Clara Wieck mature and serious beyond her years: her father took away her childhood, giving her worldwide fame in return.

The morning after the little pianist's performance, Robert Schumann stood at the door of the Wiecks' house and begged the head of the family to be his teacher. That day he became a student of the famous music teacher Friedrich Wieck and from a carefree youth turned into a hardworking student who spent hours studying music. Contemporaries recalled that Schumann even took a cardboard keyboard on trips, on which he constantly practiced his piano playing technique. While inventing sophisticated exercises, he once injured his right hand, after which doctors forbade the musician to play, forever taking away his hope of becoming a great pianist. Continuing his studies with Friedrich Wieck, the future composer at that time became seriously interested in music criticism.
When young Robert appeared at the Vicks, everything in the house smelled of warmth and fun. But Clara’s thin, unhealthy face and her huge, sad eyes did not give the young man peace. His sympathy for the “sad Chiarina,” as well as admiration for her genius, soon grew into a real, strong feeling.

In 1836, when Clara was sixteen years old, Schumann declared his love to her for the first time. “When you kissed me then,” she recalled in her letters much later, “I thought I would lose consciousness... I could barely hold the lamp in my hands with which I accompanied you to the exit.” A girl who had long had tender feelings for young pianist, immediately reciprocated. The lovers had to hide their relationship by hiding and deceiving old Vic. Nevertheless, the suspicious father soon learned about his daughter’s tricks. Realizing how Clara’s romance could turn out for him, Vic took his daughter out of town, and for more than a year and a half the lovers did not have the slightest opportunity to meet. Even correspondence was strictly forbidden to them. During the days of separation, Robert Schumann, yearning for “little Chiarina,” wrote his best “Songs,” which later brought him worldwide fame.

In 1837, when the Wikis returned from a long tour to Leipzig, Clara wrote a tender letter to her beloved, passing it through a mutual friend Ernst Wecker. Since then, their secret letters were sent through acquaintances, who tried their best to help the loving couple ease their suffering. “...You are a guardian angel sent to me by the creator. After all, you and only you brought me back to life…” wrote Schumann. Sometimes friends organized secret meetings between Robert and Clara, and this was done so skillfully that even the stern and vigilant Friedrich Wieck for a long time did not notice his daughter's passionate love affair.
When Schumann, who wanted to make his connection with his beloved open, came to old Vic to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, he in a rage kicked his former student out of the house and forbade him to approach “his brilliant Clara.” Desperate, the young man took the final step, going to court with Clara’s consent, where his beloved’s father publicly accused his daughter’s admirer of drunkenness, debauchery, plebeianism and illiteracy. The composer refuted the slander of the angry Vic, and the court ruled on the possibility of marriage between lovers, contrary to the prohibition of the strict father.

Robert and Clara were married in a small church near Leipzig on September 12, 1840. The Schumanns settled in a tiny house on the outskirts of the city. Clara gave concerts, Robert composed music, and free time they taught at the conservatory. The famous “Love of a Poet”, “Love and Life of a Woman”. Schumann created “Dreams of Love” precisely at this happy time.
When four years later the couple went on a joint tour of Russian cities, a grand concert famous European pianist. The next day, the newspapers wrote: “The incomparable Clara came to us with her husband...” Returning home, Schumann was depressed and defeated, he withdrew more and more into himself, became withdrawn and unsociable: “... My position next to the famous wife is becoming more and more humiliating... Fate is laughing at me. Am I just Clara Wieck’s husband and nothing more?”

While already living in Düsseldorf, the Schumann family met the aspiring musician Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), who remained their faithful and sincere friend until the end of the couple’s life. He treated Robert very tenderly and warmly, but had completely ambiguous feelings towards Clara.

When a young, thin Brahms appeared on their doorstep on October 1, 1853, the owner wrote in his diary: “A visit from Brahms (genius).” And a month later, a German music magazine published an article by Robert Schumann, where he wrote: “I thought... that someone should appear who is destined to ideally embody the highest principle of our time... And he appeared... His name is Johannes Brahms... Sitting at the piano, he opened up wonderful countries to us, enveloping us more and more tightly with his charms.” They even said that supposedly such a strong connection between the two men gave rise to other relationships in addition to friendship, but this remains only speculation to this day.

Meanwhile, Robert’s health was deteriorating: increasingly falling into nervous melancholy, he did not even want to see his “beloved Clara.” The signs of a hereditary mental illness that his sister and father suffered from became more and more apparent. Schumann left real world into his own world, created by a fevered imagination, attended magic circles, and began to get involved in spiritualism and mysticism.
Clara, continuing to give concerts in cities and towns, tried to help her husband: she surrounded him with care, patiently endured nervous breakdowns, which worsened every day. The sick composer was tormented by auditory hallucinations, sometimes he did not even recognize his children and wife, and once, trying to get rid of the maniacally haunting images, he threw himself off a bridge into the Rhine. Passers-by carried Schumann, blue from the cold and unconscious, to the shore.

After this incident, fearing harm to Clara and the children, the losing mind genius asked to be placed in a psychiatric clinic. There he spent two painful years, where he gradually went crazy: he fell into a deep depression, refused to talk, eat and drink - he was afraid that he would be poisoned. Only when the devoted Brahms visited him did Schumann agree to drink a sip of wine and eat a piece of fruit jelly.

After the death of her husband, Clara was left with eight children. Schumann's widow survived the composer by as much as forty years. At first, Brahms remained close to Clara and helped her run the household. Six months later he returned to his homeland in Hamburg. Everyone who knew Brahms understood how dearly the young composer loved Schumann’s widow. Friends and family expected them to get married soon. But this did not happen, possibly for several reasons.

Composer Brahms dedicated this cycle to his beloved woman, Clara.

Firstly, being fourteen years older than Johannes, Clara treated him like a child and had maternal tender feelings towards him. Secondly, a young, promising twenty-three-year-old man could be afraid of a difficult family life, surrounded by an always very busy wife and eight children. Some were convinced that Brahms was afraid of the genius of the “incomparable Clara,” who always, as was the case with Schumann, overshadowed his talent. One way or another, Johannes Brahms left Düsseldorf alone.

It is unknown whether the relationship between Brahms and Clara Schumann was platonic or whether they were friends in public after all secret lovers. They said that Clara was very jealous of Brahms towards women. Perhaps this is why, and also because of his enormous devotion to the great pianist, the composer remained unmarried. Until Clara's death, for forty years, friends carried on continuous correspondence. When Clara died in Frankfurt on May 20, 1896, Brahms took her passing very hard. A year later he died.

It should be noted that time has put everything in its place: the names of Schumann and Brahms are known to everyone who is even the slightest bit interested in classical music, and only musicologists remember about Clara Wieck.

100 German marks 1989 with the image of Clara Wieck

10 euro, Germany (200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann)

Monument to R. Schumann in Zwickau.

The love story of Clara and Robert Schumann can be seen in the old sentimental American film “Song of Love” (1947, USA, in the role of Clara - Katharine Hepburn).

Beloved Clara / Clara Original title: Geliebte Clara made in Germany 2008

They are rightly called the greatest composers of the 19th century. But the phrase Schumann period is more often heard; this is the name given to the era of romanticism in the world of music.

Childhood and youth

German composer and music critic Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 in Saxony (Germany) to a loving couple, Friedrich August and Johanna Christiana. Because of his love for Johanna, whose parents opposed marriage to Friedrich due to poverty, the father of the future musician, after a year of working as an assistant in a bookstore, earned money to marry a girl and open his own business.

Robert Schumann grew up in a family of five children. The boy grew up mischievous and cheerful, similar to his mother, and was very different from his father, a reserved and silent person.

Robert Schumann began his schooling at the age of six and was distinguished leadership qualities and creative abilities. A year later, the parents noticed the child’s musical talent and sent him to learn to play the piano. He soon developed an ability to compose orchestral music.

For a long time the young man could not decide on the choice of his future profession - to take up music or go into literature, as his father wanted and insisted. But the concert of the pianist and conductor Moscheles, which Robert Schumann attended, left no chance for literature. The composer's mother had plans to make her son a lawyer, but in 1830 he finally received his parents' blessing to devote his life to music.

Music

Having moved to Leipzig, Robert Schumann began attending piano lessons from Friedrich Wieck, who promised him a career as a famous pianist. But life makes its own adjustments. Schumann developed paralysis of his right hand - the problem forced the young man to give up his dream of becoming a pianist, and he joined the ranks of composers.

There are two very strange versions of the reasons why the composer began to develop the disease. One of them is a simulator made by the musician himself to warm up his fingers, the second story is even more mysterious. There were rumors that the composer tried to remove tendons from his hand in order to achieve piano virtuosity.

But none of the versions has been proven; they are refuted in the diaries of his wife Clara, whom Robert Schumann knew, so to speak, from childhood. With the support of his mentor, Robert Schumann founded the publication “New Musical Newspaper” in 1834. Published in the newspaper, he criticized and ridiculed indifference to creativity and art under fictitious names.

The composer challenged the depressive and wretched Germany of that time, putting harmony, color and romanticism into his works. For example, in one of the most famous piano cycles, “Carnival,” there are simultaneously female images, colorful scenes, and carnival masks. In parallel, the composer developed in vocal creativity, the genre of lyrical song.

The narrative about the creation and the work itself, “Album for Youth,” deserves special attention. On the day when eldest daughter Robert Schumann turned 7 years old, the girl received a notebook with the title “Album for Youth” as a gift. The notebook consisted of works by famous composers and 8 of them were written by Robert Schumann.

The composer attached importance to this work not because he loved his children and wanted to please, he was disgusted by the artistic level of musical education - the songs and music that children studied at school. The album includes the plays “Spring Song”, “Father Frost”, “The Cheerful Peasant”, “Winter”, which, in the author’s opinion, are easy and understandable for children’s perception.

During the period of creative growth, the composer wrote 4 symphonies. The main part of the works for piano consists of cycles with a lyrical mood, which are connected by one storyline.

During his lifetime, the music written by Robert Schumann was not perceived by his contemporaries. Romantic, sophisticated, harmonious, touching delicate strings human soul. It would seem that Europe, shrouded in a series of changes and revolutions, was unable to appreciate the style of a composer who kept pace with the times, who fought all his life to face the new without fear.

Colleagues “in the shop” also did not perceive his contemporary - he refused to understand the music of a rebel and rebel, Franz Liszt, being sensitive and romantic, included in concert program only the work “Carnival”. The music of Robert Schumann accompanies modern cinema: “House”, “Grandfather of Easy Virtue”, “ Misterious story Benjamin Button."

Personal life

The composer met his future wife Clara Josephine Wieck at a young age in the house of a piano teacher - the girl turned out to be the daughter of Friedrich Wieck. In 1840, the wedding of the young people took place. This year is considered the most fruitful for the musician - 140 songs were written, and the year was also notable for the awarding of a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Leipzig.

Clara was famous as a famous pianist; she traveled to concerts in which her husband accompanied his beloved. The couple had 8 children, the first years of their life together were like a fairy tale about love with a happy continuation. After 4 years, Robert Schumann begins to experience acute attacks of nervous disorder. Critics suggest that the reason for this is the composer's wife.

Before the wedding, the musician fought for the right to become the husband of the famous pianist, mostly with the girl’s father, who categorically did not approve of Schumann’s intentions. Despite the obstacles created by his future father-in-law (the matter reached court proceedings), Robert Schumann married for love.

After the marriage, I had to struggle with my wife’s popularity and recognition. And although Robert Schumann was a recognized and famous composer, the feeling that the musician was hiding in the shadow of Clara’s fame did not leave. As a result of emotional distress, Robert Schumann took a two-year break from his work.

Love story about romantic relationships creative couple Clara and Robert Schumann is embodied in the film “Song of Love,” which was released in America in 1947.

Death

In 1853, the famous composer and pianist went to travel around Holland, where the couple was received with honors, but after some time the symptoms of the disease worsened sharply. The composer attempted suicide by jumping into the Rhine River, but the musician was rescued.

After this incident, he was placed in a psychiatric clinic near Bonn; meetings with his wife were rarely allowed. On July 29, 1856, at the age of 46, the great composer died. According to the autopsy results, the cause of illness and death at an early age is blood vessels overflowing and damage to the brain.

Works

• 1831 – “Butterflies”
• 1834 – “Carnival”
• 1837 – “Fantastic passages”
• 1838 – “Children’s Scenes”
• 1840 – “The Poet’s Love”
• 1848 – “Album for Youth”

Robert Schumann(8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856), German composer and music critic.

German composer Robert Schumann wanted “music to come from the depths of the present and not only be pleasant fun and beautiful in sound, but also strive for something else.” This very desire sharply distinguishes Robert Schumann from many composers of his generation, who sinned with meaningless writing.

P. Tchaikovsky believed that future generations would call it the 19th century. Schumann period in the history of music. And indeed, Schumann’s music captured the main thing in the art of his time - its content was the “Mysteriously deep processes of spiritual life” of a person, its purpose was to penetrate into the “depths human heart" Schumann fought for progress in music with all his might.

Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 into a very unmusical family. His father was the famous bookseller Friedrich August Schumann in Zwickau, and he himself was the youngest of five children. At the age of seven, he began taking piano lessons from organist I. Kunsht, improvising, and composing plays.

Schumann's first bold attempt was to compose, in the twelfth year of his life, an instrumental and choral music on the 150th Psalm. This experiment was bold because at that time he did not have the slightest idea about the theory of composition.

His parents insisted that the young man become a lawyer. For several years he waged a stubborn struggle for the right to follow his calling. To please his mother and guardian, Schumann practiced law in Leipzig as far as his duty dictated, but no more, and perhaps even less. It was then that he began to develop an attraction to music. He took piano lessons from Friedrich Wieck (Clara's father - future wife). He was inspired by the works of Franz Schubert, with whom he first became acquainted.

A vacation trip to beautiful Venice in 1829 planted more than one sprout of future musical flowers in his soul.

The following year, Schumann went to Frankfurt am Main to listen to Paganini. Some apt words his diary reveals a poet who admires the beauties of nature and art. After all these delights, of course, it was not easy to sit down decorously again and, starting in order from the first chapter of the pandects, puzzle over the articles on the “Division of Royal Law.”

Finally, on June 30, 1830, Robert decided to take an important step - to devote himself to music. He wrote a long letter to his mother, in which he directly announced his intention. Kind woman was greatly alarmed, doubting whether Robert would be able to “earn his daily bread” through his musical talent. However, she asked Vic for advice in writing, and when he approved of Robert’s intentions, her mother agreed. Robert moved to Leipzig and became Wieck's student and lodger.

But soon his fate changed again. The operation Schumann underwent on his right hand to quickly acquire fluency in playing the piano was crazy. The middle finger stopped working; Despite medical help, his hand became permanently incapable of playing the piano. Schumann had to forever abandon the desire to become a pianist. But now he began to become more and more interested in composing musical plays.

Schumann finally decided to seriously study the theory of musical compositions. He did not take lessons from music director Kuntsch for long and completed a thorough study of his subject under the guidance of Heinrich Dorn. His attitude towards Vic remained the best. Extraordinary musical abilities Clara Wieck, who had barely left the childhood, aroused the lively participation of Robert, who, however, was then only interested in her talent.

In 1833, the musician Schunke came to Leipzig from Stuttgart, and Schumann entered into an almost chimerical alliance of friendship with him.

He found a female musical friend in Henriette Focht, a student of Ludwig Berger; but his heart was owned at that time by Ernestina von F. from Asch, in Bohemia.

At the end of 1833, as Schumann himself said, “Every evening several people, mostly young musicians, gathered as if by chance; the immediate purpose of these gatherings was an ordinary public meeting; but, nevertheless, there was a mutual exchange of thoughts about music and art, which was an urgent need for them.” The then far from brilliant state of music was the reason that “one day it occurred to young, hot-headed people not to be idle spectators of this decline, but to try again to elevate poetry and the arts.”

Schumann, together with Friedrich Wieck, Ludwig Schunke and Julius Knorr, founded the magazine "New Musical Newspaper", which had a huge influence on the development of musical art in Germany. For many years, he himself wrote articles for the magazine under various pseudonyms and fought against the so-called philistines, that is, against those who, with their narrow-mindedness and backwardness, hampered the development of music. As a music critic, he appreciated the importance of F. Chopin, G. Berlioz, I. Brahms, who were his contemporaries, recognizing the enormous value of his predecessors - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert. Schumann was an exceptional expert on German literature.

Active studies in composition have borne fruit. Schumann creates a whole series interesting works. Among them are piano cycles from small pieces or miniatures: “Butterflies” (1831), “Davidsbündlers” (1837). They, like “Fantastic Pieces” (1837), “Kreisleriana” (1838), have program titles born from the composer’s imagination or indicating a connection with literature. Thus, “Kreisleriana” is reminiscent of the works of the German romantic E. A. Hoffmann. It brings to life the image of the inspired musician Fritz Kreisler, his dreams, dreams and visions. Kreisler, deeply suffering from philistinism in life and art, wages a courageous duel with it. This single fighter is akin to Schumann himself.

In “Butterflies” - one of Schumann’s first published works - we see a picture of a costume ball, where, according to the composer’s plan, the heroes of J. P. Richter’s book “The Years of Youth” meet. These are two brothers (one is dreamy and thoughtful, the other is impetuous and hot) and a young girl with whom both are in love.

One of Schumann's most original works is the piano cycle “Carnival” (1835). These motley, fantastic paintings embodied much of the life, hobbies and thoughts of the young Schumann at the time of his creative heyday.

Schumann had an amazing ability to create portraits of people in music, to express in one stroke the most characteristic things in a person’s appearance or in his mood. Such is his “Carnival”, where characters appear to be twirling in a rapid dance or slowly passing, immersed in their thoughts, under the masks of Pierrot and Harlequin, cheerful butterflies or dancing letters. Here are the composer's contemporaries: famous violinist N. Paganini and the great piano poet F. Chopin. But Florestan and Eusebius. This is what Schumann called the characters he invented, on whose behalf he wrote articles about music. Florestan is always on the move, in flight, in dance, he jokes sharply and caustically, his speech is hot and impetuous. Eusebius loves to dream in solitude, he says quietly, soulfully.

Florestan and Eusebius, Chopin and Paganini, Chiarina (under this mask appears Clara Wieck) are members of the union invented by Schumann. At the end of “Carnival” they all speak out against ordinary people who are alien to everything new and bold in art - in the “March of the Davidic Brotherhood”. These are the brightest and most joyful pages of his work. The novelty and unusualness of Schumann's music was most clearly manifested in his piano pieces created in the 1830s in Leipzig. In addition to those already mentioned, these are three sonatas (1835, 1833-1838, 1836), “Symphonic Etudes” (1834), fantasy (1837), “Novelettes” (1838). Schumann considered the piano an instrument for expressing feelings and moods inspired by both emotional experiences and natural phenomena or literary subjects.

Schumann's interest in the piano increased thanks to his happy marriage with Clara Wieck, as we know, an excellent pianist. For her, the author created an extremely valuable piano concerto in A minor. The frequently performed Cello Concerto in A minor and Schumann's many chamber works provide convincing evidence of the composer's progressive New Romantic orientation.

So, in the 1830s, Schumann was already the author of many original plays, but the composer had to learn from experience “that fame advances with the steps of a dwarf, while fame flies on the wings of a storm.” For most amateurs, his compositions were too difficult and incomprehensible; for specialist musicians, they seemed too eccentric, too deviating from tradition.

Mendelssohn had a huge influence on Schumann's work. Schumann, in his own words, “looked at him like a high mountain,” he “daily expressed thoughts worthy of being set in gold.” Schumann owes a lot to Mendelssohn. Without it, he would be in danger of wasting his extraordinary talent on a variety of witty and original musical jokes.

Meanwhile, Schumann's love for Ernestine von F. gradually weakened and finally disappeared completely. Clara had already become an adult girl, and Schumann could not help but notice this charming creature, gifted with extraordinary musical talent. Clara became a poetic ideal for Schumann, and since she reciprocated his feelings and both wanted a lasting union, Schumann had to take care of ensuring his existence.

In 1838, he decided to settle in Vienna and publish his magazine there. In October 1838, the composer moved to Vienna. However, he became convinced too soon that Vienna had ceased to be the soil of German classical music. At the beginning of April 1839, Schumann returned to Leipzig.

The year 1840 was a turning point in Schumann's life. The University of Leipzig awarded him the title of Doctor of Philosophy, and thus he received a title that in Germany meant quite a lot. On September 12, 1840, Robert and Clara were married in a church in Schönfeld. It is not surprising that at that happy time Robert Schumann, a subtle master in depicting the nuances of feelings and moods, created the cycles “Circle of Songs”, “Love and Life of a Woman”, “Love of a Poet”, “Myrtles” and others.

After his marriage, Schumann worked with patient diligence. His most successful, most beautiful works date from this time, especially his First Symphony and Oratorio<<Пери и рай>>, performed for the first time on December 4, 1843 in Leipzig. His wife, in her feminine, amazing devotion, tried, if possible, to protect him from all the everyday trifles of life, from everything that could upset and stop him musical activity, or that, perhaps, she did not consider worthy of attention. Thus, she was an intermediary between her husband and practical life.

Almost the only area of ​​activity where he broke out of the vicious circle of his soul was teaching at the “Teaching Institute”, established in 1843 in Leipzig and run by Mendelssohn. Music school piano and score playing and exercises in compositions.” The artistic journey he took with his wife to St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1844 brought them a lot of pleasure - they were received with great honor everywhere. In order to be able to devote himself entirely to writing, he handed over the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta to its former employee, Oswald Lorenz. This newspaper fulfilled its purpose: it put a barrier to soulless musical products, as well as frivolous frivolity in music, and paved the way for that direction in art that is imbued with a poetic spirit and strives for serious goals.

Schumann left Leipzig and settled in Dresden. Then, for the first time in 1844, signs of his mental illness appeared. The composer's nerves were completely upset due to mental overstrain. It was not until 1846 that he felt sufficiently recovered to be able to compose again.

He completes one of his major works - the Second Symphony. In total, Schumann wrote four symphonies, among which the First - “Spring” (1841) and the Fourth - in D minor (1851) stand out.

The artistic journey in the first months of 1847 to Prague and Vienna was a pleasant change and entertainment. In the same year, Schumann began composing the opera Genoveva (based on the famous medieval legend of Genevieve of Brabant). Genoveva did not make Schumann popular. Her music lacks what is absolutely necessary for opera - lively, sensual tactility, strong contrasts, bright, sharp colors.

Whether or not the composer was greatly upset by the cold reception of “Genoveva” is unknown, but this failure did not stop his desire for creativity. Something alarming can be seen in the speed with which he, especially since 1849, creates one extensive work after another. Schumann's songs "Towards Sunlight", "Spring Night" and others, written during this period, became extremely popular.

Before the world had time to become acquainted with “Manfred,” Schumann appeared again with the oratorio “Rose’s Wanderings,” with music based on a plot from “Faust,” with overtures, symphonies, trios, with countless notebooks of songs, piano pieces, etc. The metaphor of his favorite author (in Titan) is very suitable for this period: “The excessive light and brilliance of this constellation seems to foreshadow the sunset and the last day.”

In Schumann’s music for the tragedies “Faust” by Wolfgang Goethe and “Manfred” by George Byron, in his revolutionary marches, choirs and songs “To the Death of a Hero”, “Soldier”, “Smuggler”, romantic excitement, dreaminess, trepidation are combined with rebellion and love of freedom. During the days of the 1848 revolution, the composer wrote in his diary: “And people must fight so cruelly for a drop of freedom! Will the time come when everyone will be equal in their rights?

In 1850, Schumann received an invitation to the post of city director of music in Düsseldorf. A great musical poet is not always a good conductor, and vice versa. This is what happened with Schumann: he did not at all have the qualities of a good conductor. The composer himself thought differently, however. Disagreements began too soon in Düsseldorf, and in the fall of 1853 the whole matter fell apart: the contract was not renewed. This could also have extremely painfully wounded Schumann’s soul, which was already very tender and sensitive, but he did not show his experiences due to his secretive character.

The last ray of light was his trip to Holland in November 1853, where he and Clara were received in all cities “With joy and honor.” He “was surprised to see that his music in Holland had become almost more native than in his fatherland itself.” However, in the same year, painful symptoms began to appear again, and at the beginning of 1854 they suddenly appeared with even greater force. Death, which followed on July 29, 1856, put an end to this suffering.

But, despite Schumann’s sad fate, we can still consider him happy. He fulfilled the task of his life: he left in the memory of his descendants an example of a true German artist, who was full of honest straightforwardness, nobility and spirituality. When talking about their greatest musical poets, people will also remember the name of Schumann.

The work of the German composer Robert Schumann is inseparable from his personality. A representative of the Leipzig school, Schumann was a prominent exponent of the ideas of romanticism in musical art. “Reason makes mistakes, feeling never” - this was his creative credo, to which he remained faithful throughout his short life. Such are his works, filled with deeply personal experiences - sometimes bright and sublime, sometimes dark and depressing, but extremely sincere in every note.

Read a short biography of Robert Schumann and many interesting facts about the composer on our page.

Brief biography of Schumann

On June 8, 1810, in the small Saxon town of Zwickau, a joyful event occurred - a fifth child, a boy, was born into the family of August Schumann, who was named Robert. Parents then could not even suspect that this date, like the name of their youngest son, would go down in history and become the property of world musical culture. They were absolutely far from music.

The father of the future composer, August Schumann, was engaged in book publishing and was sure that his son would follow in his footsteps. Sensing literary talent in the boy, he managed to instill in him a love of writing from early childhood and taught him to feel deeply and subtly artistic word. Like his father, the boy read Jean Paul and Byron, absorbing from the pages of their works all the charm of romanticism. He retained his passion for writing throughout his life, but music became his own life.

According to Schumann's biography, at the age of seven, Robert began taking piano lessons. And two years later an event occurred that predetermined his fate. Schumann attended a concert by the pianist and composer Moscheles. The virtuoso’s playing so shocked Robert’s young imagination that he could not think about anything else except music. He continues to improve in playing the piano and at the same time tries to compose.

After graduating from high school, the young man, yielding to his mother’s wishes, enters the University of Leipzig to study law, but his future profession does not interest him at all. Studying seems unbearably boring to him. Secretly, Schumann continues to dream about music. His next teacher is famous musician Friedrich Wieck. Under his guidance, he improves his piano playing technique and eventually admits to his mother that he wants to be a musician. Friedrich Wieck helps break parental resistance, believing that his ward has a brilliant future. Schumann was obsessed with becoming a virtuoso pianist and performing concerts. But at the age of 21, an injury to his right hand puts an end to his dreams forever.

Having recovered from the shock, he decides to devote his life to composing music. From 1831 to 1838, his inspired fantasy gave birth to the piano cycles “Variations”, “ Carnival ", "Butterflies", "Fantastic Pieces", " Children's scenes ", "Kreysleriana". At the same time, Schumann is actively engaged journalistic activities. He creates the “New Musical Newspaper”, in which he advocates the development of a new direction in music, responsible aesthetic principles romanticism, where creativity is based on feelings, emotions, experiences, and young talents find active support on the pages of the newspaper.

The year 1840 was marked for the composer by the desired marriage with Clara Wieck. Experiencing an extraordinary elation, he creates cycles of songs that immortalized his name. Among them - " Poet's love ", "Myrtle", "Love and life of a woman". Together with his wife, they tour a lot, including giving concerts in Russia, where they are received very enthusiastically. Schumann was greatly impressed by Moscow and especially the Kremlin. This trip became one of the last happy moments in the composer’s life. The collision with reality, filled with constant worries about daily bread, led to the first bouts of depression. In his desire to provide for his family, he moves first to Dresden, then to Düsseldorf, where he is offered the post of music director. But it quickly becomes clear that the talented composer has difficulty coping with the duties of a conductor. Feelings of inadequacy in this capacity, financial difficulties families in which he considers himself guilty become the reasons sharp deterioration his state of mind. From Schumann's biography we learn that in 1954, a rapidly developing mental illness almost drove the composer to suicide. Fleeing from visions and hallucinations, he ran out of the house half-dressed and threw himself into the waters of the Rhine. He was saved, but after this incident he had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital, from where he never left. He was only 46 years old.

Interesting facts about Robert Schumann

• Named after Schumann international competition performers of academic music, which is called Internationaler Robert-Schumann-Wettbewerb. It was first held in 1956 in Berlin.
• There is the Robert Schumann Music Prize, established by the Zwickau City Hall. The prize winners are honored, according to tradition, on the composer's birthday - June 8. Among them are musicians, conductors and musicologists who have made a significant contribution to the popularization of the composer’s works.
• Schumann can be considered " godfather» Johannes Brahms. As the editor-in-chief of the New Musical Newspaper and a respected music critic, he spoke very flatteringly about the talent of the young Brahms, calling him a genius. Thus, for the first time he drew the attention of the general public to the aspiring composer.
• Adherents of music therapy recommend listening to Schumann’s “Dreams” for a restful sleep.

• As a teenager, Schumann, under the strict guidance of his father, worked as a proofreader to create a dictionary from Latin.
• In honor of Schumann's 200th birthday, Germany issued a silver 10-euro coin with a portrait of the composer. The coin is engraved with a phrase from the composer's diary: “Sounds are sublime words.”

• Schumann left not only a rich musical heritage, but also a literary one - mainly autobiographical. Throughout his life he kept diaries - “Studententagebuch” (Student Diaries), “Lebensbucher” (Books of Life), there is also “Eheta-gebiicher” (Marriage Diaries) and “Reiseta-gebucher” (Travel Diaries). In addition, he wrote the literary notes “Brautbuch” (Diary for the Bride), “Erinnerungsbtichelchen fiir unsere Kinder” (Books of Memories for Our Children), Lebensskizze (Life Sketch) of 1840, “Musikalischer Lebenslauf -Materialien – alteste musikalische Erinne-rungen "(Musical life - materials - early musical memories), "Book of Projects", which describes the process of writing your own musical works, and his children's poems have also been preserved.
• For the 150th anniversary of the German romantic, a postage stamp was issued in the USSR.
• On their wedding day, Schumann presented his bride Clara Wieck with a cycle of romantic songs, “Myrtha,” which he wrote in her honor. Clara did not remain in debt and decorated the wedding dress with a myrtle wreath.

• Schumann's wife Clara tried all her life to promote her husband's work, including his works in her concerts. Last concert she gave at 72 years old.
• The composer's youngest son was named Felix - in honor of Schumann's friend and colleague Felix Mendelssohn.
• Romantic love story Clara and Robert Schumann was filmed. In 1947, the American film “Song of Love” was shot, where the role of Clara was played by Katharine Hepburn.

Personal life of Robert Schumann

The main woman in the life of the German composer was the brilliant pianist Clara Wieck. Clara was the daughter of one of the best music teachers of his time, Friedrich Wieck, from whom Schumann took piano lessons. When the 18-year-old first heard Clara's inspired playing, she was only 8 years old. The talented girl was destined for a brilliant career. First of all, her father dreamed about this. That is why Friedrich Wieck, who provided all possible support to Schumann in his desire to connect his life with music, turned from the patron of the young composer into his evil genius when he learned about the feelings of his daughter and his student. He was sharply against Clara's union with the poor unknown musician. But in this case the young people showed all their fortitude and strength of character, proving to everyone that they mutual love able to withstand any test. In order to be with her chosen one, Clara decided to break with her father. Schumann's biography says that in 1840 the young people got married.

Despite deep feeling, connecting the spouses, their family life was not cloudless. Clara combined concert activities with the role of wife and mother; she bore Schumann eight children. The composer was tormented and worried that he could not provide his family with a decent, comfortable existence, but Clara remained his faithful companion all her life, trying to support her husband in every possible way. She outlived Schumann by as much as 40 years. She was buried next to her husband.

Schumann's riddles

• Schumann had a penchant for mystification. So, he came up with two characters - the ardent Florestan and the melancholy Eusebius, and signed his articles in the New Musical Newspaper with them. The articles were written in completely different manners, and the public had no idea that the same person was hiding behind the two pseudonyms. But the composer went even further. He announced that there was a kind of David’s brotherhood (“Davidsbund”) - a union of like-minded people who were ready to fight for advanced art. He subsequently admitted that the Davidsbund was a figment of his imagination.
• There are many versions explaining why the composer developed arm paralysis in his youth. One of the most common is that Schumann, in his desire to become a virtuoso pianist, invented a special simulator for stretching the hand and developing finger flexibility, but ended up getting injured, which then led to paralysis. However, Schumann's wife Clara Wieck always denied this rumor.
• A chain of mystical events is connected with Schumann's only violin concerto. Once, during a seance, two sister violinists received a demand, which, if they are to be believed, came from the spirit of Schumann - to find and perform his violin concerto, the manuscript of which is kept in Berlin. And so it happened: the concert score was found in a Berlin library.

• The cello concerto of the German composer raises no less questions. Shortly before his suicide attempt, the maestro was working on this very score. The manuscript with edits remained on the table, but due to illness he never returned to this work. The concerto was first performed after the composer's death in 1860. There is a clear sense of emotional imbalance in the music, but most importantly, its score is so complex for a cellist that one might think that the composer did not take into account the specifics and capabilities of this instrument. Literally until recently, cellists coped with the task as best they could. Shostakovich even made his own orchestration for this concert. And only recently archival materials were discovered, from which we can conclude that the concert was intended not for the cello, but for... the violin. It is difficult to say how true this fact is, but, according to music experts, if the same music in the original is performed on the violin, the difficulties and inconveniences that performers have been complaining about for almost a century and a half disappear by themselves.

Schumann's music in cinema

The figurative expressiveness of Schumann's music ensured its popularity in the world of cinema. Very often the works of a German composer, in whose work great place occupies the theme of childhood and is used as musical accompaniment in films telling about children and teenagers. And the darkness, drama, and whimsicality of images inherent in a number of his works are woven into paintings with mystical or fantastic plots as organically as possible.

Schumann had a trait that was noted by many contemporaries - he came into sincere admiration when he saw talent in front of him. At the same time, he himself did not experience noisy fame and recognition during his lifetime. Today it is our turn to pay tribute to the composer and the person who gave the world not just incredibly emotional music, but himself in it. Without receiving a fundamental musical education, he created real masterpieces that only to a mature master. Literally, he put his entire life into music, without lying about it even a single note.

Video: watch a film about Robert Schumann

"Fantastic Plays" was composed in 1837. Schumann - 27 years old; “Butterflies”, “Intermezzo”, Toccata, “Carnival” have already been created,
“Symphonic Studies”, sonatas fis and g, Fantasia. There's only a year left until Kreisleriana and Children's Scenes. The circle of “Davidsbündlers” already existed and operated in Schumann’s imagination. In a word, it was the most lively, passionate and active period of creativity and personal life. It was during this period that Schumann was able to so powerfully and unprecedentedly embody some of the best aspects and achievements of romanticism.
One of the most precious features of musical romanticism is humanity, love for man, the greatest attention to all - obvious and hidden - sides of him. mental life. “Romanticism had its own emphasis and its main contribution - it showed the treasures of the heart,” (Zhitomirsky. Robert Schumann). From here arises the characteristic Schumann genre - painting of mood, spiritualization, poeticization of feelings, revelation of beauty in human emotions. This feeling seems to be uniform, unchanging, embodied not in statics, but in all its overflows and changes. Extraordinary responsiveness to the smallest, most subtle manifestations and shades of feeling.
What can be said about the concept, the idea of ​​the play being analyzed, its emotional appearance? The first guideline for us is the title: it speaks of the embodiment of the idea of ​​the question, the expectation of an answer, an explanation.
Of course, there can be no question of limiting oneself to a reference to the title of the work when we're talking about about disclosure of content. This link should only be a convenient starting point. But one should not underestimate it, or go to the opposite extreme: for a composer like Schumann, the title should make one think, especially if it is unusual in some way. And this title is indeed very unusual: just a short word, accompanied by a rare punctuation mark for a title (“?”), a word containing something unexplained, mysterious, hiding some kind of secret.
Let us not forget that by introducing the music with such a title, Schumann thereby sets the listener up in a certain way and gives direction to perception. Analysis of the music will confirm the truthfulness and validity of the title. But by anticipating the results of the analysis, we can now
to say that the formulation of the content as the embodiment of the idea of ​​the question is only the most general and does not cover other important aspects and shades of the content. They will also have to be clarified during the analysis process.

Let's turn to the thematic grain:
This is not just a motive, it is the theme of the work, the main, the only one. This grain is twofold: in terms of the change of functions DD-D-T and in rhythm (a square pattern with a large final stop) it is complete; but in terms of the melodic pattern, the instability of the first moment (double dominant) and the modal meaning of the melody itself, it is devoid of complete
completeness. The first sound in harmony forms the tritone des - g, the second main sound (es) is itself unstable, the last sound is the tonic third. The pattern of the melody is as follows: gradual unfolding, expansion of intervals - prima, second, third, fifth, sixth (a kind of shell or “snail”); There are two ascending steps with only one descending step, the melody ends with an upward step. There is no interval collapse or decay; towards the end there is a slight crescendo, not a diminuendo3.

The first four sounds of the melody are almost identical to the romantic “question motive.”
Let us recall some examples where the questioning intonation or intonation of expectation and dissatisfaction is expressed by an ascending step: Tchaikovsky’s romance “Why?” (same name!). Here there are related rising intonations, and an appeal to the poet (Heine through Mey), close to Schumann. Let us also recall the final intonation of the introduction to Lensky’s aria (“golden days?”).

A kind of proof “by contradiction” is the farewell intonation of the reverse direction III -> I from the tonic third to the example: the endings of the first movements of the 12th and 17th sonatas, especially “Lebe wohl” of Beethoven’s 26th sonata; the endings of the 8th nocturne Des major, the ballad in G minor and the first movement of the ballad F major by Chopin; “farewell to the teacher” - L. V. Nikolaev, which is seen in the main theme of the first part of Shostakovich’s 2nd piano sonata. Even more obvious is the semantics of the triple bass intonation F-D in the coda of the first movement of his 5th symphony. Participating in creating the effect of mournful and reconciled farewell intonation V-I(trumpets, timpani pp) III-I (strings and harps in deep bass), chromatic “parting with the scale” (celesta), lonely and melancholy sound of the solo violin, symbolizing departure to endless heights;
3 “Music, as it were, reproduces from the ordinary speech intonation of a question its two characteristic features - the line of rise and the incompleteness of the ending (Zhitomirsky D. Cited cit., p. 356).

all this is given three times, according to the traditional farewell formula. In this brilliant episode, of particular interest to us is the mutually shading effect of two intonations: the harsh, irrevocable affirmation of V-I (iamb, ascent) is softened and rethought by the tertiary III-I (trochaic, descent). The entire ideally harmonious complex in the fusion of its various aspects leaves a strong impression. “Farewell” is associated with completion, final approval. Thus, the opposite semantics - interrogative-incomplete - can be expressed by the reverse intonation move I -> I I I . Let's return to the duality of the main motive. Due to its partial completion, it, firstly, sounds a short aphorism, and secondly, it is suitable for both beginning and ending. It can be the end for both the first part and the entire play. On the other hand, thanks to its incompleteness, it is able to express the main idea of ​​the play.

But why didn’t Schumann embody the questioning character more strongly and unambiguously? Why didn’t he do this (for example, as in the opening motive of Chopin’s A-dur Prelude? Such a directly posed question in music requires a quick answer (as Chopin did). Schumann, obviously, wanted to give only the first hint of the idea of ​​the question , and then, step by step, develop, strengthen, deepen it. Let us turn to texture. It is dialogical due to its imitation.

After all, a question, if an entire work is devoted to it, cannot be asked once, cannot be asked only once. It must arise again and again. In other words, he is persistent. This is the second important aspect of the content. Reprisal within the period served as a means for its implementation.
The structure of the initial period anticipates the structure of the entire work; there are two concentrations, in each of which there is an “idea”, aphoristically expressed as a grain, then its development and return.
Moving on to the analysis of the middle, we first of all notice that the motif is initially given a minor coloring (transposition of the “grain” into f-minor). But everything else is given on a different harmonious plane and amazes with the depth of instability. In general, the middle sounds like a typical minor precursor to a certain major, but its direction is unusual: after all, the Es-dur of the middle is DD in relation to the main mode. Such a distant relationship will become clearer if we define it more precisely - as a precursor not only to the reprise in general, but, in particular, to its first chord (also the initial chord of the piece) - such distant or indirect precursors were sometimes used in romantic music (Liszt , “At the spring”). This first chord that the middle is aimed at is DD Des-dur. It's like he
taken for tonic, support for the middle. That is why the dominant precursor to it, in turn, is D to DD, in other words, triple D. As we see, the composer has deeply entered into the area of ​​instability, and this is clearly connected with the whole concept of the work.
In the middle Schumann found new uniform to express the idea of ​​a question. The harmony is purely unstable, all motives are devoid of descending completion (in the first part only the main motives - the “edges of the period” were such). Twice the genuine “question motive” (ges - f - as), which is close to Wagner’s “fate motive,” appears, as if “exposed.” The structure represents fragmentation without closure (4, 4, 2, 2, 2) and serves the same semantic purpose - making the question more frequent, its intensification; the main motive is sounded five times (and taking into account imitations, it is performed seven times).
But at the same time, another important shade of the “idea” is becoming more and more obvious: not only interrogativeness and not only the persistence of the question, but also irresponsibility. This is felt in the emphasized repetition of unstable motives, in the tense expectation of resolution and, finally, in the fact that the open structure of fragmentation remains without balancing. What is captured is only an increasingly intense expectation of an answer; the character of the middle could be defined as soft urgency. This insistent request, the plea for an answer is especially felt precisely at the moment of compression of constructions - in a threefold repetition. This triplicity will be reflected in the reprise.
In the middle it was not so difficult to strengthen, to condense the idea of ​​the question. But what to do in a reprise? After the unstable middle, where the “question” could not have been more appropriate, the stability of the reprise could create an unwanted “answer”. And the composer overcame this danger, moreover, in two ways: 1) the thematic development of a negative character and 2) a special harmonic treatment of the main motive.
1. What is the “negativity” of thematic development? The reprise has been deeply transformed - it has been reduced to the threefold constant repetition of the main motive, which has lost further development and has lost the ability to continue. This replacement of thematic movement with an emphasized immutability of repetitions is also adequate to irresponsibility. After all, both in the first part and in the middle there were some changes, processes of melodic-thematic and harmonic development - here it’s as if everything is turned off, except for one single element, always asking, always waiting for an answer, a reaction to the question. This way the danger of liability is overcome. But by abandoning melodic development, Schumann thereby greatly limited himself. Did the expression of the reprise suffer from this narrowing? This could have happened if the composer had not compensated for the limitation of means of reprise in a special way - polyphonic concentration. The continuing motive in the first part of the play appeared only after the main motive had ceased, but here it enters one and a half bars earlier; a kind of horizontally mobile counterpoint arises:
Thus, the reprise is built on a compressed dialogue, where both voices are moved close to each other. This means that the reprise, despite the restrictions placed on it, is very rich in terms of lyrical content. This advantage is accompanied by another: the register-melodic roll call means the typical semantics of farewell; Thus, it serves two purposes - both expression and clarification of form (the feeling of the proximity of the end).
2. Schumann made the stable part of the form (recapitulation) express something unstable, that is, serve the same questioning. The composer acts through harmonic reinterpretation. We have just seen that the response phrase of the dialogue enhanced the lyrical content of the reprise and at the same time gave the reprise a farewell tone. But the reprise is also endowed with a third meaning - it is precisely this that carries out a harmonious rethinking. There is only one method, but the results are so different! Schumann weakens the tonic (by repeated strong deviations into the subdominant - Ges-dur. They could strengthen the tonic, but the sound ces, appearing after the resolution in T Des, forms D7 Ges-dur, which - together with the two previous D7 As-dur and Des- dur - creates a “dominant chain” DD-D-D->S, and this latter prevents the emergence of the final cadence of three tritones following each other.
Along with very bright gravity a-b they strengthen the subdominant pole, weakening the tonic pole. This is why it seems that the tonic is being disavowed and called into question; its stability is perceived as purely relative. One can feel an oscillation between two interpretations - either a stable cadence in Des-dur, or an unstable “ellipsis”.? The acoustic effect leaves a charming impression: ces as the 7th overtone (in the proper octave!) seems to grow naturally from the deep bass Des. While creating subtle structural patterns, the composer does not forget about the beauty of sound (“dark velvet”). It is remarkable that Chopin resorted to a similar acoustic effect, mainly in the same mode (1st nocturne, before the reprise; 8th nocturne, second reprise; coda to the Lullaby).
So, the reprise, despite its dubious stability, sounds like a conclusion. Code techniques are attached to it, and it is, in essence, interpreted as a code. To summarize, we can say that from the point of view of content, all three of its sides are perfectly revealed in the reprise: it is interrogative, and urgent in its questioning expressiveness, and ultimately unanswerable.
Schumann managed to avoid assertiveness in the reprise, replacing the melodic-thematic movement with an invariable repetition of the question motive; at the same time, he compensated for the potential impoverishment of the reprise by giving listeners a new, especially concentrated version of the lyrical duet. In turn, this duet emphasizes the coda meaning of the reprise, its sad farewell, but at the same time gives the music a character of modal duality and uncertainty, which is very much in harmony with the idea of ​​the play.
The role of this reprise can be understood more broadly. After all, having received a code connotation, it sounds like something post-reprise. It’s like “no longer a reprise”; it’s as if there was no real reprise - the development or developing part, bypassing the reprise phase of development, went straight into the coda. “Not yet a reprise” turns into “already a reprise.” In this sense, Schumann’s little play opens up great horizons, anticipating a certain type of reprises that developed in the 19th century - a type of kind of “disappointing” reprises - they either do not fully give the positive that you expect from such a piece, or they sound like a premature collapse, epilogue (“post-reprise” or even “anti-reprise”).
These are the nocturne in F minor, the prelude in B major, the etude in op. 25 No. 1 by Chopin, second reprise of Liszt's 123rd sonnet. This tendency is particularly evident in the introduction to “Tristan”, where there is no genuine reprise at all: a growing pre-actual “pre-reprise” at the dominant organ point E - and a fading, minor “post-reprise” - coda. This is not where we meet
with pure lyricism, but with features of hidden or even obvious drama. It is under his influence that the reprise takes on unusual look or even missing.
Let us go even further. A special type of development is emerging, observed in the relationships between developments, reprises and the code of the 9th-20th centuries. In symphonic works of a large scale, this type of development serves to express ideas of a tragic nature: a positive beginning is difficult to achieve; it comes only when the action is, in essence, already over: in the epilogue. Outstanding examples of this kind are the first movements of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony, Rachmaninoff's 3rd concerto, and Shostakovich's 5th symphony.
It goes without saying that to see a direct, immediate connection between Schumann's modest piece and grandiose symphonic concepts would be absurd. This connection is distant in nature and passes through a number of intermediate links. But the germ of such dramaturgy already exists in Schumann.
Let us return to the phenomena directly related to our play. Just as in music, to embody conflict, it is not necessary to collide two sharply contrasting themes, so to embody experiences of a questioning type, a dissonant, unstable ending is not necessary. The composer can act more subtly, not directly, but indirectly, but at the same time deeply. Schumann did not give here an unstable, dissonant, non-tonic ending, in contrast to the plays “Children’s Scenes” written a year later: “The Child’s Request” (D7) and “The Child is Dozing” (IV stage). While the motive sounded at the very beginning, its imperfect cadence satisfied us with its stability. But at the end of the period, it would seem, it was necessary to give a higher degree of completion - and yet it did not increase, it remained the same as it was in the first measures and therefore seems to us even less. Thus, the motive does not change, while the feeling of incompleteness increases. Now let's listen to the last sound - f.
The tonic third, as the last sound of the melody and as the upper horizon of the reprise, sounds under the influence of the subdominant voice to some extent in the Ges-dur coloring, where f is the most unstable sound, introductory tone. The question arises: what is this, a tonic third or an introductory tone? And with this sign of an unsatisfied question, Schumann ends the play.
So, three stages, three stages in the development of the image coincide with the three parts of the form. The first part of the play reveals the main emotion, the second strengthens it, deepens it, and the third returns the main emotion, externally weakened, but internally concentrated.
The exact name of the form is a simple three-part developmental type with a shortened and revised reprise. All its parts are interpreted with great originality. The first part is unusual in structure (mirror symmetry), the middle is unusual in harmony (reliance on a rather distant instability), the reprise is unusual in the nature of the presentation of the theme. Moreover, the structure of the first period in miniature anticipates the structure of the entire work, having its own middle and reprise.
There are two circles, two concentrations, in each of which there is an “idea”, its development and return.
What is the historical significance of works like this play? They should be seen as a sign of the times - the era of romanticism. The composer's close attention is able to attract one specific shade of emotion, one detail of mental life. A small lyrical episode becomes the plot of an entire work, which is unanimously recognized as brilliant.

The value of human experience, even the most modest and restrained, is affirmed. The art of expressing it in a concise, laconic, but highly expressive form is being developed. Two opposing trends collide: the “autonomy” of the emotional stroke, which receives the right to independent expression in the whole form, and the emotional saturation of the miniature, giving it previously unusual depth and significance. This hasn't happened in instrumentals yet.
miniatures of the Viennese classics and the earliest of the romantics - Schubert.
Is this work lonely by Schumann? The cultivation of emotions of either the questioning or languishing type is evident in a number of other works. These are the already mentioned “Child’s Request”, the second performance of the main part in the first part of the Fantasia, the side part of the piano concerto (Animato), the end of song No. 1 from the cycle “The Poet’s Love” - as if a symmetrical reflection of the ending from “The Child’s Request”. After all, the “question” is nothing more than a kind of romantic dissatisfaction, an expression of dreams and longing for a beautiful ideal. “Question” is also close to such shades of mental life that are opposite to affirmative or actively striving emotional movements: such as hesitation, doubt, uncertainty. In the process of musical development, new shades emerge: in music you can hear a sad plea, tenderness, anxiety, expectancy, perhaps a gentle reproach (zart - tenderly, Schumann himself emphasized) 5. The choice is not accidental
5 Let us recall Tchaikovsky's play op. 72 No. 3, “Tendres reproches” (“Tender reproaches”).
- meaningful “Warum?”, and not just “Eine Frage”e fie, is there a whole, albeit small, program here: “Why did you act (act) this way”? Perhaps there is a memory of the past here; This assumption is suggested by the entire nature of the presentation - some kind of haze with which everything is shrouded; slow pace; restraint of dynamics, not exceeding a very relative and short-term forte in the second half of the middle; accompaniment “floating” in continuous soft syncopations. Before us is the development of a special type of lyricism, extremely soft, sincere, “Eusebian”.
Let's look at some historical comparisons. Of course, even before the romantics, there were any number of interrogative intonations in music. But they did not grow to the scale of independent artistic image. This type of image still receives citizenship rights only in connection with romanticism. In Viennese classicism, the question for the most part
the answer followed immediately; This is where the question-and-answer type of period arises, as well as smaller constructions. One of the rare examples of a different kind is the beginning of the finale in Beethoven’s 4th sonata, which is not coincidentally rooted in the music of the “pre-romantic” Philipp Emanuel Bach (meaning his Rondo in D major). In Beethoven, the complication of emotions of an unstable type had a special
character: even if he did not close the question with an answer, he did not so much highlight the question as such as create collisions and contradictions, where the interrogative principle entered only as a particularity. These are the “third quarters” in the main themes of the 5th symphony and “Appassionata”:
But even this particular moment is more likely associated with the growth, accumulation of forces, than with the expectation of an answer. What Beethoven had as a precondition, prepared, became independent among the Romantics. The Andante of the 26th sonata, permeated with “question motives,” is already a sign of the late period, approaching romanticism. The 17th is remarkable in this regard.
quartet op. 135, written at the end of 1826, that is, more than 10 years before Warum? We mean the fourth part with its title “With difficulty decision” (“Der schwer gefasste Entschluss” and the epigraph “Muss es sein?”) The answer “Es muss sein!” It is no coincidence that Beethoven calls it a “solution.”

Phrases of a questioning nature are not uncommon in Schubert’s music and sometimes
very expressive, for example, in songs such as “Curiosity”, “Am I Loved by Her”, “Spring Dream”. But not always special emphasis is placed on them. Sometimes Schubert, without hesitation, places the interrogative phrases of the text on a completely stable harmonic symmetry (question-answer).
The reason lies, of course, in a simple-minded and less refined approach to the embodiment of content, in capturing the general character of feelings and thoughts. In the song “Double” we find remarkable confirmation of such a generalizing approach, but of a reverse nature: with clearly unstable questioning music, the phrases of the text and the first two verses are affirmative; the music is aimed at the dramatic question of the third - last verse, addressed to the double (“My double
strange, my gloomy companion! Why did you remind me of love’s misunderstood torment?”).
In Chopin, interrogative moments are limited either only to the first sentence (nocturne in H major, op. 32, g minor, op. 37, main part of the 1st ballade) or even only to its beginning (sonata in b minor, side part), or middle (nocturne Fis-dur, op. 15), Chopin is more classical, his nature is more harmonious. It is not for nothing that Asafiev expressed their difference in the following words: “Chopin is perfection, but Schumann is more emotionally primordial: a confession of the soul”6. Individual themes of a questioning type can be found in Tchaikovsky (an episode from the Andante of the 5th symphony, a side part of the sextet “Memories of Florence”, etc.); they are almost always lyrical. The internal kinship with Schumann's prototypes is obvious, but Tchaikovsky invariably interprets them only as fragments of a large whole.
Comparisons show that with all connections and common features, the expression “Warum?” still remains specific to Schumann.
Here, obviously, the special difficulties associated with the implementation played a role. of this type emotions as an independent image. If they are expressed moderately, then a stable response usually occurs. If they are dramatized, then these figurative frameworks become cramped, and there is no reason to talk about preserving this type. Schumann, on the other hand, found such a subtle figurative layer that already goes without an answer, but does not yet require obvious dramatization. Thus Schumann opened a new area of ​​content. There are millions of interrogative intonations in music, interrogative themes are incomparably fewer, but the work is unique7. And this is the highest meaning of the “individual” that Schumann was able to express here.

7 A century later, the idea of ​​unanswerability was revived in Ives's epic play The Unanswered Question. -V. Zuckerman