Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SCHUMANN
3V5
'Warte, warte, wilder Schiffsmann,' and many
of the Diohterliebe.
'
Schumann's Symphonies may, without any
injustice, be considered as the most important
in their time since Beethoven. Though Mendelssohn
excels him in regularity of form, and though
Schubert's C major Symphony is quite unique
in its wealth of beautiful musical ideas, yet
Schumann surpasses both in greatness and force.
He is the man, they the youths ; he has the
greatest amount of what is demanded by that
greatest, most mature, and most important of
all forms of instrumental music. He comes
near to Beethoven, who it is quite evident was
almost the only composer that he ever took as
a model. No trace whatever of Haydn or Mozart
is to be found in his Symphonies, and of Mendelssohn
just as little. A certain approximation
to Schubert is indeed perceptible in the working
out ' {Durchfuhnrng) of his Allegro move-
'
ments. But the symphonies, like the pianoforte
works, the songs, and indeed aU that Schumann
produced, bear the strong impress of a marvellous
originality, and a creative power all his own.
Even the first published Symphony (in Bb, op.
38) shows a very distinct talent for this branch
of composition. We do not know that Schumann
had ever previously attempted orchestral
compositions, except in the case of the symphony
written in the beginning of 1830, which still
remains in MS. In 1839 he writes to Dorn :
'
At present it is true that I have not had much
practice in orchestral writing, but I hope to
master it some day.' And in his next attempt
he attained his object. In a few passages in
the Bl> Symphony, the effects of the instruments
are indeed not rightly calculated. One great
error in the first movement he remedied after
the first hearing. This was in the two opening
bars, from which the theme of the Allegro is
afterwards generated, and which were given to
the horns and trumpets. It ran originally thus,
in agreement with the beginning of the Allegi'O
movement
i r-cr^-T
5il=«t
which, on account of the G and A being stopped
notes, had an unexpected and very comic effect.
Schumann himself was much amused at the
mistake ;
when he was at Hanover in January
1854 he told the story to his friends, and it was
very amusing to hear this man, usually so grave
and silent, regardless of the presence of strangers
(for the incidenttook place at apublicrestaurant),
sing out the first five notes of the subject quite
loud, the two next in a muffled voice, and the
last again loud. He placed the phrase a third
higher, as it stands in the printed score :
Another, but less important passage for the
horns has remained unalteted. In bar 17 of
the first Allegro, Schumann thought that this
phrase
ought to be made more prominent than it
usually was on the horns, and requested both
Taubert and David, when it was in rehearsal
at Berlin and Leipzig in the winter of 1842,
to have it played on the trombones.
But in general we cannot but wonder at the
certain mastery over his means that he shows
even in the first Symphony. His orchestration
is less smooth and clear than that of either
Mendelssohn or Gade, and in its sterner style
reminds us rather of Schubert. But this stem
power is suited to the substance of his ideas,
and there is no lack of captivating beauty of
sound. We even meet in his orchestral works
with a number of new effects of sound such as
only true genius can discover or invent.
Instances
of these are the treatment of the three
trumpets in the Manfred ' ' overtm-e, the use
made of the horns in the second movement of
the E|; Symphony, the violin solo introduced
into the Romanza of the D minor Symphony,
etc. etc. It is hard to decide which of Schumann's
four symphonies (or five, counting op.
52) is the finest. Each has individual beauties
of its own. In life and freshness and the feeling
of inward happiness, the Bb Symphony stands
at the head. Schumann originally intended to
call it the Spring Symphony ' ; '
and indeed he
wrote it, as we learn from a letter to Taubert,
in Feb. 1841, when the first breath of spring
was in the air. The first movement was to
have been called ' Spring's Awakening, ' and the
Finale (which he alvyays wished not to be taken
too fast) ' Spring's Farewell.' Many parts of
the symphony have an especial charm when we
thus know the object with which they were
written. The beginning of the introduction
evidently represente a trumpet -summons sent
pealing down from on high ; then gentle zephyrs
blow softly to and fro, and everywhere the
dormant forces awake and make their way to
the light (we are quoting from the composer's
own programme). In the Allegro the Spring
comes laughing in, in the full beauty of youth.
This explains and justifies the novel use of the
triangle in the first movement—an instrument
not then considered admissible in a symphony.
An enchanting effect is produced by the Spring
song at the close of the first movement, played
as though sung with a full heart ; and it is an
entirely new form of coda (see p. 67 of the
score). In publishing the Symphony, Schumann
omitted the explanatory titles, because
he believed that the attention of the public is
1 SchmnanD Intended the PiU vtvtue of the Introduction to be
talEen diatlnctl7 faster at once, ao that the time might glide imperceptibly
into the AUegro.
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