Season 27

This evening’s program is an unconventional exploration of the intertwined lives of Robert Schumann, Clara Wieck Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, using their songs, instrumental works, letters, and diary entries. I’ve chosen to explore their lives through their own words—their letters and diary entries—because of our recent experiences with COVID-19. Aside from disrupting the world in every imaginable way, COVID-19 forced many of us to communicate at a distance rather than in person for the first time in our lives. Well, I’m here to tell you—social distancing is nothing new. Robert, Clara, and Johannes dealt with a kind of social distancing for large portions of their lives. In fact, Robert and Clara’s romance developed mostly over distance. What’s new today is our means of bridging distance—phone calls, video calls, Zoom meetings, live streaming. Back in the day, they bridged the distance with an extraordinary invention called the letter. Rather than posting their feelings and the events of their daily lives on FaceBook, they took advantage of a remarkable technology called the diary. If Robert and Clara—and later Johannes—had not been distanced from one another, there would have been no need for them to write these letters or keep these journals.

I’ve selected a number of letters and diary entries that we will read aloud to you. We can all google the facts about Robert, Clara, and Johannes—but such facts seem unreal and unrelated to the lives we lead, the concerns we have today. When you encounter their personal documents, you understand that Robert, Clara, and Johannes were exactly like us. Well, maybe they were more musically talented than us, but I’m willing to bet that all of us have been through similar situations or felt similar elation and turmoil as those three. To guide you through this concert, I want to give you the rough factual outlines of their lives. I don’t think this will be a spoiler sort of situation, but I do think it will give you a clear context for what you’ll hear, and it will help you understand how the musical selections reflect the emotional trajectory of the story.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) first met Clara Wieck (1819-1896) in 1828. Robert was seventeen and Clara was eight. Robert was an aspiring poet, pianist, and composer, and he had come to Leipzig to study… law. He soon shifted his focus to music and began working with a very famous piano teacher, Friedrich Wieck. As was a common practice back in the day, Schumann moved in with the Wieck family, the better to pursue his studies.

Wieck had made his reputation by training his daughter Clara, a great child prodigy, who by this time (age eight!) already had a prominent concert career. Clara was intrigued by this teenaged man who had moved into her home. Robert told her ghost stories and recounted tales from The Arabian Nights. She soon started developing feelings for him. Robert was intrigued by Clara as well, but he recognized she was a child and he felt no romantic attraction for her, at least at first. But the years kept passing, and Clara was maturing. During Clara’s extensive concert tours, the two exchanged letters—hundreds of letters—and over the years a deep romantic attachment developed.

When Wieck discovered that the two had feelings for one another, he was furious. He did not want his daughter—not just his pride and joy, but also the primary breadwinner of the family—connected to a man he considered a second-rate composer and a failed pianist. He put many, many obstacles in their path, including two years when Clara was not allowed to write to Robert. Despite all this, Clara and Robert got secretly engaged—and that REALLY set off Wieck when he figured it out. He took the extreme step of writing an eight-page character defamation about Robert and had it published in all the newspapers—just complete slander.

Under Saxon law, a girl could not marry without her father’s consent until she was twenty-one. Robert and Clara petitioned the court for an exception, there ensued a long, legally- and emotionally-complicated court battle, but finally they won. They married one day before Clara’s 21^st birthday, no doubt to spite Clara’s father.

Their marriage was one of the great marriages of musical history. They studied scores together, wrote fugues together, inspired one another to write piano trios—it was a real meeting of minds and spirits. (And, I should say, bodies too—they had eight children!) But Robert had mental problems. They had always been there—but those problems started to come to the fore during their marriage. Today he would have received a diagnosis of some kind of mental illness.

The problems started becoming really bad around the time that a young man named Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) came knocking at their door. Brahms—twenty years old, handsome, a fantastic pianist, already a great composer—swept Robert and Clara off their feet. Very shortly after this meeting, Robert’s mental demons became so bad that he attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine river. He was sent off to an asylum where he spent the rest of his days. Clara was not allowed to visit him, nor write him letters—the doctors felt her presence and her words would “unduly distress” him. The next—and last—time Clara saw Robert was two days before he died.

Johannes was a great comfort to Clara during Robert’s deterioration in the asylum and in the immediate aftermath of his death. He helped her run the household and helped with the children when she was away. You have to remember that Clara was a working woman—she had to tour to support herself, her family, and Robert’s so-called “treatment.” It was during this very fraught time that Clara and Johannes became very close. How close, we’ll never really know. But always, to the end of their long lives, there was a third figure in their relationship, the deceased Robert, casting a long shadow.

A few notes about the music I have selected:

ROBERT, Piano Trio in D minor, op. 63, mvt. 1, Mit Energie und Leidenschaft (1847):

The first movement of Robert’s first piano trio is marked “with energy and passion.” The energy is turbulent and restless, the passion is unrelenting and, in the middle of the movement, we hear a distant apparition—what might be the voices of angels calling from afar. Their voices come closer, only to be consumed by the turbulence. I felt this magnificent movement would set the stage for the drama.

ROBERT, Seit ich ihn gesehen (1840): “Since I first saw him, I feel I have gone blind with love.” No song more perfectly captures the young Clara’s complete devotion to Robert.

ROBERT, Sitz’ ich allein and Setze mir nicht (1840): These two short songs are perfect reflections of Robert’s freewheeling youth.

CLARA, Die Lorelei (1843): A perfect depiction of Clara’s power to bewitch Robert.

ROBERT, Lied der Suleika (1840): A song about the power of music to touch our innermost feelings.

CLARA, Piano Trio in G minor, op. 17, mvt. 3, Andante (1846): The slow movement of Clara’s piano trio features a deeply heartfelt melody. A violent, jagged theme tries to disrupt the mood, but the heartfelt melody proves to be steadfast.

CLARA, Warum willst du and’re fragen (1840): A song that captures the doubts, troubles, and wishful thinking that plagued Clara, and indeed plague all relationships.

ROBERT, Aus den Hebräischen Gesängen (1840): The depths of despair. Even music offers little consolation.

ROBERT, Kennst du das Land (1849): This song expresses the same sentiment as Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere,” the hope that somewhere there is a place we can be free to live and love as we wish.

ROBERT, Frühlingsnacht (1840): Spring has come and swept away the darkness and despair of winter. Robert must have felt similar elation when they won their court battle. The song ends, “She is yours!”

ROBERT, Widmung (1840): On their wedding day, Robert presented Clara with a bound and gilded manuscript of his newest composition, Myrthen, a set of twenty-six incredible songs dedicated to Clara. Widmung (“Dedication”) is the first song in the cycle and one of the greatest love songs ever written. The melody begins with the notes C and E-flat (called “Es” in German, and sounding like the letter “S”)—the initials of Clara’s new married name. At the end of the song, Schumann weaves in a quote from Schubert’s Ave Maria at the end, as if invoking heaven’s blessing on their union.

JOHANNES, Scherzo in C minor for violin and piano (1853): Brahms wrote this magnificent piece shortly after he met Robert and Clara for the first time. Robert declared Johannes a genius and felt he was the true musical heir to Beethoven. We can believe it when we hear this piece. I felt this was a great way to announce Johannes making his first appearance in our story.

JOHANNES, Liebestreu (1853): One of Johannes’ first masterpieces, this incredible song relates an exchange between mother and daughter. The mother urges her daughter to stop torturing herself and forget an unrequited love. But the daughter finds she can’t give up her feelings. In our narrative, this song perfectly depicts the internal conflicts both Clara and Johannes felt about their attraction to one another.

JOHANNES, Nachtigallen schwingen (1853): “Nightingales are flying joyfully all around, and yet I must remain silent about my love.” Both Clara and Johannes had to keep their feelings for one another bottled up inside.

ROBERT, Piano Trio in D minor, op. 63, III. Langsam, mit inniger Empfindung (1847): Marked “slowly, with a most intimate feeling,” this movement is a devastating lament featuring the most stark and tortured music Schumann ever wrote. At the bottom of the last portrait ever drawn of Schumann, made shortly before he entered the asylum, he asked the artist to inscribe the opening theme of this movement.

ROBERT, Theme in E-flat Major (1854): As Robert’s mental health continued to decline, he often heard voices. Occasionally these voices dictated music to him. This is the theme that he heard and wrote down on one of the most dramatic of these occasions.

ROBERT, Schöne Wiege (1840): In 1854, Robert threw himself into the Rhine in an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself. This song is one of the saddest and most beautiful farewell songs ever written.

CLARA, Der Mond kommt still gegangen (1842): A song that perfectly captures Robert’s growing depression. The moon rises silently and bathes the earth in beauty. At a great distance, I see the windows of my beloved’s house sparkling in the moonlight. But I remain in darkness and can only gaze silently into the world.

CLARA, Ich stand’ in dunklen Träumen (1843): Clara was not allowed to see Robert until two days before his death, though Robert was allowed to have a portrait of Clara. In this song, Robert stands in dark dreams and gazes at her portrait with tears running down his cheeks.

ROBERT, Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan (1840): Clara was devastated by the death of Robert.

JOHANNES, Variations on a theme of Schumann for piano four-hands, op. 23 (1861):

In 1861, years after Schumann’s death, Brahms wrote to Clara,

My dearest Clara,

I send you these variations on Robert's last theme from that fateful night many years ago. You and Julie might play it in memory of the beloved master, husband, and father. Robert's theme really sounds like a wistful, softly spoken word of farewell and the variations do not stray too far from this idea.

Your Johannes

I hope you enjoy this presentation.
— Jeffrey Sykes, DMA

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