Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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348 1829- SCHUMANN -1830
originality and poetic charm already clearly
foreshadowed the main features of his musical
individuality. Schumann appeared only once in
public, at a concert given by a musical society
at Heidelberg, where he played Moscheles's
variations on the Alexandermarsch ' ' with great
success. He received many requests to play
again, but refused them all, probably, as a
student, finding it not expedient.
It will no doubt be a matter of surprise that
Schumann could have justified himself in thus
spending year after year in a merely nominal
study of tte law, while in fact wholly given up
to his favourite pursuit. A certain lack of
determination, a certain shrinking from anything
disagreeable, betray themselves during
these years as his general characteristics, and
were perhaps an integral part of his nature. At
the same time his conduct is to a certain extent
explicable, by the general conditions of German
student -life. Out of the strict discipline of
the Gymnasium the student steps at once into
•the unlimited freedom of the University. It
was the intoxicating poetry of the student life
which Schumann drank in deep draughts. Its
coarseness was repellent to his refined nature,
and his innate purity and nobility guarded
him against moral degradation ; but he lived
like a rover rejoicing in this bright world as it
lies open to him, worked little, spent much, got
into debt, and was as happy as a fish in the
water. Besides its tender and rapturous side,
his little book, Ueber Reinheit der Tonhwnsl, a his nature had a vein of native sharpness and
work which at that time essentially contributed humour. With all these peculiarities he could
to alter the direction of musical taste in live his student's life to the full, though in his .
Germany. Just as in his volume Thibaut attacks own apparently quiet and unassertive way.
the degenerate state of church music, Schumann,
at a later date, was destined to take up arms
The letters in which he discusses money-matters
with his guardian, Herr Rudel, a merchant of
in word and deed, against the flat insipidity of Zwickau, show how he indulged his humorous
concert and chamber
'
music. Nevertheless the mood even in these : Dismal things I have to
two men never became really intimate ; in one, tell you, respected Herr Rudel,' he writes on
no doubt, the doctor too greatly preponderated, June 21, 1830; 'in the first place, that I
and in the other the artist. Thibaut himself have a repetitorium which costs eighty gulden
subsequently advised Schumann to abandon the every half-year, and secondly, that within a
law, and devote himself entirely to music. week I have been under arrest by the town (don't
Indeed, if Schumann was industrious in anything
be shocked) for not paying thirty gulden of
at Heidelberg it was in pianoforte-playing. other college dues.' And on another occasion,
After practising for seven hours in the day, he when the money he had asked for to make a
would invite a friend to come in the evening journey home for the holidays did not arrive
and play with him, adding that he felt in a I am the only student here, and wander alone
'
particularly happy vein that day ; and even about the streets and woods, forlorn and poor,
during an excursion with friends he would take like a beggar, and with debts into the bargain.
a dumb keyboard with him in the carriage. By Be kind, most respected Herr Rudel, and only
diligent use of the instruction he had received this once send me some money—only money
from Wieck in Leipzig, he brought himself to and do not drive me to seek means of setting
high perfection as an executant ; and at the out which might not be pleasant to you. ' The
same time increased his skill in improvisation. reasons he employs to prove to his guardian
One of his musical associates at this time used that he ought not to be deprived of means for a
afterwards to say that from the playing of no journey into Italy are most amusing : At any
'
other artist, however great, had he ever experienced
rate I shall have made the journey : and as I
such ineffaceable musical impressions ;
must make it once, it is all the same whether I
the ideas seem to pour into the player's mind use the money for it now or later.' His com-
in an inexhaustible floWj and their profound
positions, too, plainly show how deeply the
poetical aspect of student life had affected him,
and had left its permanent mark on him.
I need only remind the reader of Kerner's
' Wanderlied ' (op. 35, No. 3), dedicated to an
old fellow-student at Heidelberg, and of Eichendorff
's ' Friihlingsfahrt ' (op. 45, No. 2). Among
German songs of the highest class, there is not
one in which the effervescent buoyancy of youth
craving for distant flights has found such full
expression, at once so thoroughly German and
so purely ideal, as in this 'Wanderlied,' which
indeed, with a different tune, is actually one of
the most favourite of student songs.
' Friihlingsfahrt'
tells of two young comrades who
quit home for the first time, one of whom soon
finds a regular subsistence and a comfortable
home, while the other pursues glittering visions,
yields to the thousand temptations of the world,
and finally perishes ; it is a portrait of a German
student drawn from the life, and the way in
which Schumann has treated it shows that he
was drawing on the stores of his own experience.
Several journeys also served to infuse into
Schumann's student life the delight of free and
unrestrained movement. In August 1829 he
went for a pleasure trip to North Italy, quite
alone, for two friends who had intended to go
failed him. But perhaps the contemplative and
dreamy youth enjoyed the loveliness of the
country and the sympathetic Italian nature only
the more thoroughly for being alone. Nor were
little adventures of gallantry wanting. Frag-