Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

1843— SCHUMANN —1846 359
of the year, however, was 'Paradise and the
Peri,' a grand composition for solo-voices, chorus,
and orchestra, to a text adapted from Moore's
' Lalla Rookh.' The enthusiasm created by
this work at its first performance (Deo. 4, 1843),
conducted by the composer himself, was so great
that it had to be repeated a week afterwards,
on Dec. 11, and on the 23rd of the same month
it was performed in the Opera House at Dresden.
It will be easily believed that from this time
Schumann's fame was firmly established in
Germany, although it took twenty years more
to make his work widely and actually popular.
Having been so fortunate in his first attempt
in a branch of art hitherto untried by him, he
felt induced to undertake another work of the
same kind, and in 1844 began writing the
second of his two most important choral works,
namely, the music to Goethe's 'Faust.' For
some time, however, the work consisted only of
four numbers. His uninterrupted labours had
so affected his health, that in this year he was
obliged for a time to forego all exertion of the
kind.
The first four years of his married life were
passed in profound retirement, but very rarely
interrupted. In the beginning of 1842 he accompanied
his wife on a concert-tour to Hamburg,
where the Bb Symphony was performed.
Madame Schumann then proceeded alone to
Copenhagen, while her husband returned to his
quiet retreat at Leipzig. In the summer of the
same year the two artists made an excursion
into Bohemia, and at Konigswart were presented
to Prince Metternich, who invited them to
Vienna. Schumann at first took some pleasure
in these tours, but soon, forgot it in the peace
and comfort of domestic life, and it cost his wife
great trouble to induce him to make a longer
journey to Russia inthe beginning of 1844.
Indeed she only succeeded by declaring that she
would make the tour alone if he would not
leave home. How unwilling ' I am to move out
of my quiet round,' he wrote to a friend, you
'
must not expect me to tell you. I cannot
think of it without the greatest annoyance.'
However, he made up his mind to it, and they
started on Jan. 26. His wife gave concerts in
Mitau, Riga, Petersburg, and Moscow ; and the
enthusiasm with which she was everywhere received
attracted fresh attention to Schumann's
works, the constant aim of her noble endeavours.
Schumann himself, when once he had parted
from home, found much to enjoy in a journey
which was so decidedly and even brilliantly successful.
At St. Petersburg he was received with
undiminished cordiality by his old friend Henselt,
who had made himself a new home there.
At a soirfe at Prince Oldenburg's Henselt played
with Mme. Schumann her husband's Variations
for two pianos. The Bb Symphony was
also performed under Schumann's direction
at a soiree given by the Counts Joseph and
Michael Wielhorsky, highly esteemed musical
connoisseurs ; and it is evident that the dedication
of Schumann's PF. Quartet (op. 47) to a
Count Wielhorsky was directly connected with
this visit.
In June they were once more in Leipzig,
and
so agreeable were the reminiscences of the
journey that Schumann was ready at once with
a fresh plan of the same kind—this time for a
visit to England with his wife in the following
year ; not, indeed, as he had once intended,
with a view to permanent residence, but merely
that she might win fresh laurels as " player,
and he make himself known as a composer. He
proposed to conduct parts of ' Paradise and the
Peri ' in London, and anticipated a particular
success for it because the work had, as '
it were,
sprung from English soil, and was one of the
sweetest flowers of English verse.' On June 27,
1844, he writes to Moscheles concerning the
project, which had the full support of Mendelssohn
; but the scheme ultimately came to
nothing, chiefly because of the refusal of Buxton,
the proprietor of the publishing firm of Ewer &
Co., to bring out ' Paradise and the Peri' with
English words. Still Schumann, even long
after, kept his eye steadily fixed on England.
He was delighted at being told that Queen
Victoria often listened to his music, and had
had the Bb Symphony ' played by the private
band at Windsor, and he contemplated dedicating
his Manfred music (op. 1 1 5) to Her Majesty,
but the idea was given up.
Instead of going to England, they at length
paid a visit to Vienna in the winter of 1846.
Here again Schumann conducted his Bb Symphony,
and his wife played his Pianoforte
Concerto. This was on Jan. 1, 1847. But the
publicwere perfectly imsympathetic, and justified
an earlier utterance of Schumann's that 'The
Viennese are an ignorant people, and know little
of what goes on outside their own city.' Nor
were matters much more satisfactory in Berlin,
whither they went from Vienna to conduct
'
Paradise and the Peri' ; while in Prague, where
they performed on their way, they met with
the warmest reception.
The year 1844 was the last of Schumann's
residence in Leipzig ; for in October he left the
town where he had lived and worked with short
intervals for fourteen years, and moved to
Dresden. He had given up the editorship
of the Neue ZeMschnft in July, and from April
3, 1843, had held a Professor's chair in the
Conservatorium, founded at Leipzig by Mendelssohn's
exertions, and opened on that date.
[See vol. ii. p. 668 ; vol. iii. pp. 142, 143.]
He was professor of pianoforte - playing and
composition ; but his reserved nature was
little suited ' to the duties of a teacher,
though his name and the example afforded by
I The first pei-formance of the Bb Symphony in England was at
the Fhilharmonic Concert, June 5, 1854.