![]() The theme reaches its climax just before the resolution of the final cadence. It’s a theme which gains power through simplicity. ![]() There’s a stately nobility to the repetitive opening rhythm which seems to be a trademark of Schumann’s music. It was the last piece Schumann wrote before entering the asylum at his own request in February, 1854. Ghost Variations for solo piano is filled with a combination of sadness and solemn beauty. Throughout his life, Schumann reported hearing inner voices which led to some of his most profound music…pieces like Kreisleriana opus 16. In his final years, the “spirits” which Schumann believed surrounded him, offering the “most magnificent revelations,” increasingly turned into demons. Additionally, it’s possible that neurological problems altered his perception of tempo. Schumann experienced a painfully prolonged “A” ringing in his ears. It’s now believed that Schumann suffered from tertiary syphilis, a disease which appeared gradually over time and produced a host of hideous symptoms. Now let’s hear a different, darker side of Schumann: two strange, haunting works from the final years of the composer’s life, written as he descended into insanity. 1 “Spring,” a sunny piece written in the “springtime” of Schumann’s life, shortly after his marriage to Clara. The Schumann collector will need to have this book, but others are advised to be cautious.On Monday, we listened to Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. On the credit side there are many extracts from letters, comments from composers or musicians of our own time, including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Henri Pousseur, Aribert Reimann and Gidon Kremer, and illustrations including Schumann’s sketch of the Kremlin, John Martin’s Manfred on the Jungfrau and various paintings, lithographs or photographs. Geck writes patronisingly of the Piano Trios in D minor and F major: ‘In terms of the design and sequence of their movements, Schumann produced some extremely solid work here.’ I find the D minor work inspired rather than solid. Some remarks about particular pieces strike me as unappreciative – eg the delightful Overture, Scherzo & Finale ‘leaves an ambivalent impression’. The translation does not always avoid awkwardness – a sentence on page 178 has ‘that’ (meaning ‘which’) four times, but I suspect Geck’s original presented quite a challenge. One example is a six-line sentence on page x which seems to me verbose, ungrammatical and unclear – how can music ‘shimmer in many contexts’? The last sentence of page 156 is equally obscure. This in-depth study is sometimes impenetrable. Ultimately music stands or falls purely on its own merits, and Geck fails to convince me of any ‘surplus-value’, except that which is offered by most ‘life and works’ biographies. The author goes on to say ‘Even though the “life” does not explain the “works”, there is a “surplus-value” to examining the one against the background of the other.’ This implies considerable risk because, in spite of what the author says, there will always be the temptation to try to ‘explain’ the works in terms of personal circumstances. ‘The more we know about a composer, the less we can discount his life’ ‘Schumann is the first composer whose life and works were fused together in a symbiotic relationship’ Such claims, in the prologue, may well provoke some apprehension.
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