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Two things preëminently Schumann brought to his songs beyond what any composer had brought previously. First there was an accurate regard for the text. It is not to belittle Schubert to say that he did not show Schumann’s accurate regard for the words. Schubert’s regard for the text was conscientious and faithful; his melodies are marvellously faithful to the spirit and his musical prosody never does violence to the metre and accent. But Schubert was working under a somewhat different tradition from Schumann. He is more the melodist, pure and simple. His attitude toward musical prosody was somewhat negative; he demanded of his melody only that it should not do violence to the metre; beyond that it could follow its own musical course. Hence, we not infrequently in his songs have such passages as this, from Die Allmacht:

verkünden seine Macht

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This, of course, is in no way reprehensible or violent to the canons of art. But it differs from Schumann’s method in that it puts a higher value on pure song—on the mere joyous exercise of the vocal organs. Schumann’s attitude toward musical prosody was more positive; he demanded of his melody not only that it should do no obvious violence to the metre, but that it should take pains accurately to fit the minor accents and quantities. He tried to make the text as sung not very different from the text as declaimed. True, he sometimes wrote mere lyric passages of melody on an open vowel, like that in the above example from Schubert. But such passages in Schumann are far more rare. And the whole body of his songs shows that he took the text more as his collaborator in matters of detail. His songs are not valuable primarily because of their melody. He has written many lovely melodies, but a large proportion of his songs would be of comparatively little musical value (at least in the voice part) without the words. And his melodic invention, taking his songs as a whole, is far below the exalted work of Schubert. Besides, Schubert’s texts, though not generally chosen without discrimination, do not show the same careful selection as those of Schumann. The poems of the latter are carefully selected for the purpose of specific musical treatment, and in consequence seem to have a higher literary value, whether they have or not. Finally, Schumann had the immense advantage of possessing nearly all of Heine’s wonderful lyrics to choose from, a fact that in many an instance gave him the opportunity of writing immortal music ‘married to immortal verse.’

The second all-important factor which Schumann, over and above Schubert, brought to his song-writing was a matured harmonic and pianistic technique for the accompaniments. However truly Schubert divined the possibilities of the modern pianoforte, just nearing perfection in his day, he never wrote thoroughly in the new style. His chords in the bass were apt to be heavy and thick, his accompaniment is not spread as widely as it might advantageously be, and his inner voices never show the free and sprightly polyphony which is peculiarly adapted to the piano. Had he lived he would doubtless have become one of the greatest masters of the new pianoforte style. But it was left for Schumann consciously and reverently to take up the work. Schumann did not write a single song, for publication at least, until he had been working for full ten years for the piano. His first enthusiasm was for the piano. The shattering of his hopes to become a virtuoso forced him to turn his enthusiasm toward piano composition. And in his early years of creative activity he developed the possibilities of the new instrument with all the enthusiasm of his youthful nature. His first twenty-three works, written between the years 1830 and 1840, were almost exclusively for the piano. In them he developed a pianoforte idiom which was unique in its day. With this new and mature technique he approached his song writing. Inevitably he looked as lovingly toward the accompaniment as toward the voice part—some critics say even more so. He had learned how to make the most of the mechanical peculiarity of the piano—its struck strings which are incapable of a true sustained legato; he treated the piano, in other words, essentially as a hammer instrument and not as a wind instrument, like the organ. He developed a surprising adeptness at enharmonic modulation, for which the complete piano keyboard is so peculiarly adapted. He learned the full use of the damper pedal—not so much for sustaining chords as for permitting a wide separation of notes. He learned how to make his inner voices pianistic instead of vocal, making them depend wholly on their contour and position (as opposed to tone quality) for their independence. Finally, he had learned how to give each composition a style of its own—a peculiarity of pianistic manner over and above its individuality of musical content. All these qualities of Schumann’s piano technique should be kept in mind in studying his accompaniments. They represent a good half of the musical value of Schumann’s songs. If the vocal parts of the Dichterliebe cycle had never been written the accompaniments would still have a high value as proof of Schumann’s mastery over pianistic writing. Without an appreciation of the pianistic side of Schumann’s vocal work no singer can begin to appreciate the songs; he cannot even satisfactorily sing his part of them. A large share of Schubert’s accompaniments can be played satisfactorily by a pianist of slight ability, if only he have the knack of following the singer. But scarcely any of Schumann’s accompaniments can be played satisfactorily except by a performer who is an artist at his instrument.