NOTES

Early Loves
As a teenager Robert Schumann (1810-1856) revealed the literary aspirations that one might have expected from a bookseller’s son. Fortunately, his father also recognized and fostered his son’s precocious musical talent. But upon his father’s death, Robert was steered toward a more practical profession (the law) at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg. In truth, Schumann spent more time socializing with poets and composers, learning more about love than law. He maintained the façade of being a diligent scholar for ten years before openly pursuing a career in music.

At first, Schumann was drawn by the allure of becoming a touring virtuoso like Moscheles, Paganini, or Thalberg. Ironically, he ruined his own chances for such a career by overstraining his right hand (a finger-strengthening contraption may have been partly to blame), turning instead to composition and criticism. We are certainly the richer thereby, for Schumann never would have found time to pen the mature essays and works had concertizing and celebrity governed his daily routine.

As a composer, Schumann tended to work simultaneously on bunches of related compositions. Although he went on to write some of the greatest vocal, chamber, and symphonic works, young devoted himself exclusively to the piano. Each of Schumann’s first thirty published compositions is for solo piano. Acclaimed pianist Wilhelm Kempff regards these early pieces as “the most significant works Schumann ever wrote.” This is not to say that the music of the 1830s was always successful or that it came easily from his pen. Many unpublished sketches reveal a composer struggling to find his voice and give a particular motive its ideal musical setting.

During these years, other passions exerted their influence in Robert’s life. He passed in and out of several romantic relationships with all the heart-on-sleeve fervor of Byron. By the end of 1835 his devotion settled on young Clara Wieck, daughter of his Leipzig piano teacher. Clara herself was a formidable pianist and composer. Forbidden to meet by Herr Wieck – Clara was just sixteen at the time, nine years Robert’s junior – the pair were married in 1840 only after much legal wrangling. The effect on Robert was immediate and profound. A whole world of new musical ideas exploded in his head. During his so-called “Year of Song” (1840), Schumann wrote over one hundred lieder, including Dichterliebe, Frauenliebe und –Leben, and two collections titled Liederkreis (Song Circle). These sets essentially define the modern idea of a song cycle, which involves direct tonal relationships between successive songs, musical allusions from one song to another, and a chronological progression of action.

From Maturity to Madness
Now that his forays into solo piano and song composition seem to have been sated, Schumann turned to orchestral and chamber music. Two symphonies (Nos. 1 and 4) were penned in 1841, and the following year was given over almost entirely to chamber works. Several substantial pieces emerged in 1842: three string quartets, a Fantasy for piano trio, the Piano Quartet Op. 47, and the Piano Quintet Op. 44. The latter two works are both in E-flat major and sometimes called the “creative double.” They are among Schumann’s most performed and recorded compositions.

Just as the youthful labors in piano and song started to bear fruit as mature chamber works, mental illness cast a pall over Robert’s world. He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1843 and displayed manic behavior. The condition similarly afflicted both his father and his sister. At the same time, Schumann’s intensive working methods, proceeding at white-hot pace on multiple compositions simultaneously, combined with the protracted legal battle to wed Clara, their eventual marriage, becoming a father in late 1841, his demanding role as editor and primary contributor to a prominent music periodical – surely all of this played a part in his emotional collapse.

With Clara’s help and sporadic medical treatment, Schumann maintained his grip on reality and enjoyed extended periods of remission. Throughout the later 1840s, a period that brought forth two of the piano trios heard today, Schumann continued to compose, though his works rarely found widespread favor with audiences. Sadly he also struggled to provide financial security for his growing family. Into this scene in 1853 stepped the young Johannes Brahms, a doting supporter of Schumann’s music and devoted aide to Clara. Robert’s mental illness would soon resurface, leading to his attempted suicide and voluntary confinement in an asylum in 1854. He lingered on for two more years, in and out of lucidity, until succumbing to pneumonia in July 1856.

The Piano Trios
In addition to a Fantasiestuck, Op. 88, composed during his chamber music year (1842), Schumann produced three works for piano trio instrumentation, calling for piano, violin, and cello. Two of the trios, No. 1 in D Minor and No. 2 in F Major, were composed in 1847. The Schumanns had just returned from a tour around Germany and Austria that had brought mixed results; Robert felt inspired by hearing works by so many other contemporary masters, but his own music – including the premiere of his Piano Concerto – generated little enthusiasm. Moreover, the couple lost their one-year-old son at the very time Robert was deeply engaged on these trios.

Like its companions, the Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor is a substantial work lasting approximately thirty minutes. Of four movements, the first is the most expansive. Interestingly, that grand scale derives mainly from the development section (the central portion of the familiar “sonata form”). Schumann’s opening material is spirited without question, though listeners seeking a lyrical main theme may need to adjust their expectations. Put another way, it is perhaps curious that this master song composer writes chamber music generally devoid of soaring melody. The restless energy stems from an animated piano part, propelling everything forward on waves of rich chord progressions. This fervent momentum also throws a bright light, by way of contrast, on those very brief moments when Schumann pulls back for a surprising ritardando. They generally come without preparation and recede just as quickly, though their impact may help explain the extended reverential episode Schumann inserts into the development section.

The following Scherzo and Trio relies on a single musical idea for all of its material. After the first movement’s Sturm und Drang fervor, the galloping Scherzo theme provides needed contrast. For the Trio section Schumann dresses up the theme in softer robes that mask its derivation from what we just heard moments earlier.

The slow third movement offers a plangent, searching quality. Its tempo designation, “mit innerer Empfindung” (with deep feeling), might arguably stand as a motto for Schumann and many of his generation. The first theme has a funereal tone generated by basso profondo notes in the piano and descending chromatic lines. Out from the darkness emerges a more animated, tender second theme in F major. After a recall of the first theme, Schumann proceeds without pause into the finale.

Here we might be fully prepared for a fiery D-minor Rondo, but instead Schumann opens in a bright D major. We move fluidly across the form. Like the opening movement, this finale spends a great deal of time and energy in the development section, modulating through keys using short motivic fragments. The players are instructed to go “faster and faster” (nach und nach schneller) during the coda. Combined with syncopated rhythms and virtuosic arpeggios, the music projects a touch of Hungarian folk dance. As mentioned above, Schumann’s themes in this trio are not often the kind you are going to walk home humming to yourself, but the overall exuberance of this Rondo theme more than compensates.

In some respects, Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 3 in G Minor can claim to be the most mature of the three – and not simply by virtue of its later compositional date. It still retains the virtuosity of Mendelssohn (one of Schumann’s most beloved colleagues) though the chordal writing and rhythmic variety clearly foreshadow Brahms. Schumann shows a greater equality and interest in all three instruments. The string counterpoint is subtle, and the cello in particular enjoys more opportunities to shine. A lush piano accompaniment serves to thicken the texture so that the strings can both engage in more interesting patterns. The earlier trios often settled on sustained pitches, but the variety of ideas here is quite compelling. As one example – not easily heard in passing – Schumann brilliantly continues the cello’s pizzicato motive from the development underneath the reprise of the main theme, intentionally blurring or softening what was conventionally an emphatic signpost in classical sonata form.

The traditional slow movement maintains a conventional guise only during the opening section, whereas the agitated middle material adds a welcome update on the Adagio aesthetic. Overall this ABA movement closes in a reverential mood, but that brief unsettled episode (section B) acts to counterbalance the series of cushioning cadences at the end. Curiously, the ensuing Scherzo movement stands this same duality on its head. The opening theme in a relentless C minor yields quickly to a lovely new C major idea. A later episode introduces constant dotted rhythms as in a peasant dance but very briefly, again being overtaken by the infectious C minor theme.

The Finale strides forth with valedictory strains lifted almost verbatim from the famous Piano Quintet. What’s new, though it was already hinted at in the previous movement, is the ephemeral nature of Schumann’s themes, which proceed all-too-quickly from one to the next. After only a minute he moves into a contrasting E-minor section: the first of several departures. The designation matters little, but Schumann is writing a sonata-rondo, one of the Beethoven’s favorite forms. It combines elements of sonata form (thematic presentation, development, and reprise) with periodic returns of the main theme typical of the classical Rondo.

This G-minor trio emerged quickly during an intense, fruitful period of work in 1851 that also witnessed two violin sonatas, numerous songs and choral works, as well as several orchestral projects (the revised Symphony No. 4, for instance). The music took shape some eighteen months before Brahms entered Schumann’s life, but the spirit clearly inspired the younger man, whose own G-minor Piano Quartet was drafted just a few months after Schumann’s death.

After intermission, today’s concert closes with Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 2 in F Major, completed in 1847 simultaneously with the D-minor Trio. And like its companion, this Trio features Schumann’s distinct kind of non-lyrical main themes, as we will discuss in a moment. First, it is worth observing that this sonata-form movement does not call for a repeat of the exposition; the entire movement proceeds song-like from start to finish. As such, it is shorter than the corresponding movement of Trio No. 1 by a solid four minutes. Fleeting motives rise and fall in skipwise motion; the only sustained, lyrical theme does not occur until well into the development section (which, it might be noted, is not the usual place for lyrical effusiveness). Schumann compels us to focus on thematic character instead of melody. And character in Schumann’s music emerges from striking harmonies, rhythms, and tempo changes.

The slow movement displays another common feature of 19th-century music: a tonal relation by “thirds.” The previous movement closed emphatically in F major. The primary pitch, F, becomes a hinge upon which Schumann opens the door to a very different tonal realm, D-flat major, for the slow movement. D-flat sits a major third interval below F, hence the concept of “third-related” keys. In tonal theory, F major and D-flat major are distantly related in harmonic terms, but it works because the pitch F plays an essential role in both keys. Because Schumann moves quickly into other keys, the effect is fleeting, and our attention turns instead to the ways he extracts utmost pathos from every phrase.

In the third movement Schumann seems to offer another slow meditation, with an added ⅜ lilting allure. As the music progresses, however, we recognize that our impression of a “slow tempo” was created by Schumann’s long rhythmic values. These masked the fact that the actual speed of the music was not slow at all. To be sure, this is not the most lively Scherzo or Minuet, and Schumann only reinforces the sense of restraint with a subdued coda at the end.

The stage is thus set for a vigorous finale. A small detail – his use of staccato touch – adds substantial urgency and thrust to the music. Most listeners will also sense that all three musicians are locked into various kinds of contrapuntal exchanges, as motives pass from violin to cello to piano. Yet as superlative chamber works must do, this Trio finds a way to draw the players back together for harmonic unity by the end. And the end, when it comes, offers a ravishing overlap of various ideas heard in the preceding half hour. Schumann’s Trios may not enjoy the same prestige and popularity as his Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet, though on musical grounds alone they reward closer study.


© Jason Stell, 2024