“Fresh brightness and new love
In a cradle are revealed.”
Alas! the eighth Lied recalls us to sorrow, the great reality of life. “O bitter woe! my best-beloved beneath the wing of death is sleeping; forlorn, I shrink within myself, and solace my sad heart with weeping.” Then the veil falls.
“Again I see thee, happiness gone by
Of former days.”
So ends the poem. But if the part of the poet is finished when he has made this sorrowful appeal to the past, there is nothing to enchain the inspiration of the musician. From the depth of his grief, at the foot of this coffin, the poet has just evoked the memories of happiness for ever fled. The musician will give a voice to that soul which is called music—O marvellous power! Words would be misplaced; harmonies are more discreet, more silent. There is nothing outward here; it is the soul, contemplating the past, to which music lends its poignant reality.
We cannot quit Schumann without a few words on the wife he so loved, and who has shown herself worthy of his love by a steadfast devotion to the memory of her husband, so long and so unjustly unappreciated. The author of a
number of remarkable Lieder, Mme. Clara Schumann deserves a place among the most distinguished representatives of the melodic style. Her place should be elsewhere, among living composers, but we could not separate her even in thought from the husband to whom, in death, she proves so faithful.
We have read with exceeding pleasure a little collection of Lieder, of which the idea is touching. The husband and wife contributed each their flowers (of melody) to the garland they have woven. We even doubt whether the best page of this collection is not a melody by Mme. Schumann, entitled “Love for Love.”
If we were asked, What is the style of Mme. Schumann? we should answer, That of Robert Schumann. Can we wonder at it? They loved each other so much that their souls must gradually have come to bear a mutual resemblance, and they would have but one inspiration, as they had but one love.