It thus happens that the last purely lyrical expression of his essentially lyrical genius is to be found in the fine series of songs which he poured forth in 1840. In the early months of this, his "song-year," he was in a most sensitive and exalted state. The prospect of attaining the goal so long vainly striven for had fired his imagination to fever heat; and according to his habit he relieved this excitement by incessant composition. "Since yesterday morning," he writes in February, "I have written about twenty-seven pages of music (something new), and I can tell you nothing more about it, except that I laughed and cried over it with delight. Ah, Clara, what bliss it is writing for the voice, and I have had to do without it for so long!" This "something new" was the cycle of "Myrthen" songs, opus 25, among which are "Widmung," "Der Nussbaum," "Die Lotosblume," "Du Bist wie eine Blume," and others almost equally earnest, tender, and passionate. With his first published songs (nine lyrics by Heine, opus 24) he sends the message: "Here is a slight reward for your last two letters. While I was composing these songs I was quite lost in thoughts of you. If I were not engaged to such a girl, I could not write such music." "I have been composing so much," he writes in May, "that it really seems quite uncanny at times. I cannot help it, and should like to sing myself to death, like a nightingale. There are twelve songs of Eichendorff's [the 'Liederkreis,' opus 39, containing the dramatic 'Waldesgespräch,' the ethereal 'Mondnacht,' and the splendidly passionate 'Frühlingsnacht'], but I have nearly forgotten them, and begun something else."
All together, over one hundred songs were produced during this single year, including such immortal masterpieces as "Er, der Herrlichste von Allen," "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai," "Ich grolle nicht," "Ich hab' im Traum geweinet," and "Die Beiden Grenadiere," in addition to those already mentioned. In general, the songs have the same melodic freshness, richness of harmony, color, vigor of rhythm, and individuality of style that distinguish the earlier piano works. It is noteworthy, however, that in a certain directness of utterance, in freedom from eccentricities of manner and perversity of fancy, and in an increased breadth and coherence of structure, they show a distinct advance. They mark, indeed, a point of transition in Schumann's career, a point at which, still retaining the exuberance of youth, he has just learned to direct and control it by means of a more efficient artistry, and in the service of a maturer ideal. To most of his other works a strict criticism has reluctantly to admit the pertinence, on one side or the other, of the proverb "Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait"; but the songs seem as thoroughly achieved as they are richly inspired.
After his marriage he turned to the larger forms of composition, which he took up in a curiously methodical rotation. First came, in 1841, three symphonies, the B-flat major, opus 38, the so-called "Overture, Scherzo, and Finale," and the D-minor, published many years later as opus 120. The piano concerto was also begun. In 1842 his interest was shifted to chamber music, and the three quartets for strings, the piano quartet, and the piano quintet appeared in rapid succession. Not until 1843 did he essay, in "Paradise and the Peri," a large choral work, but thereafter several such works appeared from time to time. Thus we see that while his more romantic compositions were for the most part produced in the years of youth and courtship, he turned, when once he had begun to face life as it is, in all its tragedy and difficulty as well as its human beauty and sweetness, to the severer, grander forms of music. In spite of the happiness he found in one of the most perfect of marriages, we must remember that this union also involved new responsibilities, anxieties, and distractions. It brought with it novel social and professional duties, children to be protected, guided, and helped, and above all the grinding routine by which the daily bread of an artist has to be earned. How severe the conditions were we have only recently learned from the complete biography of Clara Schumann.[9] In her diary we read of the constant struggles of these sensitive people to get the mere necessaries of life; of the husband's steadily increasing ill-health, physical and mental, ending in insanity and early death; of enforced migrations to Dresden and Düsseldorf in search of more lucrative posts for him as an orchestral conductor, and of the defeat of even these efforts by the incompetence of disease; and of the wife's loyal resumption of concert playing, in order to fill the family purse. All this experience of the sordid actualities with which the world always tests its idealists was well calculated to make even Schumann take a sober, and at times a tragic, view of life; and though he is always noble and devoted, there is often in his chance remarks, as years go on, a note of weariness, melancholy, or philosophic resignation. It is not that he surrenders his ideals—only that he finds them more difficult of realization than he had supposed in the flush of youth, and under the buffets of fate retires somewhat into himself, and chastens his enthusiasm into a stoical faith and a more patient loyalty. This change of temper inevitably makes itself felt in such characteristic music as the solemn introduction and the aspiring adagio of the C-major Symphony, the mystical "Cathedral Scene" of the "Rhenish Symphony," the sombre and restless "Manfred Overture," the noble "Funeral March" in the Piano Quintet, and the infinitely tender Andante grazioso of the Piano Concerto. The same sincere, simple nature as ever is felt behind these things, but the stream of its emotion is now more profound and quiet, as a river, when it reaches the plains, no longer sparkles and bubbles, but flows tranquil and deep.
Technically, Schumann was handicapped in this new departure by his exclusively pianistic early training. He had acquired a habit of thinking in terms of the piano which it was almost impossible to break, and he had not, like most symphonists, familiarized himself with orchestral instruments from boyhood. The consequence was that he made many blunders in his first essays in instrumentation, and never scored with the ease, certainty, and effectiveness of a master. An oft-cited instance is the opening horn-phrase of the first symphony, originally written as at (a) in Figure VIII, in which form it is grotesquely ineffective on account of the muffled quality, on the horn, of the fifth and sixth tones, and changed only on second thought, after rehearsal, to its present form, (b).
(a)
(b)