Robert Schumann: Music amid the Madness
Composer Robert Schumann - Robert Schumann was a brilliant, if unpredictable, composer who suffered bouts of what would today be called bipolar disorder. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
I have recently discovered a deep passion for the symphonies of Robert Schumann. Up until now, these pieces were elusive and unpredictable — more than a little like Schumann himself. The music has left me wanting to better understand this complicated composer.
Schumann was born into a family filled with writing. His father authored an eclectic range of books, from dictionaries and address books to romantic medieval novels. Fueled by his love for literature, the young Schumann let his prodigious imagination run wild, a practice he continued right up through adolescence and adulthood. He lived with imaginary companions in a heightened mental state that foreshadowed his lifelong battle with what doctors today would diagnose as severe bipolar disorder.
Shifting Toward Music
(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Schumann discovered music a little later in life and came to the conclusion that it held an even greater potential for artistic and spiritual transcendence than that offered by literature. He was basically self-taught as a pianist and composer until he met Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig, becoming his piano student instead of studying for a law degree. This relationship changed the course of Schumann's life. It redirected him to a career in music and introduced him to Clara, who at age 9 was a phenomenal child prodigy, piano virtuoso and composer.
Schumann composed primarily for the piano and combined his passion for music and literature by writing hundreds of songs. But it was not until he was 30 (and married to Clara, then 21) that he began writing symphonies.
Typically for Schumann, when he was in a manic state he would compose feverishly, but when he fell into a depressive state, he was virtually paralyzed. It makes me wonder: What if Schumann had Prozac or lithium? Would his creativity have been helped or hampered by these modern, so-called wonder drugs?
Would his autobiographical Second Symphony tell a different story? As it stands, I hear the music pulsing with Schumann's journey from abject depression to triumph and joy. It's a parallel to Beethoven's own personal journey in his Symphony No. 5.
Symphonic Mood Swings
The similarities would not have eluded audiences of the time. Listeners to Schumann's Second Symphony would have recognized a Beethoven-styled "fate theme." It appears immediately in the brass at the beginning and returns repeatedly throughout the symphony, but in ever-changing contexts, mirroring Schumann's own emotional landscape.
As the first movement reaches its joy-filled conclusion, the fate motto reappears and helps us transition to the fantastic coda, or summary section. This extended coda offers another tribute to Beethoven and clearly sets the stage for the amazing codas that would come later from Schumann's young friend, Johannes Brahms.
In the second movement, Schumann takes Beethoven's idea of the scherzo to new heights by adding not just one, but two trio sections. The second trio section begins with a seemingly romantic character, but then detours into a Bach-styled fugue, spurred by a theme based on the letters in Bach's name (B flat, A , C, B natural). This type of encoding was a hallmark of Schumann's world of secrets and fantasy. (His "Clara motif" was a descending fifth, for the five letters of her name, and can be found in many of his works.) The fate motto reappears at the end of the movement and shares the spirited mood of the scherzo — the word itself meaning "joke" in Italian.
The third movement finds Schumann at his absolute best in terms of a gorgeous singing melody. This gives way to another baroque-influenced fugue, again paying tribute to Bach, whose music had recently helped Schumann emerge from a devastating bout of depression. It seems like the act of organizing the sound, with fugues in particular, provided the composer with some sense of relief.
The symphony's finale sums up all that came before, exploring all the moods of the previous movements. The trio section from the scherzo is recalled, and the fate motto quietly rejoins and brings us to a triumphant conclusion.
Homemade Schumann
Robert Schumann's chamber music has always held a special place in my heart. I used to play his piano quartet with my parents and our dear family friend, Seymour Bernstein, on piano. My father, LaMar, would play viola; my mother, Ruth, played the cello; and I played the violin part. Those were magical performances that will remain with me always.
And now, experiencing a deep connection with Schumann's symphonies extends and reinvigorates my childhood love for his music.
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SCOTT SIMON, host:
A great number of creative geniuses have had episodes of madness. Think of Van Gogh, Ezra Pound, or Sylvia Plath. Now, did they succeed despite, or maybe even because of their mental maladies? The German composer Robert Schumann suffered from depression and mental illness most of his adult life. He tried to commit suicide, failed, and was institutionalized. Later died in an asylum at the age of 46.
Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, is with us to talk about Robert Schumann's "Second Symphony," which she says is a musical account of his journey back in an especially severe bout of depression. Thanks so much for being back with us.
Ms. MARIN ALSOP (Music Director, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra): Great to be here, Scott. Thanks.
SIMON: Most people, I think it's fair to say, think of piano music when they think of Schumann.
Ms. ALSOP: They do. I mean that's the majority of music that Schumann wrote until he got married at the age of 30 years old. And he married a virtuoso pianist, Clara Wieck. And she was so supportive of him and encouraged him to expand into broader forms. You know, just experiment. And in his first year of marriage he wrote several symphonies. First time he had ever written for orchestra, amazingly.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
SIMON: Talk us through the opening of the Second Symphony.
Ms. ALSOP: In the brass at the beginning, there's a little motto. Like Beethoven's "Fifth," it's a motto of inescapable fate. And of course at this opening it's very quiet. So you really have to listen intently to hear it. And underneath you hear the string doing almost a water, liquid-like chromatic passage. But it's the brass to listen to.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
SIMON: What set off the "Second Symphony?"
Ms. ALSOP: The Second Symphony was written after Schumann had a very rough depressive episode. And once he got married, he hoped that maybe there would be some kind of relief for him. And this was the worst episode ever. It lasted a long time. And he gradually crawled his way back really through listening to the music of Bach.
You know, the great thing about Bach is it's so incredibly organized and consequential and sequential.
SIMON: So, he didn't take Prozac, he listened to Bach.
Ms. ALSOP: Yeah, now there's food for thought. You can almost sense him crawling out of this dark hole. And this slow introduction then leads to this incredibly vivacious allegro section which makes up the majority of this movement.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
SIMON: Would this gorgeous music be possible without whatever drove him to the depths? Would the utter majesty, joy of discovery in this music be possible, unless he'd almost suffered for it?
Ms. ALSOP: Oh, isn't that the ultimate question? This entire "Second Symphony" is a study of moving from desperation and desolation to triumph.
It's interesting, because I've spoken at length to a psychiatrist, who's also a pianist, a Juilliard-trained pianist named Dr. Richard Kogan. And he says, that's of course the dilemma for psychiatrists, you know, in prescribing drugs that it evens them out so much that they lose that edginess and that excitement and the thrill of creativity in the high times.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
SIMON: Are there sections of the "Second Symphony" where you can hear both what we think of as the signature melodic gift of Schumann, but more deliberate style of Bach?
Ms. ALSOP: Well, you know, this piece is fascinating, because Schumann, he was very into the idea of coding his melodies and putting people's names in things. You know, he would encrypt different messages and in one of the movements of this piece, in the scherzo movement, he actually takes Bach's name, he's so grateful to Bach, and he translates it into pitches. So B equals B-flat. Then you have A, and then you have Schumann. And H in German is B-natural. And this is a whole section that's based on that four letter, four note motif.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
Ms. ALSOP: And you can hear the fugue, little mini-fugues going on underneath.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
Ms. ALSOP: Just beautiful music, isn't it?
SIMON: Boy it is.
Ms. ALSOP: I mean, not played that often.
SIMON: Why?
Ms. ALSOP: What happens is, you know, we should also mention that Brahms shows up at his doorstep a few years earlier. And Brahms then becomes hugely popular. And Schumann of course is suffering from these depressive states. And he's institutionalized at the age of 44.
SIMON: And of course suicide at the age of 46.
Ms. ALSOP: I mean it's, the story is just horrifying. Because the doctors felt that his wife, Clara, should not visit him, that it upset him too much. So she was forbidden to go to the institution whereas the young Brahms would be there almost daily. And we haven't even talked about the fact that in addition to Clara being this formidable virtuoso, concert pianist, she traveled the world, she made a living, and she also had ten children in the meantime, you know, p.s. on the side. And seven of them survived.
So Clara, I mean can you imagine how heartbroken - I mean, she adored Robert, and believed in him 100 percent. So, there's a thought nowadays that Schumann was basically starving himself to death. I mean he was in utter agony, being separated and isolated as he was. And Clara went to visit him just a day or two before he died. And he probably was so happy in that moment that he might have eaten, and that might have resulted in his death.
SIMON: Yeah. Did Schumann go through periods of greater and lesser interest?
Ms. ALSOP: I have to say in my lifetime I can't recall a real focus on Robert Schumann's orchestral music. His piano music is quite popular, but you know the reason why? Because when he died, Clara Schumann went on for 40 more years of concertizing, and she promoted his music throughout the world. But he didn't have a conductor to do the same.
SIMON: Hey, you can't marry the whole symphony.
Ms. ALSOP: Right, exactly.
SIMON: Let me ask you about the third movement. What do you hear?
Ms. ALSOP: Well, the people that know Schumann's music probably know it for these beautiful songs he wrote and melodies. And this opening of the third movement, to me, it's just all about his love for Clara. I mean it's so beautiful and so emotional and romantic.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
Ms. ALSOP: Beautiful, isn't it?
SIMON: Yes.
Ms. ALSOP: So plaintive and yearning. And what's fascinating to me is that the way he wraps all of this together to close the symphony out. He brings that motto that we heard at the very opening in the brass. He brings it back, but now it's triumphant. And this is a symphony about his life, telling his listeners I have struggled and I have overcome.
SIMON: Marin, thanks so much.
Ms. ALSOP: Oh, a pleasure to be with you, as always. Thanks. Marin Alsop, musical director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
(Soundbite of Schumann's "Second Symphony")
SIMON: You can hear a whole performance of Schumann's Second Symphony and read Marin's essay on the music section of npr.org. This is Weekend Edition from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
