Tra"umerei - Robert Schumnn

[쿤타킨테]

Robert Alexander Schumann, (1810-1856), was a German Romantic composer, best-known for his piano pieces written for his wife, Clara Schumann, one of the leading pianists of the Romantic era.
After four years at a private school, he entered the Zwickau Gymnasium (high school) in 1820 and remained there for eight years. He began his musical education at the age of six, studying the piano. In 1827 he came under the musical influence of the Austrian composer Franz Schubert and the literary influence of the German poet Jean Paul Richter, and in the same year he composed some songs. In 1828 Schumann left school and, under family pressure, reluctantly entered the University of Leipzig as a law student. But at Leipzig his time was devoted not to the law but to song composition, improvisation at the piano, and attempts to write novels. For a few months he studied the piano seriously with celebrated German teacher, Friedrich Wieck, and thus got to know Wieck’s nine-year-old daughter Clara, a brilliant pianist who was just then beginning a successful concert career.

In the summer of 1829 he left Leipzig for Heidelberg in southwest Germany. There he composed waltzes in the style of Franz Schubert, and practiced industriously with a view to abandoning law and becoming a virtuoso pianist—with the result that his mother agreed to allow him to return to Leipzig in October 1830 to study for a trial period with his teacher Friedrich Wieck, who thought highly of his talent but doubted his stability and capacity for hard work.
An accident to one of the fingers of his right hand, which put an end to his hopes of a career as a virtuoso, was perhaps not an unmitigated misfortune, since it confined him to composition. For Schumann, this was a period of prolific composition in piano pieces, which were published either at once or, in revised forms, later.

By now, Schumann had entered upon one of his most fertile creative periods, producing a series of imaginative works for piano after which he returned to a field he had neglected for nearly 12 years, that of the solo song; in the space of 11 months he composed nearly all the songs on which much of his reputation rests. His wife Clara had been pressing him to widen his scope, to launch out in other media—above all, the orchestra. In 1841 he composed the Symphony No. 1, which was immediately performed under the composer Felix Mendelssohn at Leipzig; an Overture, Scherzo, and Finale; a Phantasie for piano and orchestra, which was expanded into the famous Piano Concerto in A Minor by the addition of two more movements in 1845; another symphony, in D minor; and sketches for an uncompleted third symphony, in C minor. After this the orchestral impulse was temporarily spent.

In the autumn of 1844 his work was interrupted by a serious nervous collapse. From late 1844 to 1850 he and his wife Clara lived in Dresden, where his health was gradually restored. In 1845 he began another symphony, No. 2, but because of aural nerve trouble nearly 10 months passed before the score was finished. Schumann wrote the incidental music to Lord Byron’s drama Manfred in 1848–49. His attempts to obtain posts in Leipzig and Vienna had also been abortive, and in the end he accepted the post of municipal director of music at Düsseldorf. At first things went tolerably well; in 1850–51 he composed the Cello Concerto and the Symphony No. 3 (the Rhenish) and drastically rewrote the 10-year-old Symphony in D Minor, ultimately published as No. 4. He also conducted eight subscription concerts, but his shortcomings as a conductor became obvious, and in 1853 he lost his post as music director at Düsseldorf.

In 1854, Schumann complained of a “very strong and painful” attack of the ear malady that had troubled him before; this was followed by aural hallucinations. Later he asked to be taken to a lunatic asylum, and the next day he attempted suicide by drowning. He was then removed to a private asylum at Endenich, near the city of Bonn, where he lived for nearly two and a half years, able to correspond for a time with his wife Clara and his friends. He died there in 1856.

Kinderszenen, Op.15, Träumerei
Mstislav Rostropovich, Cello
Alexander Dedyuhkin, Piano