THE SCHUMANNS AND CHOPIN.
Robert Schumann"s Place as a National Composer.--Peculiar Greatness as a Piano-forte Composer.--Born at Zwickau in 1810.--His Father"s Aversion to his Musical Studies.--Becomes a Student of Jurisprudence in Leipzig.--Makes the Acquaintance of Clara Wieck.--Tedium of his Law Studies.--Vacation Tour to Italy.--Death of his Father, and Consent of his Mother to Schumann adopting the Profession of Music.--Becomes Wieck"s Pupil.--Injury to his Hand which prevents all Possibilities of his becoming a Great Performer.--Devotes himself to Composition.--The Child, Clara Wieck--Remarkable Genius as a Player.--Her Early Training.--Paganini"s Delight in her Genius.--Clara Wieck"s Concert Tours.--Schumann falls deeply in Love with her, and Wieck"s Opposition.--His Allusions to Clara in the "Neue Zeitschrift."--Schumann at Vienna.--His Compositions at first Unpopular, though played by Clara Wieck and Liszt.--Schumann"s Labors as a Critic.--He Marries Clara in 1840.--His Song Period inspired by his Wife.--Tour to Russia, and Brilliant Reception given to the Artist Pair.--The "Neue Zeitschrift"
and its Mission.--The Davidsbund.--Peculiar Style of Schumann"s Writing.--He moves to Dresden.--Active Production in Orchestral Composition.--Artistic Tour in Holland.--He is seized with Brain Disease.--Characteristics as a Man, as an Artist, and as a Philosopher.--Mme. Schumann as her Husband"s Interpreter.--Chopin a Colaborer with Schumann.--Schumann on Chopin again.--Chopin"s Nativity.--Exclusively a Piano-forte Composer.--His _Genre_ as Pianist and Composer.--Aversion to Concert-giving.--Parisian a.s.sociations.--New Style of Technique demanded by his Works.--Unique Treatment of the Instrument.--Characteristics of Chopin"s Compositions.
I.
Robert Schumann shares with Weber the honor of giving the earliest impulse to what may be called the romantic school of music, which has culminated in the operatic creations of Richard Wagner. Greatly to the gain of the world, his early aspirations as a mere player were crushed by the too intense zeal through which he attempted to perfect his manipulation, the mechanical contrivance he used having had the effect of paralyzing the muscular power of one of his hands. But this department of art work was n.o.bly borne by his gifted wife, _nee_ Clara Wieck, and Schumann concentrated his musical ambition in the higher field of composition, leaving behind him works not only remarkable for beauty of form, but for poetic richness of thought and imagination.
Schumann composed songs, cantatas, operas, and symphonies, but it is in his works for the piano-forte that his idiosyncrasy was most strikingly embodied, and in which he has bequeathed the most precious inheritance to the world of art. All his powers were swept impetuously into one current, the poetic side of art, and alike as critic and composer he stands in a relation to the music of the pianoforte which places him on a pinnacle only less lofty than that of Beethoven.
Robert Schumann was born in the small Saxon town of Zwickau in the year 1810, and was designed by his father, a publisher and author of considerable reputation, for the profession of the law. The elder Schumann, though a man of talent and culture, had a deep distaste for his son"s clearly displayed tendencies to music, and though he permitted him to study something of the science in the usual school-boy way (for music has always been a part of the educational course in Germany), he discouraged in every way Robert"s pa.s.sion. The boy had quickly become a clever player, and even at the age of eight had begun to put his ideas on paper. We are told by his biographers that he was accustomed to extemporize at school, and had such a knack in portraying the characteristics of his school-fellows in music as to make his purpose instantly recognizable. His father died when Schumann was only seventeen, and his mother, who was also bent on her son becoming a jurist, became his guardian. It was a severe battle between taste and duty, but love for his widowed mother conquered, and young Robert Schumann entered the University of Leipzig as a law student. It was with a feeling almost of despair that he wrote at this time, "I have decided upon law as my profession, and will work at it industriously, however cold and dry the beginning may be." Previously, however, he had spent a year in the household of Frederick Wieck, the distinguished teacher of music. So much he had exacted before succ.u.mbing to maternal pleading.
At this time he first made the acquaintance of a charming and precocious child, Clara Wieck, who played such an important part in his future life.
Robert Schumann"s law studies were inexpressibly tedious to him, and so he told his sympathetic professor, the learned Thibaut, author of the treatise "On the Purity of Music," in a characteristic manner. He went to the piano and played Weber"s "Invitation to the Waltz," commenting on the different pa.s.sages: "Now she speaks--that"s the love prattle; now he speaks--that"s the man"s earnest voice; now both the lovers speak together "; concluding with the remark, "Isn"t all that better far than anything that jurisprudence can utter?" The young student became quite popular in society as a pianist, heard Ernst and Paganini for the first time, and composed several works, among them the Toccata in D major.
The genius for music would come to the fore in spite of jurisprudence.
A vacation trip to Italy which the young man made gave fresh fuel to the flame, and he began to write the most pa.s.sionate pleas to his mother that she should con sent to his adoption of a musical career. The distressed woman wrote to Wieck to know what he thought, and the answer was favorable to Robert"s aspirations. Robert was intoxicated with his mother"s concession, and he poured out his enthusiasm to Wieck: "Take me as I am, and, above all, bear with me. No blame shall depress me, no praise make me idle. Pails upon pails of very cold theory can not hurt me, and I will work at it without the least murmur."
Taking lodgings at the house of Wieck, Schumann devoted himself to piano-forte playing with intense ardor; but his zeal outran prudence.
To hasten his proficiency and acquire an independent action for each finger, he contrived a mechanical apparatus which held the third finger of the right hand immovable, while the others went through their evolutions. The result was such a lameness of the hand that it was incurable, and young Schumann"s career as a virtuoso was for ever checked. His deep sorrow, however, did not unman him long, for he turned his attention to the study of composition and counterpoint under Kupsch, and, afterward, Heinrich Dorn. He remained for three years under Wieck"s roof, and the companionship of the child Clara, whose marvelous musical powers were the talk of Leipzig, was a sweet consolation to him in his troubles and his toil, though ten years his junior. The love, which became a part of his life, had already begun to flutter into unconscious being in his feeling for a shy and reserved little girl.
Schumann tells us that the year 1834 was the most important one of his life, for it witnessed the birth of the "N"eue Zeitschrift fur Musik,"
a journal which was to embody his notions of ideal music, and to be the organ of a clique of enthusiasts in lifting the art out of Philistinism and commonplace. The war-cry was "Reform in art," and never-ending battle against the little and conventional ideas which were believed then to be the curse of German music. Among the earlier contributors were Wieck, Schumke, Knorr, Banck, and Schumann himself, who wrote under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius. Between his new journal and composing, Schumann was kept busy, but he found time to persuade himself that he was in love with Fraulein Ernestine von Fricken, a beautiful but somewhat frivolous damsel, who became engaged to the young composer and editor. Two years cooled off this pa.s.sion, and a separation was mutually agreed on. Perhaps Schumann recognized something, in the lovely child who was swiftly blooming into maidenhood, which made his own inner soul protest against any other attachment.
II.
It would have been very strange indeed if two such natures as Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann had not gravitated toward each other during the almost constant intercourse between them which took place between 1835 and 1838. Clara, born in 1820, had been her father"s pupil from her tenderest childhood, but the development of her musical gifts was not forced in such a way as to interfere with her health and the exuberance of her spirits. The exacting teacher was also a tender father and a man of ripe judgment, and he knew the bitter price which mere mental precocity so frequently has to pay for its existence.
But the young girl"s gifts were so extraordinary, and withal her character so full of childish simplicity and gayety, that it was difficult to think of her as of the average child phenomenon. At the age of nine she could play Mozart"s concertos, and Hummel"s A minor Concerto for the orchestra, one of the most difficult of compositions. A year later she began to compose, and improvised without difficulty, for her lessons in counterpoint and harmony had kept pace with her studies of pianoforte technique. Paganini visited Leipzig at this period, and was so astonished at the little Clara"s precocious genius that he insisted on her presence at all his concerts, and addressed her with the deepest respect as a fellow-artist. She first appeared in public concert at the age of eleven, in Leipzig, Weimar, and other places, playing Pixis, Moscheles, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin. The latter of these composers was then almost unknown in Germany, and Clara Wieck, young as she was, contributed largely to making him popular. A year later she visited Paris in company with her father, and heard Chopin, Liszt, and Kalkbrenner, who on their part were delighted with the little artist, who, beneath the delicacy and timidity of the child, indicated extraordinary powers. Society received her with the most flattering approbation, and when her father allowed her to appear in concert her playing excited the greatest delight and surprise. Her improvisation specially displayed a vigor of imagination, a fine artistic taste, and a well-defined knowledge which justly called out the most enthusiastic recognition.
When Clara Wieck returned home, she gave herself up to work with fresh ardor, studying composition under Heinrich Dorn, singing under the celebrated Mieksch, and even violin-playing, so great was her ambition for musical accomplishments. From 1836 to 1838 she made an extended musical tour through Germany, and was welcomed as a musico-poetic ideal by the enthusiasts who gathered around her. The poet Grillparzer spoke of her as "the innocent child who first unlocked the casket in which Beethoven buried his mighty heart," and it must be confessed that Clara Wieck, even as a young girl, did more than any other pianist to develop a love of and appreciation for the music of the t.i.tan of composers.
Long before Schumann distinctly contemplated the image of Clara as the beloved one, the half of his soul, he had divined her genius, and expressed his opinion of her in no stinted terms of praise. When she was as yet only thirteen, he had written of her in his journal: "As I know people who, having but just heard Clara, yet rejoice in their antic.i.p.ation of their next occasion of hearing her, I ask, What sustains this continual interest in her? Is it the "wonder child" herself, at whose stretches of tenths people shake their heads while they are amazed at them, or the most difficult difficulties which she sportively flings toward the public like flower garlands? Is it the special pride of the city with which a people regards its own natives? Is it that she presents to us the most interesting productions of recent art in as short a time as possible? Is it that the ma.s.ses understand that art should not depend on the caprices of a few enthusiasts, who would direct us back to a century over whose corpse the wheels of time are hastening?
I know not; I only feel that here we are subdued by genius, which men still hold in respect. In short, we here divine the presence of a power of which much is spoken, while few indeed possess it.... Early she drew the veil of Isis aside. Serenely the child looks up; older eyes, perhaps, would have been blinded by that radiant light.... To Clara we dare no longer apply the measuring scale of age, but only that of fulfillment.... Clara Wieck is the first German artist.... Pearls do not float on the surface; they must be sought for in the deep, often with danger. But Clara is an intrepid diver."
The child whose genius he admired ripened into a lovely young woman, and Schumann became conscious that there had been growing in his heart for years a deep, ardent love. He had fancied himself in love more than once, but now he felt that he could make no mistake as to the genuineness of his feelings. In 1836 he confessed his feelings to the object of his affections, and discovered that he not only loved but was loved, for two such gifted and sympathetic natures could hardly be thrown together for years without the growth of a mutual tenderness.
The marriage project was not favored by Papa Wieck, much as he liked the young composer who had so long been his pupil and a member of his family circle. The father of Clara looked forward to a brilliant artistic career for his daughter, perhaps hoped to marry her to some serene highness, and Schumann"s prospects were as yet very uncertain. So he took Clara on a long artistic journey through Germany, with a view of quenching this pa.s.sion by absence and those public adulations which he knew Clara"s genius would command. But nothing shook the devotion of her heart, and she insisted on playing the compositions of the young composer at her concerts, as well as those of Beethoven, Liszt, and Chopin, the latter two of whom were just beginning to be known and admired.
Hoping to overcome Papa Wieck"s opposition by success, Schumann took his new journal to Vienna, and published it in that city, carrying on simultaneously with his editorial duties active labors in composition.
The attempt to better his fortunes in Vienna, however, did not prove very successful, and after six months he returned again to Leipzig.
Schumann"s generous sympathy with other great musicians was signally shown in his very first Vienna experiences, for he immediately made a pious pilgrimage to the Wahring cemetery to offer his pious gift of flowers on the graves of Beethoven and Schubert. On Beethoven"s grave he found a steel pen, which he preserved as a sacred treasure, and used afterward in writing his own finest musical fancies. He remembered, too, that the brother of Schubert, Ferdinand, was still living in a suburb of Vienna. "He knew me," Schumann says, "from my admiration for his brother, as I had publicly expressed it, and showed me many things. At last he let me look at the treasures of Franz Schubert"s compositions, which he still possesses. The wealth that lay heaped up made me shudder with joy, what to take first, where to cease. Among other things, he also showed me the scores of several symphonies, of which many had never been heard, while others had been tried, but put back, on the score of their being too difficult and bombastic." One of these symphonies, that in C major, the largest and grandest in conception, Schumann chose and sent to Leipzig, where it was soon afterward produced under Mendelssohn"s direction at one of the Ge-wandhaus concerts, and produced an immediate and profound sensation. For the first time the world witnessed, in a more expanded sphere, the powers of a composer the very beauties of whose songs had hitherto been fatal to his general success.
During this period of Schumann"s life the most important works he composed were the "etudes Symphoniques," the famous "Carnival" dedicated to Liszt, the "Scenes of Childhood," the "Fantasia" dedicated to Liszt, the "Novellettes," and "Kreisleriana." As he writes to Heinrich Dorn: "Much music is the result of the contest I am pa.s.sing through for Clara"s sake." Schumann"s compositions had been introduced to the public by the gifted interpretation of Clara Wieck, with whom it was a labor of love, and also by Franz Liszt, then rising almost on the top wave of his dazzling fame as a virtuoso. Liszt was a profound admirer of the less fortunate Schumann, and did everything possible to make him a favorite with the public, but for a long time in vain. Liszt writes of this as follows: "Since my first knowledge of his compositions I had played many of them in private circles at Milan and Vienna, without having succeeded in winning the approbation of my hearers. These works were, fortunately for them, too far above the then trivial level of taste to find a home in the superficial atmosphere of popular applause. The public did not fancy them, and few players understood them. Even in Leipzig, where I played the "Carnival" at my second Gewandhaus concert, I did not obtain my customary applause. Musicians, even those who claimed to be connoisseurs also, carried too thick a mask over their ears to be able to comprehend that charming "Carnival," harmoniously framed as it is, and ornamented with such rich variety of artistic fancy. I did not doubt, however, but that this work would eventually win its place in general appreciation beside Beethoven"s thirty-three variations on a theme by Diabelli (which work it surpa.s.ses, according to my opinion, in melody, richness, and inventiveness)." Both as a composer and writer on music, Schumann embodied his deep detestation of the Philistinism and commonplace which stupefied the current opinions of the time, and he represented in Germany the same battle of the romantic in art against what was known as the cla.s.sical which had been carried on so fiercely in France by Berlioz, Liszt, and Chopin.
III.
The year 1840 was one of the most important in Schumann"s life. In February he was created Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Jena, and, still more precious boon to the man"s heart, Wieck"s objections to the marriage with Clara had been so far melted away that he consented, though with reluctance, to their union. The marriage took place quietly at a little church in Schonfeld, near Leipzig. This year was one of the most fruitful of Schumann"s life. His happiness burst forth in lyric forms. He wrote the amazing number of one hundred and thirty-eight songs, among which the more famous are the set ent.i.tled "Myrtles," the cycles of song from Heine, dedicated to Pauline Viardot, Chamisso"s "Woman"s Love and Life," and Heine"s "Poet Love." Schumann as a song-writer must be called indeed the musical reflex of Heine, for his immortal works have the same pa.s.sionate play of pathos and melancholy, the sharp-cut epigrammatic form, the grand swell of imagination, impatient of the limits set by artistic taste, which characterize the poet themes. Schumann says that nearly all the works composed at this time were written under Clara"s inspiration solely. Blest with the continual companionship of a woman of genius, as amiable as she was gifted, who placed herself as a gentle mediator between Schumann"s intellectual life and the outer world, he composed many of his finest vocal and instrumental compositions during the years immediately succeeding his marriage; among them the cantata "Paradise and the Peri," and the "Faust" music. His own connection with public life was restricted to his position as teacher of piano-forte playing, composition, and score playing at the Leipzig Conservatory, while the gifted wife was the interpreter of his beautiful piano-forte works as an executant. A more perfect fitness and companionship in union could not have existed, and one is reminded of the married life of the poet pair, the Brownings. After four years of happy and quiet life, in which mental activity was inspired by the most delightful of domestic surroundings, an artistic tour to St. Petersburg was undertaken by Robert and Clara Schumann. Our composer did not go without reluctance. "Forgive me," he writes to a friend, "if I forbear telling you of my unwillingness to leave my quiet home." He seems to have had a melancholy premonition that his days of untroubled happiness were over. A genial reception awaited them at the Russian capital. They were frequently invited to the Winter Palace by the emperor and empress, and the artistic circles of the city were very enthusiastic over Mme. Schumann"s piano-forte playing. Since the days of John Field, Clementi"s great pupil, no one had raised such a furore among the music-loving Russians. Schumann"s music, which it was his wife"s dearest privilege to interpret, found a much warmer welcome than among his own countrymen at that date. In the Sclavonic nature there is a deep current of romance and mysticism, which met with instinctive sympathy the dreamy and fantastic thoughts which ran riot in Schumann"s works.
On returning from the St. Petersburg tour, Schumann gave up the "Neue Zeitschrift," the journal which he had made such a powerful organ of musical revolution, and transferred it to Oswald Lorenz. Schumann"s literary work is so deeply intertwined with his artistic life and mission that it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to separate the two.
He had achieved a great work--he had planted in the German mind the thought that there was such a thing as progress and growth; that stagnation was death; and that genius was for ever shaping for itself new forms and developments. He had taught that no art is an end to itself, and that, unless it embodies the deep-seated longings and aspirations of men ever striving toward a loftier ideal, it becomes barren and fruitless--the mere survival of a truth whose need had ceased. He was the apostle of the musico-poetical art in Germany, and, both as author and composer, strove with might and main to educate his countrymen up to a clear understanding of the ultimate outcome of the work begun by Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber.
Schumann as a critic was eminently catholic and comprehensive. Deeply appreciative of the old lights of music, he received with enthusiasm all the fresh additions contributed by musical genius to the progress of his age. Eschewing the cold, objective, technical form of criticism, his method of approaching the work of others was eminently subjective, casting on them the illumination which one man of genius gives to another. The cast of his articles was somewhat dramatic and conversational, and the characters represented as contributing their opinions to the symposium of discussion were modeled on actual personages. He himself was personified under the dual form of Florestan and Eusebius, the "two souls in his breast"--the former, the fiery iconoclast, impulsive in his judgments and reckless in attacking prejudices; the latter, the mild, genial, receptive dreamer. Master Raro, who stood for Wieck, also typified the calm, speculative side of Schumann"s nature. Chiara represented Clara Wieck, and personified the feminine side of art. So the various personages were all modeled after a.s.sociates of Schumann, and, aside from the freshness and fascination which this method gave his style, it enabled him to approach his subjects from many sides. The name of the imaginary society was the Davids-bund, probably from King David and his celebrated harp, or perhaps in virtue of David"s victories over the Philistines of his day.
As an ill.u.s.tration of Schumann"s style and method of treating musical subjects, we can not do better than give his article on Chopin"s "Don Juan Fantasia": "Eusebius entered not long ago. You know his pale face and the ironical smile with which he awakens expectation. I sat with Florestan at the piano-forte. Florestan is, as you know, one of those rare musical minds that foresee, as it were, coming novel or extraordinary things. But he encountered a surprise today. With the words "Off with your hats, gentlemen! a genius," Eusebius laid down a piece of music. We were not allowed to see the t.i.tle-page. I turned over the music vacantly; the veiled enjoyment of music which one does not hear has something magical in it. And besides this, it seems that every composer has something different in the note forms. Beethoven looks differently from Mozart on paper; the difference resembles that between Jean Paul"s and Goethe"s prose. But here it seemed as if eyes, strange, were glancing up to me--flower eyes, basilisk eyes, peac.o.c.k"s eyes, maiden"s eyes; in many places it looked yet brighter. I thought I saw Mozart"s "La ci darem la mano" wound through a hundred chords.
_Leporello_ seemed to wink at me, and _Don Juan_ hurried past in his white mantle. "Now play it," said Florestan. Eusebius consented, and we, in the recess of a window, listened. Eusebius played as though he were inspired, and led forward countless forms filled with the liveliest, warmest life; it seemed that the inspiration of the moment gave to his fingers a power beyond the ordinary measure of their cunning. It is true that Florestan"s whole applause was expressed in nothing but a happy smile, and the remark that the variations might have been written by Beethoven or Franz Schubert, had either of these been a piano virtuoso; but how surprised he was when, turning to the t.i.tle-page, he read "La ci darem la mano, varie pour le piano-forte, par Frederic Chopin, Ouvre 2,"
and with what astonishment we both cried out, "An Opus 2!" How our faces glowed as we wondered, exclaiming, "That is something reasonable once more! Chopin? I never heard of the name--who can he be? In any case, a genius. Is not that _Zerlina"s_ smile, And _Leporello_, etc" I could not describe the scene. Heated with wine, Chopin, and our own enthusiasm, we went to Master Raro, who with a smile, and displaying but little curiosity for Chopin, said, "Bring me the Chopin! I know you and your enthusiasm." We promised to bring it the next day. Eusebius soon bade us good-night. I remained a short time with Master Raro. Florestan, who had been for some time without a habitation, hurried to my house through the moonlit streets. "Chopin"s variations," he began, as if in a dream, "are constantly running through my head; the whole is so dramatic and Chopin-like; the introduction is so concentrated. Do you remember _Leporello"s_ springs in thirds? That seems to me somewhat unfitted to the theme; but the theme--why did he write that in A flat? The variations, the finale, the adagio, these are indeed something; genius burns through every measure. Naturally, dear Julius, _Don Juan, Zerlina, Leporello, Ma.s.setto_, are the _dramatis persona; Zerlina"s_ answer in the theme has a sufficiently enamored character; the first variation expresses, a kind of coquettish coveteousness: the Spanish Grandee flirts amiably with the peasant girl in it. This leads of itself to the second, which is at once confidential, disputative, and comic, as though two lovers were chasing each other and laughing more than usual about it. How all this is changed in the third! It is filled with fairy music and moonshine; _Masetto_ keeps at a distance, swearing audibly, but without any effect on _Don Juan_. And now the fourth--what do you think of it? Eusebius played it altogether correctly. How boldly, how wantonly, it springs forward to meet the man! though the adagio (it seems quite natural to me that Chopin repeats the first part) is in B flat minor, as it should be, for in its commencement it presents a beautiful moral warning to _Don Juan_. It is at once so mischievous and beautiful that _Leporello_ listens behind the hedge, laughing and jesting that oboes and clarionettes enchantingly allure, and that the B flat major in full bloom correctly designates the first kiss of love.
But all this is nothing compared to the last (have you any more wine, Julius?). That is the whole of Mozart"s finale, popping champagne corks, ringing gla.s.ses, _Leporello"s_ voice between, the grasping, torturing demons, the fleeing _Don Juan_--and then the end, that beautifully soothes and closes all." Florestan concluded by saying that he had never experienced feelings similar to those awakened by the finale. When the evening sunlight of a beautiful day creeps up toward the highest peaks, and when the last beam vanishes, there comes a moment when the white Alpine giants close their eyes. We feel that we have witnessed a heavenly apparition. "And now awake to new dreams, Julius, and sleep."
"Dear Flores-tan," I answered, "these confidential feelings, are perhaps praiseworthy, although somewhat subjective; but as deeply as yourself I bend before Chopin"s spontaneous genius, his lofty aim, his mastership; and after that we fell asleep."" This article was the first journalistic record of Chopin"s genius.
IV.
When Schumann gave up his journal in 1845 he moved to Dresden, and he began to suffer severely from the dreadful disorder to which he fell a victim twelve years later. This disease--an abnormal formation of bone in the brain--afflicted him with excruciating pains in the head, sleeplessness, fear of death, and strange auricular delusions. A sojourn at Parma, where he had complete repose and a course of sea-bathing, partially restored his health, and he gave himself up to musical composition again. During the next three years, up to 1849, Schumann wrote some of his finest works, among which may be mentioned his opera "Genoviva," his Second symphony, the cantata "The Rose"s Pilgrimage,"
more beautiful songs, much piano-forte and concerted music, and the musical ill.u.s.trations of Byron"s "Manfred," which latter is one of his greatest orchestral works.
During the years 1850 to 1854 Schumann composed his "Rhenish Symphony,"
the overtures to the "Bride of Messina" and "Hermann and Dorothea,"
and many vocal and piano-forte works. He accepted the post of musical director at Dusseldorf in 1850, removed to that city with his wife and children, and, on arriving, the artistic pair were received with a civic banquet. The position was in many respects agreeable, but the responsibilities were too great for Schumann"s declining health, and probably hastened his death. In 1853 Robert and Clara Schumann made a grand artistic tour through Holland, which resembled a triumphal procession, so great was the musical enthusiasm called out. When they returned Schumann"s malady returned with double force, and on February 27, 1854, he attempted to end his misery by jumping into the Rhine.
Madness had seized him with a clutch which was never to be released, except at short intervals. Every possible care was lavished on him by his heartbroken and devoted wife, and the a.s.siduous attention of the friends who reverenced the genius now for ever quenched. The last two years of his life were spent in the private insane asylum at Endenich, near Bonn, where he died July 20, 1856. Schumann possessed a wealth of musical imagination which, if possibly equaled in a few instances, is nowhere surpa.s.sed in the records of his art. For him music possessed all the attributes inherent in the other arts--absolute color and flexibility of form. That he attempted to express these phases of art expression, with an almost boundless trust in their applicability to tone and sound, not unfrequently makes them obscure to the last degree, but it also gave much of his composition a richness, depth, and subtilty of suggestive power which place them in a unique niche, and will always preserve them as objects of the greatest interest to the musical student. There is no doubt that his increasing mental malady is evident in the chaotic character of some of his later orchestral compositions, but, in those works composed during his best period, splendor of imagination goes hand in hand with genuine art treatment. This is specially noticeable in the songs and the piano-forte works. Schumann was essentially lyrical and subjective, though his intellectual breadth and culture (almost unrivaled among his musical compeers) always kept him from narrowness as a composer. He led the van in the formation of that pictorial and descriptive style of music which has a.s.serted itself in German music, but his essentially lyric personality in his att.i.tude to the outer world presented the external thoroughly saturated and modified by his own moods and feelings.
In his piano-forte works we find his most complete and satisfactory development as the artist composer. Here the world, with its myriad impressions, its facts, its purposes, its tendencies, met the man and commingled in a series of exquisite creations, which are true tone pictures. In this domain Beethoven alone was worthy to be compared with him, though the animus and scheme of the Beethoven piano-forte works grew out of a totally different method.
In personal appearance Schumann bore the marks of the man of genius. As he reached middle age we are told of him that his figure was of middle height, inclined to stoutness, that his bearing was dignified, his movements slow. His features, though irregular, produced an agreeable impression; his forehead was broad and high, the nose heavy, the eyes excessively bright, though generally veiled and downcast, the mouth delicately cut, the hair thick and brown, his cheeks full and ruddy. His head was squarely formed, of an intensely powerful character, and the whole expression of his face sweet and genial. Even when young he was distinguished by a kind of absent-mindedness that prevented him from taking much part in conversation. Once, it is said, he entered a lady"s drawing-room to call, played a few chords on the piano, and smilingly left without speaking a word. But, among intimate friends, he could be extraordinarily fluent and eloquent in discussing an interesting topic.
He was conscious of his own shyness, and once wrote to a friend: "I shall be very glad to see you here. In me, however, you must not expect to find much. I scarcely ever speak except in the evening, and most in playing the piano." His wife was the crowning blessing of his life. She was not only his consoler, but his other intellectual life, for she, with her great powers as a virtuoso, interpreted his music to the world, both before and after his death. It has rarely been the lot of an artist to see his most intimate feelings and aspirations embodied to the world by the genius of the mother of his children. Well did Ferdinand Hiller write of this artist couple: "What love beautified his life! A woman stood beside him, crowned with the starry circlet of genius, to whom he seemed at once the father to his daughter, the master to the scholar, the bridegroom to the bride, the saint to the disciple."
Clara Schumann still lives, though becoming fast an old woman in years, if still young in heart, and still able to win the admiration of the musical world by her splendid playing. Berlioz, who heard her in her youth, p.r.o.nounced her the greatest virtuoso in Germany, in one of his letters to Heine; and while she was little more than a child she had gained the heartiest admiration in England, France, and Germany. Henry Chorley heard her at Leipzig in 1839, and speaks of "the organ-playing on the piano of Mme. Schumann (better known in England under the name of Clara Wieck), who commands her instrument with the enthusiasm of a sibyl and the grasp of a man." Since Schumann"s death, Mme. Schumann has been known as the exponent of her husband"s works, which she has performed in Germany and England with an insight, a power of conception, and a beauty of treatment which have contributed much to the recognition of his remarkable genius.
V.
The name of Frederic Francis Chopin is so closely linked in the minds of musical students with that of Schumann in that art renaissance which took place almost simultaneously in France and Germany, when so many daring and original minds broke loose from the petrifactions of custom and tradition, that we shall not venture to separate them here. Chopin was too timid and gentle to be a bold aggressor, like Berlioz, Liszt, and Schumann, but his whole nature responded to the movement, and his charming and most original compositions, which glow with the fire of a genius perhaps narrow in its limits, have never been surpa.s.sed for their individuality and poetic beauty. The present brief sketch of Chopin does not propose to consider his life biographically, full of pathos and romance as that life may be.*
* See article Chopin, in "Great German Composers."
Schumann, in his "N"eue Zeitschrift," sums up the characteristics of the Polish composer admirably; "Genius creates kingdoms, the smaller states of which are again divided by a higher hand among talents, that these may organize details which the former, in its thousand-fold activity, would be unable to perfect. As Hummel, for example, followed the call of Mozart, clothing the thoughts of that master in a flowing, sparkling robe, so Chopin followed Beethoven. Or, to speak more simply, as Hummel imitated the style of Mozart in detail, rendering it enjoyable to the virtuoso on one particular instrument, so Chopin led the spirit of Beethoven into the concert-room.
"Chopin did not make his appearance accompanied by an orchestral army, as great genius is accustomed to do; he only possessed a small cohort, but every soul belongs to him to the last hero.
"He is the pupil of the first masters--Beethoven, Schubert, Field. The first formed his mind in boldness, the second his heart in tenderness, the third his hand to its flexibility. Thus he stood well provided with deep knowledge in his art, armed with courage in the full consciousness of his power, when in the year 1830 the great voice of the people arose in the West. Hundreds of youths had waited for the moment; but Chopin was the first on the summit of the wall, behind which lay a cowardly renaissance, a dwarfish Philistinism, asleep. Blows were dealt right and left, and the Philistines awoke angrily, crying out, "Look at the impudent one!" while others behind the besieger cried, "The one of n.o.ble courage."
"Besides this, and the favorable influence of period and condition, fate rendered Chopin still more individual and interesting in endowing him with an original p.r.o.nounced nationality; Polish, too, and because this nationality wanders in mourning robes in the thoughtful artist, it deeply attracts us. It was well for him that neutral Germany did not receive him too warmly at first, and that his genius led him straight to one of the great capitals of the world, where he could freely poetize and grow angry. If the powerful autocrat of the North knew what a dangerous enemy threatens him in Chopin"s works in the simple melodies of his mazurkas, he would forbid music. Chopin"s works are cannons buried in flowers.... He is the boldest, proudest poet soul of to-day."
But Schumann could have said something more than this, and added that Chopin was a musician of exceptional attainments, a virtuoso of the very highest order, a writer for the piano pure and simple preeminent beyond example, and a master of a unique and perfect style.
Chopin was born of mixed French and Polish parentage, February 8, 1810, at Zelazowa-Wola, near Warsaw. He was educated at the Warsaw Conservatory, and his eminent genius for the piano shone at this time most unmistakably. He found in the piano-forte an exclusive organ for the expression of his thoughts. In the presence of this confidential companion he forgot his shyness and poured forth his whole soul.
A pa.s.sionate lover of his native country, and burning with those aspirations for freedom which have made Poland since its first part.i.tion a volcano ever ready to break forth, the folk-themes of Poland are at the root of all of Chopin"s compositions, and in the waltzes and mazurkas bearing his name we find a pa.s.sionate glow and richness of color which make them musical poems of the highest order.
Chopin"s art position, both as a pianist and composer, was a unique one.