Literary Musicians I: Robert Schumann

April 19, 2018

The “public sphere”

I The press; specialized journals and dailies for the generalpublic.

I Enlightenment values, basically; reason, “aristocracy of merit”I 1798 Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung (“Universal music

news”)I ETA Hoffman’s most famous articlesI Schumann’s early articles, before founding Neue Zeitschrift

I Berlioz in Journal des debats, founded 1789

I Schumann founds Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (“New musicjournal”), in 1833

Philistinism

I Contradictions in Romanticism; see Lizst’s writings on Fieldcf. his active courtship of a new consumer class.

I Contractions in the life of Schumann

I Hence the Davidsbundt?

Davidsbund (from Taruskin)

The cast of characters included, in the first place,Florestan and Eusebius, Schumann’s alter egos. Theformer, named after Beethoven’s imprisonedfreedom-fighter, represented his embattled “innerliches‘Ich,”’ his “inmost I,” a concept associated with Germanromanticism from its Beethovenian beginning. Eusebius,named after an early church historian later adjudged aheretic (as Schumann must have known), representedSchumann’s gentler, more moderate nature in contrastand occasional opposition to the more choleric Florestan.

Also, there is Meister Raro – most likely a figure for FriedrichWieck.

Davidsbund

Taruskin continues:

Thus we have a virtual Freudian trinity: the rash andreckless Florestan (id), the milder, more sociableEusebius (ego), and the reproving Raro (superego). AsFreud constantly maintained, his psychoanalytic theorywas strongly prefigured in romantic literature, and here isa choice bit of evidence.

Music as literature?

A type of criticism that exalts a given work to the status of the“absolute”, and insinuates a degree of intellectual and spiritualcontent equal to more traditional intellecutal pursuits. ContraKant.

Schumann on Schubert

What a diary is to others, in which they set down theirmomentary feelings, etc., music paper really was toSchubert, to which he entrusted his every mood, and hiswhole soul, musical through-and-through, wrote noteswhere others use words.

(Quoted in Taruskin)

Schumann’s criticism

I “philistinism”, “poisonous flowers”

I Davidsbund Personae

I Public performance of subjective experience

I “Above all, Schumann encouraged his readers to look formore than sensory stimulation in music, but rather seek in itthe same mental and spiritual delight they sought inliterature.” (Taruskin)

Schumann reviews Les Huegenots in 1837

I “Meyerbeer’s success in our musically healthy Germany isenough to make one question one’s own sanity.”

I “Every measure is a work of calculation, every measure givesyou something to talk about. ‘Astonish or titillate’ is hisslogan, and he can accomplish it even with the mob.”

I “How internationally shallow it all is, and how purposefullysuperficial”

Schumann reviews Symphony Fantastique, 1835

I “Be his art the flaming sword, then let these words be itsprotective scabbard.”

I “In Berlioz the old lust for destruction is doubly awakened,and he lays aobut him with a titan’s fists.”

I “Try to change something, or to correct it, as any practicedharmonist can do, and see how dull it seems in comparison.”

I “As to the difficult question of how far instrumental musicshould go in the representation of thoughts and occurrences, Ithink many listeners are too apprehensive.”

Schumann, Dichterliebe, 1840

I “Year of song” – long deferred year of conjugal union

I 16 settings from Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo

I Im wunderschonen Monat Mai (no. 1)

I Aus meinen Thranen

I Ich grolle nicht (no 7)

Im wunderschonen Monat Mai

Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,Als alle Knospen sprangen, Da ist

in meinem Herzen Die Liebeaufgegangen.

Im wunderschonen Monat Mai,Als alle Vogel sangen, Da hab’ich ihr gestanden Mein Sehnen

und Verlangen.

In the beautiful month of maywhen all the buds burst open, in

my heart love has risenIn the beautiful month of may

when all the birds sang Iconfessed to her my yearnings

and desires

Taruskin waxes poetic on Monat Mai

In its refusal to settle the matter of keys, the entire songthus prolongs a single unconsummated harmonicgesture—expressed most dramatically by the piano’sforever-oscillating, never-cadencing ritornello—that findsits “objective correlative” (its fixed semantic counterpart)on the literary plane. That final line, “my longing anddesire,” has the last word in a profoundly musical sense,made palpable by the very last note in the song—a Bthat in context functions as an unresolved,unconsummated seventh. After it dies away the airveritably tingles with the longing and desire it hascreated/symbolized/embodied.

Ich grolle nicht

Ich grolle nicht, und wenn dasHerz auch bricht, ewig verlor’nes

Lieb! Ich grolle nicht. Wie duauch strahlst in

Diamantenpracht, es fallt keinStrahl in deines Herzens Nacht,das weiß ich langst. Ich grolle

nicht, und wenn das Herz auchbricht. Ich sah dich ja im

Traume, und sah die Nacht indeines Herzens Raume, und sahdie Schlang’, die dir am Herzen

frißt, ich sah, mein Lieb, wie sehrdu elend bist. Ich grolle nicht.

I bear no grudge, even as myheart is breaking, eternally lostlove! I bear no grudge. Eventhough you shine in diamond

splendor, there falls no light intoyour heart’s night,

that I’ve known for a long time. Ibear no grudge, even as my heart

is breaking. I saw you, truly, inmy dreams, and saw the night inyour heart’s cavity, and saw the

serpent that feeds on your heart,I saw, my love, how very

miserable you are. I bear nogrudge.

Carnaval, Op 9

recording

1. Preamble

2. Pierrot

3. Arlequin

4. Valse noble

5. Eusebius

6. Florestan

7. Coquette

8. Replique

9. Papillons

10. ASCH-SCHA

11. Chiarina

12. Chopin

13. Estrella

14. Reconnaissance

15. Pantalon et Colombine

16. Valse allemand

17. Paganini

18. Aveu

19. Promenade

20. Pause

21. Marche des Davidsbundler

Irony in Carnaval

I Poetic self-consciousness

I Abrupt, fragmenting shifts in tone

I use of language in the score – german! I.e. presence ofauthorial voice.

I QuotationI Papillons appears in Florestan, Promenade appears in

Davidsbundlertanze

I Cliche (Commedia)

I Florestan, “On the Comic in Music”

I Heinz Dill, “Romantic Irony in the Works of Schumann,”Musical Quarterly, 73/2 (1989)

Hector Berlioz, 1803 - 1869

I Son of a small-town doctor

I At age 12, falls in love with Estelle Duboeuf.

I “By day I hid myself in the the maize fields...like a woundedbird, mute, suffering. Jealousy plagued me, pale companion ofall true lovers.”

I Identification with literary precedent (Florian’s Estelle andNemorin), infatuation at first sight, hopeless longing for anunattainable person.

I Studies at Paris Conservatoire, where his works are receivedwith incomprehension.

I 1830 Symphony FantastiqueI Idee fixe is actually stolen (self-borrowed) from his cantata,

Herminie (1828)

I Oct 3, 1833 marries Harriet Smithson.

I End of story?

Symphony Fantastique and Program I

I “the composer’s intention has been to develop, insofar as theycontain musical possibilities, various situations in the life of anartist.”

I A footnote to a later edition: “The aim of this program is by nomeans to copy faithfully what the composer has tried to present inorchestral terms, as some people seem to think; on the contrary, itis precisely in order to fill in the gaps which the use of musicallanguage unavoidably leaves in the development of dramaticthought, that the composer has had to avail himself of written proseto explain and justify the outline of the symphony. He knows verywell that music can the place of neither word nor picture; he hasnever had the absurd intention of expression abstractions or moralqualities, but rather passions and feelings. Nor has he had the evenstranger idea of painting mountains: he has only wished toreproduce the melodic style nad forms that characterize the singingof some of the people who live among them.”

Symphony Fantastique and Program II

I “When, for example, in the Scene in the Country, he tried to renderthe rumbling of distant thunder in the midst of a peacefulatmosphere, it is by no means for the puerile pleasure of imitatingthis majestic sound, but rather to make silence more perceptible,and thus to increase the impression of uneasy sadness and painfulisolation that he wants to produce on his audience.” (quoted inEdward T. Cone, Fantastic Symphony, p. 29)

Second Program

“If necessary, one can even dispense with distributing the program,keeping only the titles of the five movements. The symphony byitself (the author hopes) can afford musical interest independent ofany dramatic purpose”

Berlioz, Symphony Fantastique

I 91 musician minimum (wanted 220!)

I Five movements

I “graffiti” on the dies irae

Berlioz, Symphony Fantastique, V: analysis from Cone

I V: ‘C major-minor’ of the first mov. Clearly related to firstmov.

I Upbeat section prepares entrance of tonic

I Theme in I major, parodied idee fix in clarinet.

I Interlude

I Repetition of theme in III in clarinet and piccolo

I Dies irae, eventually in fugal treatment

I Bass drum takes over where melody should have ended (G),ending the dies irae

I Ending in major, but still Ab and Eb creep in here and there.

Mendelssohn, Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture

Recording

I Plot ... ?

I Themes that represent characters/images in the play.

I 17 yrs later, he wrote true incidental music for the play: weknow what themes mean in the Overture.

I But he doesn’t follow the plot; Overture is in sonata form,follow conventional tonal plan.