Schumann and His World - The Bard Music Festival

Synopsis

We know Robert Schumann in many ways: as a visionary composer, a seasoned journalist, a cultured man of letters, and a genius who, having passed his mantle on to the young Brahms, succumbed to mental illness in 1856. Drawing on recent research, this collection offers new perspectives on this seminal 19th-century figure. In Part I, Leon Botstein and Michael P. Steinberg assess Schumann's efforts to place music at the centre of German culture, in public and private sectors. Bernhard R. Appel offers a probing source study of one of Schumann's most personal works, the "Album far die Jugend", Op. 68, while John Daverio considers the generic identity of "Das Paradies und die Peri", and Jon W. Finson re-examines the first version of the Eichendorff "Liederkreis". Gerd Nauhaus investigates Schumann's approach to the symphonic finale, and R. Larry Todd considers the intractable issue of quotations and allusions in Schumann's music. Part II presents letters and memoirs, including unpublished correspondence between Clara Schumann and Felix and Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. In Part III, conflicting critical views of Schumann are juxtaposed. Some of these sources are translated into English for the first time.