Daverio John. Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age

Oxford University Press, USA, 1997. - 607 p.: il.:musical examples
Forced by a hand injury to abandon a career as a pianist, Robert Schumann went on to become one of the world's great composers. Among many works, his Spring Symphony (1841), Piano Concerto in A Minor (1841/1845), and the Third, or Rhenish, Symphony (1850) exemplify his infusion of classical forms with intense, personal emotion. His musical influence continues today and has inspired many other famous composers in the century since his death. Indeed Brahms, in a letter of January 1873, wrote: "The remembrance of Schumann is sacred to me. I will always take this noble pure artist as my model."Now, in Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age," John Daverio presents the first comprehensive study of the composer's life and works to appear in nearly a century. Long regarded as a quintessentially romantic figure, Schumann also has been portrayed as a profoundly tragic one: a composer who began his career as a genius and ended it as a mere talent. Daverio takes issue with this Schumann myth, arguing instead that the composer's entire creative life was guided by the desire to imbue music with the intellectual substance of literature. A close analysis of the interdependence among Schumann's activities as reader, diarist, critic, and musician reveals the depth of his literary sensibility. Drawing on documents only recently brought to light, the author also provides a fresh outlook on the relationship between Schumann's mental illness--which brought on an extended sanitarium stay and eventual death in 1856--and his musical creativity. Schumann's character as man and artist thus emerges in all its complexity. The book concludes with an analysis of the late works and a postlude on Schumann's influence on successors from Brahms to Berg.This well-researched study of Schumann interprets the composer's creative legacy in the context of his life and times, combining nineteenth-century cultural and intellectual history with a fascinating analysis of the works themselves.The Biographical Challenge
Questions and Provisional Answers
Toward a Portrait of Schumann the Composer
A Youth by No Means Lacking in Talent
Revelling in Schubert and Jean Paul
The Budding Virtuoso
Schumann at Twenty-One
The Papillons Idea
Composing under the Spell of Paganini, Bach, and Beethoven
A Barrier against Convention
History, Poetry, and Music Criticism
Reflections of a Turbulent Life
1835: A Year of Important Consequences
Sad Times
Robert and Clara: United Forever
Schumann in Vienna
"What Should Be United—Will Be United"
Together at Last
The Year of Song: "Embarking on Completely New Paths"
The Year of Song and the "System" of Genres
Settling into Marriage—and Symphonic Composition
The Symphonic Challenge
Two Symphonies, a "Symphonette," and a Phantasie
The Poetry and Prose of Artist-Marriages
Tradition, Innovation, and Social Character
Toward a Poetic Chamber Music
"Absorbed in Peri Thoughts"
Das Paradies und die Peri: An Overview
Off to the World's Wonder-Cities: The Russian Tour of 1844
Crisis
"A Completely New Manner of Composing"
"Fugenpassion"
"Symphoniaca"
"Trio Thoughts"
Toward a Literary Opera
Genoveva: From Trauerspiel to Hagiographic Drama
Manfred and the Modern Drama
Faust as Musical Novel
The Most Fruitful Year
Schumann and the Biedermeier Sensibility
Concertante Experiments
Storms Within and Without
The Formative Power
Municipal Music Director in Düsseldorf
The Late Styles
"Do You Remember When...?
Epilogue: A Place to Recall Schumann and His Music
Appendix: Translation of Jean Paul, Flegeljahre, Chapter 63: "Titanium—Black Tourmaline Masked—Ball"
NotesIndex of Schumann's Works.