A more serious objection is this: the genius of Schumann was purely lyrical, although occasionally there is the impressive expression of a wild or melancholy mood, as in the chords of unearthly beauty soon after the beginning of the overture to Manfred. Whether the music be symphonic, chamber, a pianoforte piece or a song, the beauty, the expressive force lies in the lyric passages. When Schumann endeavored to build a musical monument, to quote Vincent d’Indy’s phrase, he failed; for he had not architectonic imagination or skill.
His themes in symphonies, charming as they often are, give one the impression of fragments, of music heard in sleep-chasings. Never a master of contrapuntal technique, he repeated these phrases over and over again instead of broadly developing them, and his filling in is generally amateurish and perfunctory.
The best of Schumann’s music is an expression of states and conditions of soul. This music is never spectacular; it is never objective. Take, for instance, his music to Goethe’s Faust. The episodes that attracted the attention of Berlioz, Liszt, Gounod, were not to Schumann a source of inspiration. It was the mysticism in the poem that led him to musical interpretation. His music, whether for voice or instruments, is first of all innig, and this German word is not easily translated into English. Heartfelt, deep, ardent, fervent, intimate; no one of these words conveys exactly the idea contained in innig. There is the intimacy of personal and shy confession.
Schumann in his life was a reticent man. He dreamed dreams. He was lost in thought when others, in the beerhouse or at his home, were chattering about art. He put into his music what he would with difficulty have said aloud to his Clara. As a critic he was bold in praise and blame. As a composer he was often not assertive as one on a platform. He told his dreams, he wove his romantic fabric for a few sympathetic souls. It is true that in his days of wooing he was orchestrally jubilant, as in the first movement of the Symphony in B flat, but in this movement the anticipation aroused by the first measures is not realized. The thoughts soared above the control of the thinker; there was not the mastery over them that allowed no waste material, that gives golden expression without alloy.
In his own field, Schumann is lonely, incomparable. No composer has whispered such secrets of subtle and ravishing beauty to a receptive listener. The hearer of Schumann’s music must in turn be imaginative and a dreamer. He must often anticipate the composer’s thought. This music is not for a garish concert hall; it shrinks from boisterous applause.
SYMPHONY NO. 1, IN B FLAT MAJOR, OP. 38
I. Andante un poco maestoso; allegro molto vivace II. Larghetto III. Scherzo: molto vivace. Trio (1): molto più vivace; Trio (2) IV. Allegro animato e grazioso
The opening is imposing with need of re-orchestration. Charming is the lyric passage in the scherzo that puts one in mind of Schubert’s “Hark, Hark, the Lark”; but for the most part there is rhythmic uniformity and boresome repetition that no change in the instrumentation could redeem. As the thick orchestration stands, if the music is played according to Schumann’s directions, Weingartner says, it is impossible to produce a true forte or an expressive pianissimo.
Schumann was married to Clara Wieck, September 12, 1840, after doubts, anxieties, and opposition on the part of her father; after a nervous strain of three or four years. His happiness was great, but to say with some that this joy was the direct inspiration of the First symphony would be to go against the direct evidence submitted by the composer. He wrote Ferdinand Wenzel: “It is not possible for me to think of the journal” (the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, founded by Schumann, Wieck, Schunke, and Knorr in 1834, and edited in 1841 by Schumann alone). “I have during the last days finished a task (at least in sketches) which filled me with happiness, and almost exhausted me. Think of it, a whole symphony—and, what is more, a Spring symphony; I myself can hardly believe that it is finished.” And he said in a letter (November 23, 1842) to Spohr: “I wrote the symphony toward the end of the winter of 1841, and, if I may say so, in the vernal passion that sways men until they are very old, and surprises them again with each year. I do not wish to portray, to paint; but I believe firmly that the period in which the symphony was produced influenced its form and character, and shaped it as it is.” He wrote to Wilhelm Taubert, who was to conduct the work in Berlin: “Could you infuse into your orchestra in the performance a sort of longing for the Spring, which I had chiefly in mind when I wrote in February, 1841? The first entrance of trumpets, this I should like to have sounded as though it were from high above, like unto a call to awakening; and then I should like reading between the lines, in the rest of the introduction, how everywhere it begins to grow green, how a butterfly takes wing; and, in the allegro, how little by little all things come, that in any way belong to Spring. True, these are fantastic thoughts, which came to me after my work was finished; only I tell you this about the finale, that I thought it as the good-bye of Spring.”