LCCMF 10.07 — OurConcerts.live

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) & CLARA SCHUMANN (1819-1896): Gedichte aus Friedrich Rückert’s Liebesfrühling (selections) (1840-41)
O ihr Herren, op.37 no.3 (Robert)
Liebst du um Schöheit, op.37, no. 4 (Clara)
Rose, Meer und Sonne, op.37, no.9 (Robert)
Warum willst du and’re fragen, op.37, no.11 (Clara)
Widmung, op.25, no.1 from Myrthen (Robert)

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Gloria Chien, piano

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856): Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 47 (1842)
Sostenuto assai – Allegro ma non troppo
Scherzo. Molto vivace
Andante cantabile
Finale. Vivace

Soovin Kim, violin
Misha Amory, viola
Zlatomir Fung, cello
Gloria Chien, piano

ROBERT/CLARA SCHUMANN: Gedichte aus Friedrich Rückert’s Liebesfrühling (selections) (1840-41)

Clara Schumann was initially hesitant to compose art songs. She had been touring as a concert pianist since age eleven, and as part of her musical education had composed several works for piano, including a concerto. But when her husband Robert suggested in 1840 that she try her hand at lieder, she insisted she had no talent for working with text. For Christmas that year, however, Clara composed three songs as a gift to Robert. This laid the groundwork for their collaboration the following year on Gedichte aus Liebesfrühling, a setting of romantic poems by Friedrich Rückert. Robert, who was in the midst of a highly creative period, completed his nine songs of the cycle in January of 1841; Clara added three in June, and Robert surprised his wife with an engraved and published version for her birthday in September.

O ihr Herren, composed by Robert, is a brief and buoyant expression of the sentiment in Rückert’s poem, that a nightingale’s song is worth as much as the riches of great lords. In the cycle, it is immediately followed by Liebst du um Schöheit, a poem about love that goes beyond the superficial. Clara’s flowing, serene setting ends with a lovely piano melody, as if the instrument is commenting on what the singer has just expressed. Robert’s setting of Rose, Meer und Sonne is the longest song of the set. Peaceful, rocking piano chords set a backdrop to the poem, in which the speaker reflects extensively on the radiance of his beloved, comparing her a rose, the sea, and the sun. Clara’s soaring melodies and simple piano accompaniment illuminate the text of Warum willst du and’re fragen, in which the speaker urges his beloved to trust him.

Although Robert’s Widmung is not from Op. 37, it is also a Rückert setting and an ardent expression of his love for Clara. It is the first song of his Op. 25 Myrthen cycle, which was composed as a wedding gift to Clara in 1840. With moments of both peace and instability packed into two minutes of music, Robert expresses the complex range of emotions that accompany romantic love. The four note descending

“Clara motif” is present here, as it is in many of Robert’s compositions. Despite the turbulent periods of their marriage, owing mainly to Robert’s mental health struggles, Clara and Robert’s relationship was one of the great partnerships of music history.

ROBERT SCHUMANN Piano Quartet in E-flat major, op. 47 (1842)

Schumann had first attempted a piano quartet at age nineteen, but that piece—in C minor—remained unpublished during the composer’s lifetime. When he set out to compose his piano quartet in 1842, he chose the key of E-flat major. Just weeks before, Schumann had completed his now-famous piano quintet in the same key. E-flat major had come to be associated with heroism due to Beethoven’s bold works in that key, including the Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) and the Emperor Concerto. Around this time, Robert and Clara Schumann were spending their evenings studying the works of Beethoven, among others.

The first movement begins with a hushed, hymn-like introduction, a series of alternating statements between the strings and piano. A faster version of the four-note motif from these opening moments becomes the first theme of the main body of this movement. Schumann shows his mastery of sonata form as he develops his themes through a variety of textures, often gravitating towards contrapuntal writing.

The second movement, a scherzo, rushes by in a blaze of mischievous melodic imitation. There are two trio sections rather than the traditional one, making the form a rondo (ABACA), but the trios seem barely to interrupt the movement’s forward momentum.The third movement, marked Andante cantabile, centers on an aching cello melody. Always fixated on imitation, Schumann develops this melody into a contrapuntal duet with the violin. The piano shines during a choral-like texture in the G-flat major middle section. When the opening melody returns, this time in the viola, it is accompanied by a jaunty violin line and staccato piano. The cello then takes the melody one final time amidst a gauzy texture of sustained notes in the other strings and rocking chords in the piano, in perhaps the most beautiful moment of the entire work. The cello, with its lowest string tuned unusually down to B-flat, settles on that note while the other instruments carry the music into its restful coda.

In the energetic finale, Schumann more fully realizes his contrapuntal inclinations in the form of a fast fugue, continuing a tradition of fugal finales that Mozart and Beethoven had established decades earlier. This complex counterpoint alternates with more lyrical sections, propelling this movement to its triumphant close.