Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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1848- SCHUMANN —1850
society of Dresden, where he used to drink his they were such nice (hiibsch) people.' This is
beer in the evening, he would usually sit alone, even noticeable in his compositions for male
with his back lo the company and his face to chorus ;
they are not of the right kind, and
the wall, whistling softly to himself, and developing
have in consequence never been much sung.
his musical ideas all the time. No Of greater artistic importance was a society of
preference for any particular form of art can be mixed voices which was constituted in January
traced in Schumann's work at this time. Pianoforte
works and chamber trios, songs and vocal take the lead. It was not very large—in 1849
1848, and of which Schumann was asked to
duets, choruses, choral works with orchestra, it numbered only sixty or seventy members
ooncertos.with orchestra, compositions for horn, but these were eflicient, and Schumann was
clarinet, oboe, violoncello, or violin, with pianoforte
able 'to perform correctly any music he liked
accompaniment, even melodramatic music with pleasure and delight.' It was this society
—all these thronged as it were out of his imagination
that gave the first performance of the third
in wild and strange succession. Among part of 'Faust' in June 1848, at a private
all the beautiful and important works produced party ; Schumann was induced to write many
at this time, the music to Byron's Manfred new compositions for them, and they did much
deserves especial mention. The first stage performance
service in promoting a knowledge of his music
of it was given by Franz Liszt in in Dresden by two performances of 'Paradise
Weimar on June 13, 1852. For that occasion and the Peri' on Jan. 5 and 12, 1860. They
the drama was adapted for the stage by Schumann
even succeeded in drawing him into social
himself, in an arrangement which is amusements. In August 1848 a general ex-
printed as a preface to the score of the work,
.The first performance of the music at a concert
cursion was arranged, in which Schumann took
what was, for him, a lively interest.
took place at Leipzig on March 24, 1859.
That Schumann, after so successful abeginning
Dresden was Schumann's place of residence in the art of conducting, considered himself
until 1850. In the latter years of his stay fitted to undertake the direction of performances
there his outward life was more active than on a larger scale, is evident from the following
before. No journeys of note were made, it is circumstance. After Mendelssohn's death the
true, with the exception of those to Vienna Gewandhaus concerts were conducted by Julius
and Berlin already mentioned, and a longer
expedition undertaken in 1850 to Bremen and
Hamburg, where many concerts were given.
He avoided the passing disturbance occasioned
by the Dresden insurrection of 1849, by leaving
the town with his family. Though no revolutionary,
like Kiuhard Wagner, scarcely even a
politician, Schumann loved individual liberty
and wished others to enjoy it also. But what
gave a different aspect to his life as a musician
in the last years of his stay in Dresden, was
his occupation as a conductor. Ferdinand
Hillertad conducted a choral society for men's
voices ; and when he left Dresden to go to
Diisseldorf as municipal director of music,
Schumann succeeded him in his post. He
conducted the society for some time with great
interest, and was glad to find that his capacity
for conducting was not so small as he h2id
generally fancied it to be. He was even induced
to write a few works for male chorus. Three
songs of War and Liberty (Kriegs- und Freiheitslieder,
op. 62) and seven songs in canon-form,
to words by Buokert (op. 65), were written in
1847, and a grand motet for double chorus of
men's voices (op. 93) in 1849. But a nature
like Schumann's could not thrive in the atmosphere
of a German singing-club. He was in
all respects too refined for the tone of vulgar
comfort, and often even of low sentimentality,
which pervades these assemblies, and they could
not but be irksome to him. 'I felt myself,'
he says, in a letter to Hiller written on April 10,
1849, after his withdrawal, 'out of my element
Rietz, who until 1847 had been at work in
Diisseldorf. In the summer of 1849 a report
reached Dresden that Kietz was going to succeed
0. Nicolai as royal Capellmeister at Berlin.
Schumann thereupon applied for the post of
concert director at the Gewandhaus. Dr. Hermann
Hartel was to be the medium of communication,
and Schumann, with a well-founded
expectation that the choice would fall upon
him, gave himself up for a time with great
pleasure to the idea of becoming the successor
'
of the honoured Mendelssohn. It would give
me great pleasure,' he wrote, ' if the thing came
to pass. I long for regular duty, and though
I can never forget the last few years, during
which I have lived exclusively as a composer,
and know that so productive and happy a time
may perhaps never be mine again, yet I feel
impelled towards a life of active work, and my
highest endeavour would be to keep up the
renown which the institution has so long enjoyed.'
This wish was not realised, for Eietz
remained in Leipzig. But Schumann's desire
for a more extended field of work as a conductor
was to be satisfied in another way in the following
year.
In 1850 Hiller gave up his post in Diisseldorf
to obey a call to Cologne as Capellmeister to
that city. He suggested that Schumann should
be his successor, and opened negotiations with
him. Some efforts were made to keep him
in Dresden and to obtain his appointment
as Capellmeister to the King of Saxony ; but
the attempt was unsuccessful, and Schumann