Is Robert Schumann having a moment?
It seems everywhere I turn these days everyone is playing Schumann – in a way that, judging from the comparatively tepid response to his bicentennial 14 years ago, I would have never thought possible.
Let me be clear from the start that this is not intended to be a “hit piece” on Schumann, who, by any standard, should be regarded as one of the greatest composers who ever lived. When one becomes immersed in his world, it’s not unusual for everything to go topsy-turvy. Intellectual rigor and a literary sensibility are dashed against the rocks of passion. I emerge from the brine, wringing out my clothes, exhilarated, but wondering what the hell happened. At its most personal, his music is like a siren song. But is it for every season?
On the evidence of concert and radio programmers, it would seem so.
Whenever I’m around my digital radio, I swear, two hours will not pass without an encounter with Schumann. Even that ne plus ultra of classical music programmers, Peter Van de Graaff, airs Schumann’s music regularly. My most recent enthusiasm is Yle Klassinen, a classical music service out of Finland. Its playlist is breathtakingly diverse, and yet, all at once, there he is again – Robert Schumann. (Even now, I am listening to Karl Goldmark. The performers: the Robert Schumann Philharmonic!)
Is Schumann the new Brahms?
Perhaps part of the reason we are hearing more Schumann is that we’re oversaturated with music by his star discovery. (I’m not noticing any comparable surge in the performance of music by Albert Dietrich.)
In terms of classical radio, surely this boost is attributable in part to the form’s lamentable race to the bottom, in programming the most, and therefore shortest, selections, allowing for so much variety within a single hour, like dicing the world’s masterpieces into an overwatered gazpacho. If a work is presented complete (even classical radio hosts need to run to the bathroom), the tendency is to go “short.” Hence the insane popularity of Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, which at a half an hour or less is being aired much more frequently now than any of the Brahms’ symphonies. In their complete form, that is. Vapid radio will still drop in the third movement of Brahms 4th symphony (the one adapted and recorded by the progressive rock group Yes) from time to time.
I’m also hearing a lot of Schumann piano music (beyond the ubiquitous “Kinderszenen”) and songs (if it’s a station that isn’t queasy about vocal music) and even substantial chamber works. I haven’t approached it scientifically, but it also seems to me that Schumann is being heard more on live concert programs.
Is it a case of renewed curiosity, now that we’re hearing more about Clara? Is Robert riding Clara’s skirts, as she once rode his coattails? If so, I am not seeing a comparable effect with the Mendelssohns, Felix and his sister Fanny. Not that Felix Mendelssohn ever hurts for performances. It’s just that, like Schumann, everyone seems to turn up their noses and regard him as somehow “second tier.” Or perhaps as seated far to the back of the first tier.
Of course, in the right mood, those of us of a certain disposition have no problem connecting with Schumann’s kaleidoscopic Romanticism – by turns tender and turbulent, lyrical and seething, tormented and perhaps even a little eldritch.
There really is no one else like him – even if, of the great composers, he seems about the furthest away from Tarzan, in every respect, that I can imagine.
Schumann of the Apes, cartoon by Pablo Helguera from 2012
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