Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

'
SCHUMANN 373
positions of the first ten years present the most
characteristic picture of Schumann's genius.
In after life he proposed and attained loftier
ideals in works worthy of the perfect master.
But the freshness and charm of his earlier pianoforte
works was never surpassed, and in his later
years wasbutrarelyreached. Adreamy imaginative
nature was united in Schumann's character
with a native solidity that never descended to
the commonplace. From the first his music had
in it a character which appealed to the people
—^nay, which was in a way national ; and
quickly as he reached his present immense
popularity in Germany, it will probably be long
before he has the same influence in other nations,
especially in France and Italy. After Beethoven,
Schumann is the only master who possesses the
power of giving full and free expression to the
humorous element in instrumental music. Both
in his writings and compositions he allows it to
have full play, and it is in his earlier PF. works
that it is most prominent. One of his freshest
and fullest works is the Humoreske (op. 20),
the most wonderful portrayal of a humorous
disposition that it is possible to imagine in
music. Schumann's thorough individuality is
prominent, alike in harmonies, rhythm, and
colouring, and in the fonns of the melodies. It
is, however, characteristic of his early PF. works
that broad bold melodies rarely occur in them,
though there is a superabundance of melodic
fragments — germs of melody, as they might be
called, full of a deep expression of their own.
This music is pervaded by a spring-like animation
and force, a germ of future promise, which
givesitapeculiar roinantic character ; a character
strengthened by the admixture of poetic moods
and feelings. Schumann was both musician
and poet, and he who would thoroughly understand
his music must be first imbued with the
spirit of the German poets who were most
prominent in Schumann's youth ; above all
others Jean Paul and the whole romantic school,
particularly Eichendorff, Heine, and Riickert.
And just as these poets were specially great in
short lyrics, revealing endless depths of feeling
in a few lines, so did Schumann succeed, as no
one has done before or since, in saying great
things and leaving unutterable things to be felt,
in the small form of a short pianoforte piece.
Schumann's enthusiastic admiration and
thorough appreciation of Bach have been already
described. He shared this with Mendelssohn,
but it is certain that he entered more thoroughly
than Mendelssohn did into the old master's
mysterious depth of feeling. It would therefore
have been wonderful if he had not attempted
to express himself in the musical forms used by
Bach. His sti-ong natural inclination towards
polyphonic writing is perceptible even in his
earliest pianoforte works, but it was not until
1840 that it comes prominently forward. His
six fugues on the name ' Bach ' (op. 60), the
four fugues (op. 72), the seven pianoforte pieces
in fughetta form (op. 126), the studies in canon
form for the pedal-piano (op. 56), and the other
separate canons and fugues scattered up and
down his pianoforte works—all form a class in
modern pianoforte music just as new as do his
pianoforte works in the free style. The treatment
of the parts in the fugues is by no means
always strictly according to rule, even when
viewed from the standpoint of Bach, who
allowed himself considerable freedom. In
employing an accompaniment of chords in one
part, he also goes far beyond what had hitherto
been considered allowable. But yet, taken as
a whole, these works are masterpieces; no other
composer of modem times could have succeeded
ais he has done in welding together so completely
the modern style of feeling with the old strict
form, or in giving that form a new life and
vigour by means of the modern spirit. In
these pieces we hear the same Schumann whom
we know in his other works ; his ideas adapt
themselves as if spontaneously to the strict
requirements of the polyphonic style, and these
requirements again draw from his imagination
new and characteristic ideas. In short, though
a great contrapuntist he was not a pedantic
one, and he may be numbered among the few
musicians of the last hundred years to whom
polyphonic forms have been a perfectly natural
means of expressing their ideas.
As a composer of Songs Schumann stands by
the side of Schubert and Mendelssohn, the
youngest of the trio of great writers in this
class of music. Schubert shows the greatest
wealth of melody, Mendelssohn the most perfect
roundness of form; but Schumann is by far the
most profoundly and intellectually suggestive.
He displays a more finely cultivated poetic taste
than Schubert, with a many-sided feeling for
lyric expression far greater than Mendelssohn's.
Many of his melodies are projected in bold and
soaring lines such as we meet with in no other
composer but Schubert ; for instance, in the wellknown
songs 'Widmung' (op. 25, No. 1), 'Lied
der Braut' (op. 25, No. 12),
'
Liebesbotsohaft
(op. 36, No. 6),
' Stille Thranen ' (op. 35, No.
1 0), and others. Still more frequently he throws
himself into the spirit of the German Volkslied,
and avails himself of its simpler and narrower
forms of melody. Indeed his songs owe their
extraordinary popularity chiefly to this conspicuously
national element. The reader need
only be reminded of the song ' Sonnenschein
(op. 36, No. 4), of Heine's ' Liederkreis ' (op.
24), and of the Heine songs 'Hbr' ich das
Liedchen klingen,"
' Allnachtlich im Traume,'
'Aus altien Marchen'(op. 48, Nos. 10, 14, 15),
of most of the songs and ballads (op. 45, 49,
53), and above all of the Wanderlied ' ' (op. 35,
No. 3), which sparkles with youthful life and
healthy vigour. Besides these there are many
songs in which the melody is hardly worked