Berlin / Leipzig 07-06-2010
Robert Schumann - www.foto-face.com
Robert Schumann – www.foto-face.com
On the 8th of June 2010 the Classical musical world will raise their glasses and celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great German composer , pianist, and influential music critic Robert Schumann!
Several events showcasing Schumann’s work in original places and settings will take place in Saxony - a week long Schumann Festival will be held in Leipzig this September, the anniversary concert in the Leipziger Gewandhaus on June 3rd and 4th – and several concerts at the Dresdner Philharmonie and the Staatskapelle Dresden are also planned.
Other German cities such as Dusseldorf, Bonn, Heidelberg and Frankfurt will also host concerts throughout this ‘Schumann year 2010’.
Even though he was one of the most influential and important of the late19th century romantic composers Robert Schumann did not become one of its most famous. He was eclipsed by his protege Johannes Brahms and even Felix Mendelsohn.
While not an iconoclast he is never the less often referred to as ‘a composers-composer’ – which if anything should be considered a complement.
Schumann had hoped to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist, having been assured by his teacher, Friedrich Wieck, that he could become the finest pianist in Europe after only a few years of study with him.
However a hand injury prevented those hopes from being realized – he then decided to focus his musical energies on composition.
Schumann’s personal life was tumultuous and he became engaged to a 16 yr old but broke things off to pursue his relationship with the even younger 15 yr old daughter of his own piano master Wieck, namely Clara Wieck, later to be known to the world as the famous Clara Schumann. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Schumann]
This very same Clara -a great concert pianist in her own right – would as his wife produce many premieres of many of her husband’s works and later as his widow work her entire life to promote her late husband’s great musical legacy which was still not openly recognized.
Schumann’s published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works.
His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (“The New Journal for Music”), a Leipzig-based publication that he jointly founded.
Like other famous romantic cultural contemporaries, Robert Schumann died in early middle age; for the last two years of his life, after an attempted suicide, he was confined to a mental institution at his own request.
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For more information about Schumann festivities in Leipzig -
http://www.leipzig.de/int/en/kultur_gastonomie/veranstaltungen/
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