Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

;'
Sohiimann inserted all the instrumental pieces
in the work, with the exception of the tunes on
the shepherd's pipe in the first act ; also the
requiem heard at Manfred's death, sounding
from the convent church. On the other hand,
it is remarkable that he left the song of The
'
captive usurper ' in Act ii. Scene iv. without
music. The whole work consists of sixteen
numbers, including the overture ; this Schumann
composed first of all, and probably without
intending to write music for the drama itself.
Even here he does not evince any special gift
for dramatic writing. In the present day
Byron's drama is frequently performed upon the
stage with Schumann's music, and its effectiveness
can thus be tested. The music hardly
ever serves to intensify the dramatic effects,
and yet this is all that is necessary in a drama.
It appears rather to be the outcome of the
impression produced on Schumann by Byron's
poem. There is one peculiarity about the
'Manfred' music. On the stage it loses a great
part of its effect, just as, in my opinion, the
poem loses half its fantastic and weird magic
by being dressed in the clumsy and palpable
illusions of a scenic representation. The overture
is a piece of music of the most serious character,
and much more fitted for concert performance
than for assembling an audience in '^ theatre.
This is still more true of all the other pieces, so
delicate in construction and subtle in feeling,
the closing requiem by no means excluded. And
yet in the concert-room the music does not
make its due effect ;
partly because the hearer
is withdrawn from the influence of the action,
which is indispensable to the fuU understanding
of the whole work ; and also because in the
melodramas the spoken words and the music
which accompanies them disturb one another
more than when performed on the stage. From
these remarks it might be imagined that the
' Manfred ' music is an inferior work ; but strange
to say such is by no means the case. It is a
splendid creation, and one of Schumann's most
inspired productions. It hovers between the
stage and the concert-room ; and, paradoxical as
it may seem, the deepest impression is produced
by reading the score, picturing in one's mind
the action and the spoken dialogue, and allowing
the music to sink deep into the ears of one's
mind. Perhaps the most striking parts of it
all are the melodramas, and among them the
deeply touching speech of Manfred to Astarte ;
and these all stand out with a peculiar purity
and unity, when read as just described. They
are in a manner improvements upon those highly
poetic piano pieces of Schumann's with superscriptions
; and we ought to think of the words
when hearing the piece. In this music, if
nowhere else, is revealed Schumann's characteristic
struggle after the inward, to the disregard
of the outward; and we see how diametrically
opposed to his nature was the realisation of
SCHUMANN 381
dramatic effects where all is put into visible and
tangible form. But he devoted himself to the
composition of the 'Manfred' music just as if he
had been fitted for it by nature. The poet and
the composer seem to have been destined for
one another as truly as in the case of the Faust
music, but in a different way. Byron had no
idea of stage representation in writing Manfred'
'
he only wished his poem to be read. Its romantic
sublimity of thought, spurning all firm foothold
or support on the earth, could only find its due
completion in music such as this, which satisfies
the requirements of neither stage nor concertroom.
That a work of art, mighty and instinct
with life, can be produced with a sublime disdain
of all limits set by circumstance, provided only
genius is at work upon it, is amply proved by
Byron and Schumann in this their joint production.
It has been already remarked more than
once that the gloomy, melancholy, and passionate
intensity of strife in Byron's Manfred,
'
heightened by contrast with the splendid descriptions
of nature, corresponded to the conditions of
Schumann's spirit at the time when the music
was written. And indeed a deep sympathy
speaks in every bar. But there was in Schumann
a longing for peace and reconciliation, which is
wanting in Byron. This comes out very plainly
in different passages in the music, of which the
most striking is the Requiem ' ' at the close,
which sheds over the whole work a gentle gleam
of glory. If we were to go into details, we
should neither know where to begin nor to end.
In January 1851 Schumann wrote to a friend,
'
It must always be the artist's highest aim to
apply his powers to sacred music. But in youth
we are firmly rooted to the earth by all our
joys and sorrows ; it is only with advancing age
that the branches stretch higher, and so I hope
that the period of my higher efforts is no longer
distant.' He is here speaking emphatically of
{ sacred,' not of church music. Church music
he never wrote, his Mass and his Requiem notwithstanding.
It should be adapted to the
church-services, and calculated to produce its
effect in combination with the customary ceremonial
; but sacred or religious music is intended
to turn the mind of the hearers, by its own
unaided effect, to edifying thoughts of the
eternal and divine. Of compositions of this
class we possess several by Schumann ; nor was
it in 1851 that he first began writing them.
There is an Advent hymn for solo, chorus, and
orchestra (op. 71), written in 1848 ; a motet
for men's voices with organ, subsequently
arranged for orchestra (op. 93), of 1849, and a
New Year's hymn for chorus and orchestra (op.
144) of the winter of the same year ; all three
settings of poems by Friedrich Riickert. The
Mass (op. 147) and the Requiem (op. 148), on
the other hand, were composed in 1852, and
Schumann may have been thinking mainly of
works of this kind when he wrote the letter