Inquiry: Strange or Sublime?

Karen Bauman Schlabaugh, professor of music, delved into Robert Schumann’s compositions during her sabbatical from teaching

Nearly a century and a half after his death, Robert Schumann (1810-1856) is increasingly viewed as one of the leading composers of German Romanticism. But, during his lifetime, this prolific creator of well over 150 works—ranging from keyboard pieces to chamber music to symphonies—was considered “a pathetic figure” who never achieved the success of his close friend Felix Mendelssohn and other contemporaries such as Brahms, Chopin and Liszt.

This 19th-century assessment of Schumann was partially due to the fact that he had three nervous breakdowns, including a suicide attempt, over a 20-year period, and spent his last years in a mental institution. Still, it wasn’t only his life that was seen as “lunatic”—many thought his compositions were bizarre as well. “At the time, people found his music to be harmonically strange. It was more adventuresome and unexpected” compared to other pieces from the German Romantic period, said Karen Bauman Schlabaugh, professor of music. “Even though the milieu of the era was one of overly emotional involvement and subjective intensity, listeners were puzzled by the sudden, abrupt changes of mood and use of interconnected forms in Schumann’s work.”

Schlabaugh, who studied four of the composer’s piano pieces—Blumenstück (1839), Nachtstücke (1839), Bunte Blätter (1839) and Waldszenen (1848/49)—during her sabbatical from teaching last spring, noted that “Schumann’s early work was hard for amateur players to learn. Often with the keyboard music of his contemporaries, the melody was in one hand and the accompanying voices were in the other hand. In Schumann’s pieces, the accompanying voices were divided, with the melody and bass lines above and below. You had to work to bring out the sound of the melody.”

Bach had a pivotal influence on Schumann’s innovative style. Beginning in February 1837 until fall of that year, Schumann examined the Art of Fugue and, over the next two years, he repeatedly studied the Well-Tempered Clavier, describing Bach as his “daily bread” and “daily Bible.” In an 1840 review of Mendelssohn’s “Organ Concert,” he wrote, “What art owes to Bach, is to the musical world hardly less than what a religion owes to its founder.”

“Rather than relying on a lyrical, ‘singing’ melodic line—a type of tunefulness preferred during much of the first half of the nineteenth century—in the 1830s Schumann often used a more motivic melodic basis recalling that of Bach,” biographer Eric Frederick Jensen observed in Schumann. He also juxtaposed his chords, “resulting in harmonic progressions that frequently go against textbook models and even today can be abrasive in their effect.” These complex and distinctive qualities of his work—which Schumann saw as original, not imitative of Bach—only served to make his compositions appear even less intelligible to the general public and serious musicians of his day.

Schumann’s reputation was also hampered by his inability to perform in public because one of his fingers had a permanent injury. During much of the 19th-century, live performances were one of the primary ways composers could promote their music and attract the attention of potential publishers, said Schlabaugh. For example, Liszt, who was notorious for his concert antics, had the kind of celebrity status equivalent to rock stars today.

In the mid-1800s, Schlabaugh noted, “there was a rise in popularity of salon music, which included variations on popular tunes from operas that were showy and virtuosic. Publishers liked this kind of music; it sold well.” Schumann was not an advocate of this style; in fact, he founded and then served as editor of one of the first serious music journals, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which championed the work of new composers, discussed current trends in music and offered
critical reviews.

What little recognition Schumann did receive during his life was largely as a result of his marriage to Clara Wieck. A brilliant performer, who was very much in demand across Europe, she premiered many of his pieces and was a tireless advocate of his approach to music—even editing and publishing his work after he died in 1856.

By contrast, today, Schumann’s early piano compositions—created in the 1830s—are standard fare for advanced students and professional pianists, and works such as Papillons and Carnaval appear regularly on concert programs. Schlabaugh thinks his music is highly regarded by 21st-century audiences and musicians because there is something about “the appeal of the beauty of the melody—some emotional effect that speaks to the inner spirit of people. It’s dramatic. It’s music of the soul.”