Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau, Germany, on June 8, 1810. Though he demonstrated an unusual gift for music from earliest childhood he was directed by his father to law. While attending the Leipzig Conservatory in 1828 he studied the piano with Friedrich Wieck. In 1829, in Heidelberg, where he had come to continue his law study, he completed the first of his works to get published, the Abegg Variations for piano. He returned to Leipzig in 1829, having come to the decision to make music and not law his lifework, and plunged intensively into study. His ambition was to become a great virtuoso of the piano. In his efforts to master his technique he so abused his hands that a slight paralysis set in, putting to rest all hopes of a career as pianist. He now decided on composition. After an additional period of study with Heinrich Dorn, he completed his first major work, the Paganini Etudes for piano, and started work on his first symphony. He became active in the musical life of Leipzig by helping found and editing the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik, which became a powerful medium for fighting for the highest ideals in music. He also formed a musical society called the Davidsbuendler made up of idealistic young musicians who attacked false values and philistinism in music. All the while his creative life was unfolding richly. He wrote two unqualified masterworks for piano between 1833 and 1835, the Carnaval and the Études symphoniques. In 1840 Schumann married Clara Wieck, daughter of his one-time piano teacher. Their love affair had been of more than five years’ duration, but Clara’s father was stubbornly opposed to their marriage and put every possible obstacle in their way. Schumann finally had to seek the sanction of the law courts before his marriage could be consummated. He now entered upon his most productive period as composer, completing four symphonies, three string quartets, a piano quartet, numerous songs, a piano concerto among other works. In 1843, he helped found the Leipzig Conservatory where for a while he taught the piano, and between 1850 and 1853 he was municipal music director for the city of Duesseldorf. After 1853 there took place a startling deterioration of his nervous system, bringing on melancholia, lapses of memory, and finally insanity. The last two years of his life were spent in an asylum at Endenich, Germany, where he died on July 29, 1856.

Schumann was a giant in German Romantic music. His works abound with the most captivating lyricism, heartfelt emotion, subtle moods, and an unrestricted imagination. There is not much in this wonderful literature that falls naturally within the category of semi-classics—only three piano pieces familiar in transcriptions, and a song.

Abendlied (Evening Song), a gentle mood picture in the composer’s most rewarding Romantic vein, comes from Twelve Four-Hand Pieces for Younger and Older Children, op. 85 (1849) where it is the final number.

“Die beiden Grenadiere” (The Two Grenadiers) op. 49, no. 1 (1840) is probably the most familiar of Schumann’s many songs. The poem is by Heine. The music describes with telling effect the reaction of two French grenadiers on learning that their Emperor Napoleon has been captured. The song reaches a powerful climax with a quotation from the Marseillaise.

The Traeumerei (Dreaming) is the seventh number in a set of thirteen piano pieces collectively entitled Scenes from Childhood (Kinderscenen), op. 15, (1838). Like the Abendlied, it is an atmospheric piece, perhaps one of the most popular compositions by Schumann.

Wild Horseman (Wilder Reiter) can be found in the Album for the Young (Album fuer die Jugend), op. 68, no. 3 (1848). It was made into an American popular song in the early 1950’s by Johnny Burke.

Cyril Scott

Cyril Meir Scott was born in Oxton, England, on September 27, 1879. His musical training took place at Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfort, Germany, and privately with Ivan Knorr. He went to live in Liverpool in 1898 where he taught piano and devoted himself to composition. Performances of several orchestral and chamber-music works at the turn of the century helped establish his reputation. He also distinguished himself as a concert pianist with performances throughout Europe and a tour of America in 1921. Though frequently a composer with avant-garde tendencies—one of the first English composers to use the most advanced techniques of modern music—Scott is most famous for his short pieces for the piano which have been extensively performed in transcription. His writing is mainly impressionistic, with a subtle feeling for sensitive atmosphere and moods. The best of these miniatures, each a delicate tone picture, are: Danse nègre (Negro Dance), op. 58, no. 3 (1908); and Lotus Land, op. 47, no. 1 (1905). The latter was transcribed for violin and piano by Kreisler and for orchestra by Kostelanetz.

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius was born in Tavastehus, Finland, on December 8, 1865. Though he early revealed a pronounced gift for music he planned a career in law. After a year at the University of Helsinki he finally decided upon music. From 1886 to 1889 he attended the Helsinki Conservatory where one of his teachers was Ferruccio Busoni, after which he studied in Berlin with Albert Becker and in Vienna with Robert Fuchs and Karl Goldmark. He was back in his native land in 1891, and one year after that conducted in Helsinki the première of his first work in a national style, Kullervo. From then on, he continued producing works with a pronounced national identity with which he became not only one of Finland’s leading creative figures in music but also its prime musical spokesman. In 1897 he was given the first government grant ever bestowed on a musician which enabled him to give up his teaching activities for composition. He now produced some of his greatest music, including most of his symphonies. In 1914 he paid his only visit to the United States, directing a concert of his works in Norfolk, Connecticut. After World War I, he toured Europe several times. Then from 1924 on he lived in comparative seclusion at his home in Järvenpää, which attracted admirers from all parts of the world. Sibelius wrote nothing after 1929, but by then his place in the world’s music was secure as one of the foremost symphonists since Brahms. In Finland he assumed the status of a national hero. He died at his home in Järvenpää on September 20, 1957.