Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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'
and a few really good musical situations. The
music contains much that is airy and fresh, as
well as a beautiful dirge. On the other hand,
it is full of a feeble sentimentality utterly
foreign to Schumann's general character, and
ascribable only to the decay of his imagination.
The insignificant and wholly idyllic subject was
quite inadequate to give employment to the
whole apparatus of solo, chorus, and orchestra,
and Schumann's first idea of providing a pianoforte
accompaniment only was the right one.
With a small section of Schumann's admirers
the work will always keep its place, and produce
a pleasing though not very deep effect. His
other works in this form consist of four ballads :
— 'Der Konigssohn' (op. 116), 'Des Sangers
Fluoh' (op. 139), 'Das Gliick von Edenhall
(op. 143), all by Uhland ; and 'Vom Pagen
und der Konigstochter ' (op. 140), by Geibel. It
is painfully evident that these poems were not
really written for music. The way the principal
events of the story are described, and the whole
outward form of the verses, imply that they
were intended to be recited by a single person,
and that not a singer but a speaker. If necessary
to be sung, the form of a strophic song
should have been chosen, as is the case with
'Das Gliick von Edenhall,' but this would
confine the varieties of expression within too
narrow a range. It is as though Schumann's
pent-up desire for the dramatic form were
seeking an outlet in these ballads ; especially
as we know that in the last years of his creative
activity he was anxious to meet with a new
opera-libretto. The faults of texts and subjects
might, however, be overlooked, if the music made
itself felt as the product of a rich and unwearied
imagination. Unfortunately, however, this is
seldom the case. It is just in the more dramatic
partsthat we detect an obvious dulness in the
music, a lameness in rhythm, and » want of
fresh and happy contrasts. It must be remarked,
however, that isolated beauties of no
mean order are to be met with ; such as the
whole of the third part and the beginning and
end of the second, in the ballad Vom Pagen
'
und der Konigstochter. ' These works, however,
taken as a whole, will hardly live.
On the other hand, there are some works of
striking beauty for voices and orchestra in a
purely lyrical vein. Among these should be
mentioned the Eeqniem ' for Mignon ' from
'
Wilhelm Meister ' (op. 98J), and Hebbel's
' Nachtlied
'
(op. 108). The former of these
was especially written for music, and contains
the loveliest thoughts and words embodied in
an unconstrained and agreeable form. Few
composers were so well fitted for such a work
as Schumann, with his sensitive emotional
faculty and his delicate sense of poetry ; and
it is, no wonder that he succeeded in producing
this beautiful little composition. But it should
never be heard in a large concert rooiu, for which
SCHUMANN 379
its delicate proportions and tender colouring are
utterly unfitted. The Nachtlied ' ' is a long
choral movement. The peculiar and fantastic
feeling of the poem receives adequate treatment
by a particular style in which the chorus is
sometimes used only to give colour, and sometimes
is combined with the orchestra in a
polyphonic structure, in which all human individuality
seems to be merged, and only the
universal powers of nature and of life reign
supreme.
Schumann's music to Faust ' ' is not intended
to be performed on the stage as the musical
complement of Goethe's drama. It is a piece
for concert performance, or rather a set of pieces,
for he did not stipulate or intend that all three
What he did
parts should be given together.
was to take out a number of scenes from both
parts of Goethe's poem, and set music to them.
It follows that the work is not self-contained,
but requires for its full understanding an accurate
knowledge of the poem. From the First
Part he took the following:—(1) Part of the
first scene in the garden between Gretchen and
Faust ; (2) Gretchen before the shrine of the
Mater dolorosa ; (3) The scene in the Cathedral.
These three form the first division of his Faust
music. From the Second Part of the play he
adopted :
(1) The first scene of the first act (the
song of the spirits at dawn, the sunrise, and
Faust's soliloquy) ; (2) The scene with the four
aged women from the fifth act ; (3) Faust's death
in the same act (as far as the words, Der Zeiger
'
fallt—Erfallt, esist vollbracht'). Theseform the
second division of the music. Schumann's third
division consists of the last scene of the fifth act
(Faust's glorification) divided into seven numbers.
The experiment of constructing a work
of art, without central point or connection in itself,
but entirely dependent for these on another
work of art, could only be successful in the ease
of a poem like Faust ' ; and even then, perhaps,
only with the
'
German people, with whom
Faust is almost as familiar as the Bible. But
it really was successful, more particularly in
the third division, which consists of only one
great scene, and is the most important from a
musical point of view. In this scene Goethe
himself desired the co-operation of music. Its
mystic import and splendid expression could
find no composer so well fitted as Schumann,
who seemed, as it were, predestined for it. He
threw himself into the spirit of the poem with
such deep sympathy and understanding, that
from beginning to end his music gives the impression
of being a commentary on it. To
Schumann is due the chief meed of praise for
having popularised the second part of ' Faust.
In musical importance no other choral work of
his approaches the third division of his work.
In freshness, originality, and sustained powef
of invention it is in no way Inferior to ' Paradise'
and the Peri.' Up to about the latter half of