{"id":632,"date":"2008-06-20T13:31:43","date_gmt":"2008-06-20T13:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2008\/06\/20\/schumann-and-bach-in-the-2nd-symphony\/"},"modified":"2009-10-20T06:33:44","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T05:33:44","slug":"schumann-and-bach-in-the-2nd-symphony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2008\/06\/20\/schumann-and-bach-in-the-2nd-symphony\/","title":{"rendered":"Schumann and Bach in the 2nd Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

On my desk today is Schumann\u2019s 2nd<\/sup> Symphony. If you had assembled a panel of experts, including every major composer from 1825 to 1899, at the end of the 19th<\/sup> century to pick the most important symphony after Beethoven, Schumann 2 would probably have been the one, beating out all the Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohns easily.<\/p>\n

One reason the piece was so highly esteemed in its day was that it is what I call a \u201ccrafty\u201d piece- that is, it is not only exciting and emotionally shattering music, it is also music that contains an extraordinarily rich array of musical touches of compositional craft.<\/p>\n

For instance, the piece is full of ciphers, codes, quotations and references to other music. The master of cipher and quotation is, of course, JS Bach, and, as it turns out, Schumann 2 is the most Bach-ian of the Schumann symphonies, and one of the most Bachian of all symphonies ever written.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is a biographical reason for this. In 1844, Schumann had become terribly ill. Writers often speak, to my mind, rather glibly, of Schumann\u2019s history of mental illness, and musicians and critics lacking in both good musical taste and human decency often seem to link Schumann\u2019s health problems to what they wish to criticize in his music. \u201cOf course Schumann couldn\u2019t orchestrate,\u201d they often say, \u201che was crazy<\/em>\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

What I find particularly offensive in so much writing on Schumann is the intimation, or outright accusation, that Schumann\u2019s mental illness was the manifestation of weakness on his part. As anyone who really understands the nature of mental illness can tell you, such an interpretation represents a sick misunderstanding of mental illness and brain chemistry.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake about it- in 1844, Robert Schumann fell ill, nearly mortally ill, as much so as if he had developed cancer. That he recovered from this illness to write his greatest masterpiece shows an almost superhuman strength of will and great personal courage, not weakness.<\/p>\n

At the height of his illness, Schumann was unable to listen to\u00a0or work on music, tortured as he was by auditory hallucinations. As he began his recovery, he turned to an intense personal study of the music of JS Bach. Inspired by Bach, Schumann began work on his masterpiece while still ill, and composed his way back to health. Throughout the work, Bach seems to stand in the background, alongside Haydn and Beethoven as a trio of guardian angels, guiding Schumann back to his muse.<\/p>\n

Bach is invoked in the very first bars of the symphony as Schumann writes an introduction at is, in essence, a chorale prelude, one of the most Bachian of forms. Above an endlessly self-reinventing and re-developing melody in the strings, we hear a simple and declamatory theme. Just as Bach would use a Lutheran chorale theme not of his own creation in his chorale preludes, Schumann\u2019s chorale theme is also a quote- of the opening of Haydn\u2019s last symphony, no 104.<\/p>\n

One work that we know Schumann spent a lot of time with during his convalescence was Bach\u2019s Musical Offering. The following Allegro ma non troppo is a study in perpetual motion, most of it generated from a simple four note theme which is treated almost as an ostinato. As it happens this ostinato rhythm is taken from the Trio Sonata of the Musical Offering, a piece that we\u2019ll hear more of later in the symphony.<\/p>\n

Other than the first page of Don Juan, nothing has brought more stress into the lives of violinists than the Scherzo of Schumann 2, the bane of orchestra audition-ers around the world. Sadly, I think the trauma of all those tapes and auditions have slightly blinded many players to the wonders of the\u00a0 Scherzo as a piece of music. \u00a0It is a brilliant, endlessly inventive movement with two very different Trios- one spry and witty, and the second soulful and rarified. The second trio begins with a beautifully crafted four part chorale, the theme of which is then made the subject of a brief contrapuntal episode. Again, the spirit of Bach is felt in every bar, especially once we realize that the second part of the theme is a quotation of the musical BACH motive (Bb-A-C-B natural). All the more remarkable is that we can see that the BACH theme is almost identical to the main theme of the first movement, especially when it is transposed up a fourth later in the trio (Eb, D, F, E natural here, E, D, F, D in the first movement, surely no accident, given Schumann\u2019s love of developing new themes by changing one note at a time) \u00a0The movement reaches its joyous culmination in a return of the Haydn fanfare.<\/p>\n

The third movement begins with what seems to be among the most heart-wrenching and Schumann-esque of melodies. If only Schumann had written it! In fact the violin melody is an almost note for-note quote of the same Trio Sonata of the Musical offering as he quotes in the first movement. In it\u2019s pathos, espressivity and long-breathed lines, it is the quintessential (and perhaps the greatest) Romantic slow movement, but throughout the movement the independence of voices recalls the presence of Bach again and again.<\/p>\n

The Finale was the movement in which Schumann said that for the first time since his illness began that he began to feel himself again. It begins with a bracing march theme which has a striking resemblance to \u201cEs lebe Sarastro\u201d from the Magic Flue, and that celebration of life seems very much the mood of the movement. Then, one by one, Schumann works his way back through the symphony- first reworking Bach\u2019s Musical Offering theme, then gradually returning to the ideas of earlier movements. Along the way we find two songs, one by Schumann himself- Widmung (Dedication) presented to Clara on their wedding day, and Beethoven\u2019s An die ferne Geliebte (To the Immortal Beloved), where Beethoven sets the words \u201cTake them then, these songs.\u201d As with the BACH-motive quote in the 2nd<\/sup> movement, Schumann seems to discover the Beethoven quote almost by accident, gradually changing a note or two of his own melody, until Beethoven\u2019s cantus firmus emerges. \u201cTake them then, these songs\u201d says the poet to his beloved. A dedication indeed, of love and gratitude, a song of thanksgiving and love to Clara- Beethoven\u2019s great hymn of thanksgiving was the Heiliger Dankesang from the op 132 quartet, a reverent and deeply personal statement of thanks. Schumann sings of love and gratitude to the whole world, and when Haydn\u2019s fanfare returns at last, we know it is a call to celebration. At the end, Schumann has taken his place alongside those mentors, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and most of all, Bach.<\/p>\n

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