Other names we must mention—irrespective of chronology—include Ludwig Schunke, an uncommonly sympathetic young pianist, who succumbed early to consumption; Carl Banck, Julius Knorr, A. W. F. Zuccalmaglio, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Francois Chopin, Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Ferdinand Hiller, Robert Franz. The list might run on indefinitely!
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These individuals were, for the most part, Davidsbündler. Let us briefly explain: The “League of the Davidites” was an imaginary company, a creation of Schumann’s fancy, composed of many of his friends who appeared to think as he did and were moved by fresh musical and poetic impulses. Their sworn duty was to war on those stodgy traditionalists who harbored principles which impeded artistic progress. Imaginary apostles of the biblical David, the giant killer, they were sworn to smite the Philistines of music, defend and uphold novel, adventurous and worthy trends, publicize or advance indubitable merit and, each after his own fashion, promote the vital and the soundly revolutionary. Schumann enhanced the play-acting spirit of the movement by investing various members of the fraternity with fanciful names. He himself, in true Jean Paul spirit, gave distinctive labels to the opposing aspects of his own creative soul. Thus his fiery, soaring, active personality he called “Florestan”; the tender, dreamy, passive part of his nature he identified as “Eusebius”. When, as sometimes happened, these two irrepressible Davidites threatened to get out of hand, there was called in a moderator to re-establish sanity and balance—one Master Raro, whose model in real life seems to have been Friedrich Wieck. The cast of characters further included “Chiara”, “Chiarina” and “Zilia”—otherwise Clara Wieck; “Felix Meritis”, a thin disguise for Felix Mendelssohn; “Julius”, in actuality Knorr; “Serpentinus”, Carl Banck; “Eleanore”, Henriette Voigt; “St. Diamond”, Zuccalmaglio, and so on for quantity!
As a mouthpiece for his idealistic band Schumann founded, in April 1834, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik—a periodical which endured for over a century. Part of the time he was its acting editor and in any case certain of its most penetrating and prophetic criticisms were his own contributions. Possibly the most famous of these was the jubilant salutation of Chopin’s early Variations on Mozart’s “La ci darem”. This is the article entitled “An Opus 2”, which begins with the excited entrance of “Florestan” shouting to his fellow Davidites those words that have become something like a household expression: “Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!” The other is that greeting to the youthful Brahms, a kind of visionary glorification entitled “New Paths”, written for the Neue Zeitschrift almost on the threshold of Schumann’s last illness and including that pathetic cry: “How I should like to be at the side of the young eagle in his flight over the world!”
A stronghold of conservatism such as Leipzig was not the most fertile ground for a journal like the Zeitschrift. More than once Schumann thought very seriously of transferring it to Vienna, which had had such resplendent musical associations and promised much. But when he went there and considered the prospects his heart sank. What chance had such a paper in a city where the iron hand of Metternich unmercifully crushed the life out of every vestige of liberalism and progress? Still, Schumann’s various trips to Vienna were not wholly unproductive. The city provided the inspiration for one of his most treasurable piano works, the buoyant “Faschingschwank aus Wien”. In the first movement of this Robert gave his sly humor and spirit of mockery momentary play by incorporating into the texture of the exuberant music a phrase from the “Marseillaise”, which Metternich’s henchmen had sternly forbidden in the Austrian Empire. Then, too, in Vienna he made the acquaintance of Schubert’s brother, Ferdinand, in whose home countless musical treasures were gathering dust. One of those which he was able to rescue from oblivion was Schubert’s great C major Symphony, which he dispatched to Mendelssohn in Leipzig, who in turn conducted it at a concert of the Gewandhaus.
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But we are anticipating! What should concern us now is the courtship of Clara by Robert which, though it ended happily, was actually a long martyrdom for both and in the best traditions of romantic melodrama. To be sure it left a deep imprint on Schumann’s creative fancy and for this, if for no other reason, the soul struggle was a cloud lined with shining silver. Almost all the piano works of the composer’s early period—in some ways the most yeasty and influential music he gave the world—are in one way or another the fruits of his love.
Clara was nine years younger than her future husband. Their first relationship was, as he had remarked, a thoroughgoing brother and sister one. Robert always admired the pianistic talents of Wieck’s daughter though he never hesitated to criticise defects that came to his attention. But there was hardly a serious love angle to the familiarity. It had been different with the shallow but provocative Ernestine von Fricken, who for some time made her home at the Wieck residence as a piano pupil, and applied her coquetries so successfully to Robert’s susceptible heart that before a year was out he had bought her an engagement ring.
Clara, though she made no complaints, doubtless suspected with her feminine intuition how matters were shaping themselves. At one time Schumann’s mother had said to her: “Some day you must marry my Robert”. Clara never forgot the remark which seemed to be dictated by a kind of presentiment. Somewhat later he told Clara that she was “his oldest love”; and he added: “Ernestine had to come on the scene the better to unite us”. But at this stage Clara’s father gave her little time for brooding even if she had been disposed to indulge in any. He worked her hard, took her on concert tours, culminating in the one to Paris. When she returned home from one of the longest of these absences, Robert was the first caller at the Wiecks’. What impressed her most was what she considered Robert’s coolness; he gave her “hardly so much as a passing greeting”, she later complained to a woman friend. Actually, it was shyness at his sudden realization that Clara was no longer a child but a lovely girl which struck him dumb.
Not till she had gone off on another tour was he a little more explicit. In a letter he wrote her from Zwickau he said: “Through all the joys and heavenly glories of autumn there gazes out an angel’s face, a perfect likeness of a certain Clara whom I well know”; and he ended with “you know how dear you are to me”. Even at that there was no question on either side of outspoken love. There was much music-making to absorb the pair, and musical friends were thronging Leipzig. Mendelssohn arrived and the Davidsbündler jubilated at his coming. Chopin, whom Clara had already met in Paris, was steered by Mendelssohn directly to the Wieck home, where Clara was made to play something of Schumann’s—in this case the F sharp minor Sonata—and then some Chopin Etudes and a concerto movement. Chopin in his turn performed some of his Nocturnes. The fanciful Robert wrote: “Chopin has been here. Florestan rushed upon him. I saw them arm in arm, floating rather than walking—Eusebius”!