Reconstructing Clara Schumann's Pedagogy

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RECONSTRUCTING CLARA SCHUMANN’S PEDAGOGY: ILLUMINATION THROUGH UNDERSTANDING

A Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

of Cornell University

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Musical Arts

Shin Hwang

August 2020

RECONSTRUCTING CLARA SCHUMANN’S PEDAGOGY: ILLUMINATION THROUGH UNDERSTANDING

Shin Hwang, D.M.A. Cornell University 2020

ABSTRACT

Although Clara Schumann did not write a pedagogical manifesto of any sort, the collective accounts of her students and colleagues capture a colorful collage of her pedagogy and pianism. In this dissertation, I use these accounts to reconstruct the foundations of Clara Schumann’s school of piano playing. I rely heavily on recorded evidence to demonstrate how the praxis of Clara’s students reflect and reveal the written accounts of her teaching. This study discloses a pedagogy of musical asceticism that demands the highest level of conscientiousness and self- denial. Throughout the process of observing, interpreting, and performing the musical notation, Clara Schumann required her students to justify their musical decisions with reason rather than mere “feeling.” Clara’s pedagogy, in short, asserts that understanding is key to accessing musical truth; in other words, illumination is gained by reason.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Shin Hwang, a prize-winner of the 1st International Westfield Fortepiano Competition, is a versatile keyboardist who has won recognition in both modern and historical performance. After completing his Masters degree at the University of Michigan with Penelope Crawford and Arthur Greene, he received the Fulbright Grant to study in the Netherlands at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague with Bart van Oort and Jacques Ogg. Some of his significant performance engagements include solo and chamber performances for the Academy of Early Music in Ann Arbor, AMUZ Flanders Festival in Antwerp, Yale University Schola Cantorum, Utrecht Early Music Festival, and the American Musicological Society Lecture Series in the Library of Congress. In addition, he has performed in such venues as the Kleine Zaal of the Concertgebouw, Vredenburg Leeuwenbergh in Utrecht, Het Bethanienklooste in Amsterdam and the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Schokland, Netherlands.

As a recipient of the DAAD Grant, he completed additional studies with Robert Hill at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. In 2020, he completed a Doctorate in Musical Arts in Cornell University under the guidance of Malcolm Bilson.

Dedicated to my friend Penelope Crawford

& to all my teachers who inspired me to revere

the good and beautiful in music.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures ii Acknowledgments v Preface vii

Introduction 1 I. Current Scholarship on Clara Schumann 5 II. Challenges 13 III. Leitmotif 16

Chapter One. I. Clara the Priestess 18 II. Priestess of Tradition 20

Chapter Two. I. Theory into Praxis: The Three Principles of Clara Schumann 26 according to Theodore Müller-Reuter II. Praxis into Theory: Kinderszenen, Op. 15 33

Chapter Three. In Search of “Das Getragene” 45

Chapter Four. I. On J. S. Bach, “Das Tägliche Brot” 56 II. Le Beau’s Memoirs 58 III. Illumination through Understanding (Beleuchtung durch Verstand) 62 IV. The Nitty-Gritty work: Dissecting Bach’s C-Minor Fugue 68

Chapter Five. A Curious Case of Schumann’s Arabesque 76

Chapter Six. Images into Sound; Sound into Images 84

Chapter Seven. I. On Virtuosity: Technique as the Servant of Music 98 II. The Sin of Schleppen und Eilen: A Distortion of Rhythm 103 III. The Virtue of “Doing Without” (Entbehren) 107 IV. Speed like Charity 111 V. A Concerto for (Non-)Virtuosos? 116

Conclusion 129 Postlude 132

Bibliography 133 Recordings 137

i LIST OF FIGURES

Figure I. Cover of Volume III of Clara Schumannn’s Instructive Edition of Robert 7 Schumann’s works. (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 1.1 Franz von Lenbach Clara Schumann, Pastel, 1878 Robert Schumann 18 Haus (Zwickau)

Figure 2.1. Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens, 28 (W. Hartung, 1919), 11.

Figure 2.2. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. 29 Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 2.3. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. 31 Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 2.4 Bittendes Kind from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition 36 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 2.5 Hasche-Mann from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition 37 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 2.6 Fast zu Ernst from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition 40 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 2.7 Kind im Einschlummern from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition 42 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 3.1 Manuel Garcia, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing, trans. Donald 48 Paschke. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1975), 82.

Figure 3.2 Langsam getragen from Fantasie, Op 17. Instructive Edition 49 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 3.3 Romance, Op 28. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924) 52

Figure 3.4 Romance, Op. 28. Instructive Edition Personal Copy 54 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

Figure 4.1 Gavotte II from Bach’s English Suite in G minor (Henle Verlag, 1971) 60

Figure 4.2 Reprint of a Christmas letter from Clara Schumann to Müller-Reuter 68 in Bilder und Klänge des Friedens (W. Hartung, 1919).

Figure 4.3 Bach’s C-minor Fugue, BWV 847 Czerny’s Edition of Preludes and Fugues 69 (Leipzig, 1863)

ii Figure 4.4 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens 70 (Leipzig: Hartung, 1919)

Figure 4.5 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens 71 (Leipzig: Hartung, 1919)

Figure 4.6 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens 73 (Leipzig: Hartung, 1919)

Figure 5.1 Arabesque, Op. 18, Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924) 79

Figure 5.2 Arabesque, Op. 18, Clara Schumann’s Personal Copy of Instructive Edition 80 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

Figure 5.3 Arabesque, Op. 18, Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924) 82

Figure 6.1 Kleiner Morgenwanderer from Album für die Jugend, Op. 68. 87 Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 6.2 Pierrot from Carnaval, Op. 9. Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition 89 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879)

Figure 6.3 Paganini from Carnaval, Op. 9. Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition 90 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879)

Figure 6.4 Aveu from Carnaval, Op. 9. Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition 91 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879)

Figure 6.5 From Fanny Davies’ On Schumann & Reading Between the Lines 92

Figure 6.6 From Fanny Davies’ On Schumann & Reading Between the Lines 93

Figure 6.7 Vogel als Prophet from Waldszenen, Op. 68. Instructive Edition 94 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 6.8 Einsame Blumen from Waldscenen, Op. 82. First Edition (Leipzig, 1851) 95

Figure 7.1 From Fanny Davies’ On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines 104

Figure 7.2 Aufschwung from Fantasiestücke Op. 12 First Edition 104 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1851)

Figure 7.3 Excerpt from Leonard Borwick’s “Rhythm as Proportion” 106

Figure 7.4 Finale from Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 10, Nr. 1 First Edition 106 (Eder: Vienna, 1798)

iii Figure 7.5 Presto Agitato from Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 27, No. 2 First Edition 110 (Gio. Cappi e Comp: Vienna, 1802)

Figure 7.6 Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. 111 Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

Figure 7.7 Grillen from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 Instructive Edition Personal Copy 112 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

Figure 7.8 Grillen from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 Instructive Edition Personal Copy 113 (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

Figure 7.9 From Fanny Davies’ On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines 114

Figure 7.10 From Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens 118

Figure 7.11 Allegro Affettuoso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 119 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

Figure 7.12 Allegro Affettuoso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 119 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

Figure 7.13 Allegro Affettuoso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 121-122 (Leipzig: C. F. Peters, 1870)

Figure 7.14 Cadenza from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 123 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

Figure 7.15 Andantino Grazioso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 125 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

Figure 7.16 Allegro vivace from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 126 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My years at Cornell University were possibly the most challenging in my life, filled with uncertainty and much doubt. Yet, through the support of others, these years also yielded growth like no other – as a scholar, musician, and pedagogue. I am so grateful for my four mentors at Cornell, whose guidance helped me overcome those challenges and spurred my growth. I would first like to thank Malcolm Bilson. His musical wisdom has shaped me into the pianist that I am today. His dedication to teaching has inspired me to become the pedagogue that I am today. I thank him for awakening a curiosity in me to ask the questions that others do not ask and not cease in my search for answers. Since I have met him, I have observed in me an eagerness to challenge my assumptions and be open to the consequences they may have.

I am grateful that my first seminars at Cornell were with Roger Moseley. It is with gentleness that Roger Moseley invited me into musicological discussions that have broadened my understanding of current keyboard scholarship. His nonconventional teaching methodology has also inspired me to see the affordances of alternative pedagogical methods in teaching music.

As a teaching assistant to Rebecca Harris-Warrick, I witnessed a joy of teaching music – which was quite contagious. During my moments of doubt, her enthusiasm for music reminded me often of why I decided to become a musician. I thank her especially for patiently helping me with the daunting task of laying down the groundwork of my dissertation.

I give special thanks to the chair of my committee, Annette Richards, for challenging me to aim above my expectations. Her thorough review and criticism of my drafts urged me to constantly dig deeper into ideas that I had overseen. As a performer, I often forget that music is an idea before it is performance; Annette obliged me to look beyond my own ideas of music as performance and engage critically with the scholarship of others. Many thanks to the Einaudi Center and the Institute for European Studies for the Michele Sicca Grant which enabled me to undertake archival work in Europe for my dissertation in the summer of 2018. I extend my sincerest thanks to Dr. Hrosvith Dahmen and the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau, as well as Michael Mullen and the Royal College of Music Center for Performance History for allowing me to access essential documents in their archives.

I thank Alan Evans whose work in sound archeology has provided me with the foundational resources for this project.

How dull would my graduate student experience have been without stimulating discussions with colleagues? The countless discussions with Morton Wan and Theodora Serbanescu-Martin were the fuel for my musical imagination while writing this work.

v I am indebted to my dear students who inevitably served as guinea pigs, as I often applied Clara Schumann’s pedagogy into praxis. I thank my students for their receptiveness to learn, though I must admit, it goes both ways: how many times have I been uplifted by their love of music?

Special thanks to my dear friend Annabeth Shirley, who proofread in the late stages of this dissertation and always provided support when needed. I also extend my thanks to Laura Fernández Granero and Sebastian Bausch, both specialists in the field of Early Sound Recordings, who shared with me new sources and insight into my work. Many thanks to Penelope and Richard Crawford for their encouragement through the writing process.

And lastly, my parents for their loving support in whatever I do and wherever I go.

vi PREFACE

I practis alot. [sic] I am glad that it’s getting more harder and more things that I do not know and funny music that I do not know and music so strang, [sic] and music’s it is wonderful that I wanted to know.

I recently discovered this eulogy to music in a journal entry from my seven- year-old self. In it, I was surprised to find that the very thing that drew me to music then, draws me to music now: to know the unknown. This desire to venture into the unknown and to encounter the funny, the strange, and the wonderful has found its object in the world of nineteenth-century German Romanticism, where the eerie realm of the Wald lures the curious wanderer. It is little wonder, then, that I resonate with Robert Schumann’s music – landscapes of the innermost intricacies of human emotion and thought. If Haydn was the great orator and Beethoven the philosopher,

Schumann was the dreamer who translated these visions into sound and encrypted them in notation.

My journey as a musician has been a struggle to know the music past the limitations of notation – the very medium through which we have access to the music of the past. This strange yet wonderful music imprisoned by ink on a page… how do I decrypt this ‘Sanskrit of Nature’ (in the spirit of E. T. A. Hoffmann), how do I unleash its meanings?

My path led me to seek the guidance of Malcolm Bilson at Cornell University.

As his only student during these years, I undertook what felt like a rabbinical study of the strictest order, as we together searched for the truth of musical meaning

vii through the intricacies of notation. I learned that “knowing the score” does not simply amount to a conceptual understanding of symbols, but that knowing requires that I form a personal relationship with the score: like an actor, I must serve as an agent and embody the meaning behind the language printed on the page.

Alongside this rabbinical study, I began to indulge in literature that conceived this project. Upon discovering that the teachings of Clara Schumann had been well- documented, I eagerly seized all the information I could. Alas, I admit that the roots of this project were a selfish one: this was an opportunity to satiate my hunger to understand the music of Robert Schumann through the lens of Clara. Engaging myself with Clara’s teachings granted me a closer access to Robert’s music. The following dissertation is a result of my efforts to understand Clara’s pedagogy holistically.

viii INTRODUCTION

In recent years, early sound recordings have increasingly captured the fascination of researchers and enthusiasts alike. The wistful and eerie crackling sounds of the gramophone record add to the wonder, as the listeners gaze into distant remnants of the past. Perhaps the most remarkable are the 1889 recordings of

Johannes Brahms on wax cylinder in which his voice and playing are faintly perceptible. That we have access to the voice of such a deified figure brings us to an awareness that the past is closer than we think; we are one step nearer to knowing the creator of our canonized music.

Listening to these recordings awoke in me a desire to understand the performers on these records and their seemingly odd execution of music so familiar to modern ears. I felt I had stumbled across an archeological site of ruins with traces of a past performance tradition shrouded in mystery. Yet, what I found so enticing in these foreign sounds lies not in their mere eccentricity in performance practices but their power to deeply move me as a listener.

Wonder alone, however, does not suffice in warranting these findings as valuable historical evidence. The pioneer in this field, Robert Philip, has argued in

Early Recordings and Musical Style that these recordings are not mere relics of the past but must be considered as historical documents that provide a revised understanding of nineteenth-century performance practice. He writes:

The early twentieth century is the earliest period for which the primary source material of performance practice - the performance itself - has been preserved. It lies at the transition between two musical worlds, the old world in which performers were heard only in actual performance, and each performance

1 occurred only once, and the modern world in which a performance can be heard simply by playing a recording.1

Philip proceeds to illustrate this divide through traits that distinguish early recordings from modern ones in their use of flexibility of tempo and rhythm, vibrato, and portamento. Yet, he concludes that the reconstruction of this early twentieth- century style is not the aim of his project, claiming that replication goes against the spirit of authenticity:

The problem for anyone aiming at ‘authentic’ Elgar, or Bartók, or Rachmaninoff, is that the real thing is no longer available. Time, taste, habits, and every aspect of performance practice have moved on. And authenticity does not consist in reconstructing a dead style, whether a hundred or three hundred years old. The belief that we can do so is an illusion, as recordings vividly demonstrate. The only authenticity available to us consists in creating performances which work now, not performances which supposedly worked for the composer.2

In Beyond the Score, Nicholas Cook confronts this question of authenticity and posits that:

Post-war modernists who proclaimed the values of authenticity to the musical text presented themselves as reinstating a classical performance style that had been perverted by the excesses of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century performance.3

According to Cook, modernists have created an idealized sound world under the pretense of restoring authenticity. Performance is no longer the desired object but rather the reproduction of the imagined sound of the work. Recording technology coupled with this modernist desire for ‘authentic replication,’ then, have prompted a vicious circle in which performing the reproducible has become the paradigm. Cook calls this the “paradigm of reproduction: performance is seen as reproducing the

1 Robert Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance, 1900- 1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 230. 2 Philip, Early Recordings and Musical Style, 240. 3 Nicholas Cook, Beyond the Score: Music as Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 3.

2 work, or the structures embodied in the work, or the conditions of its early performances, or the intentions of its composer.”4 He faults musicologists for establishing the notion of music as “sounded writing” and calls for a shift towards a performance-centric (as opposed to text/score-centric) approach to studying music which entails the analysis of performance and recordings via new research methods.5

Neal Peres da Costa also aligns himself with Cook’s claim that text alone is insufficient as a record of past performance of music. In Off the Record, Peres de Costa shares his realization that “irrespective of the era, written texts - musical notation and verbal advice - are imperfect in preserving performing practices of the past.”6

For this reason, he focuses his studies on specific expressive practices (such as asynchronicity or arpeggiation) in the recordings of early twentieth-century pianists and compares them with “contemporaneous written texts on performance to evaluate the correspondence between actual practice and its written description.”7

Combining the performances of the earliest pianists with historical documents that explain their aesthetics, Peres da Costa concludes that these recordings demonstrate that such devices were not idiosyncratic tendencies but established expressive practices of the nineteenth century.8

4 Ibid., 3. 5 Ibid., 3. 6 Neal Peres da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), xxii. 7 Ibid., xxxiv. 8 My dissertation also integrates this method of listening to recordings alongside historical commentary. The difference lies in the object of study: Peres da Costa listens for where and how performers employ specific expressive tools (i. e. tempo rubato, arpeggiation, etc.) in relation to how these tools are taught to be used according to written documentation. I do not listen specifically for these characteristics but rather attempt to see what these recordings reveal about the nineteenth- century interpretation of music.

3 As these studies have drawn attention to hitherto neglected aspects of nineteenth-century praxis through recordings, current trends in this field place their emphasis on the analysis of these symptomatic anomalies in performance which are then quantified into charts and graphs with the aid of technology.9 In The Changing

Sound of Music, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson expounds on this performance-based methodology and the affordances of empirical analysis in “studying expressivity and expressive gestures.”10 He asserts that the method eliminates listener bias and, in its place, offers an objective parameter for capturing evidence that exceeds what the ear can perceive. The measurement of expression lies in their study of what the performers do in these recordings; it deduces performative conclusions from descriptive readings of historical recordings. As my dissertation is an investigation in the interpretative agency of the performers in the recordings in relation to their pedagogical training, I forego the use of technological software as it does not aid in revealing the rationale behind why the performers may perform in the manner that they do.

In his second book on this topic, Performing Music in the Age of Recordings,

Robert Philip suggests that recordings reveal the diverse nineteenth-century schools of piano playing, linking teacher to student: “Recordings make it possible for the first time to trace the influence of teachers from one generation to another, and to establish the differences and similarities between fellow pupils.”11 My dissertation

9 For instance, Sonic Visualizer is a common software used for performance analysis which can visualize and analyze sound files. 10 Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Changing Sound of Music: Approaches to Studying Recorded Musical Performance (London: CHARM, 2009), chapter 8.2, paragraph 19, https://www.charm.kcl.ac.uk/studies/chapters/chap8.html 11 Robert Philip, Performing Music in the Age of Recording (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 184.

4 picks up from this point where Philip left off. As a renowned pedagogue, Clara

Schumann (1819-1896) taught a number of students – both privately and as a professor in the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt from 1878 to 1893. Her teachings are well documented in their writing (journal articles, diary entries, letters) as well as in sound recordings (interviews). Even more, several of Clara Schumann’s students made recordings which provide a site of intersection between written documentation and performance. These recordings offer a rich source of information that corroborates, complements, and often contradicts the written testimony regarding

Clara’s pedagogy. With this evidence, I reconstruct Clara’s pedagogical practices.

Current Scholarship on Clara Schumann

Nancy Reich’s 1985 biography of Clara Schumann was the most significant contribution to Clara Schumann scholarship since Berthold Litzmann’s biography in the early twentieth century.12 In this critical work, Reich portrays Clara Schumann as an avid and strategic musician who used her influence as editor, pianist, and pedagogue to promote the music of Robert Schumann.

In addition to editing the first Complete Works of Robert Schumann,13 Clara

Schumann published an Instructive Edition of his piano works in 1887 as a corrective to heavily edited versions of Robert’s music that were particularly prevalent in

England.14 She expressed that “it is clear to me that I must do it, so that at least one

12 Nancy Reich, Clara Schumann, the Artist and the Woman (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985); Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann. Ein Künstlerleben. Nach Tagebüchern und Briefen. 3. vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1902-1908). 13 Robert Schumann, Robert Schumanns Werke, ed. Clara Schumann (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879- 1893). 14 Robert Schumann, Klavierwerke von Robert Schumann: Erste mit Fingersatz und Vortragsbezeichnung versehene Instruktive Ausgabe. Nach den Handschriften und persönlicher Überlieferung, ed. Clara Schumann, 4 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887).

5 correct edition will be available for students.”15 In addition to fingerings and metronome markings, Clara Schumann included occasional commentary on performance and interpretation. After Clara’s death, Carl Reinecke made various alterations and revisions to later publications of this edition, which Breitkopf did not distinguish from Clara’s changes.16 Fortunately, Clara’s copy of the Instructive Edition is kept in the Robert Schumann Archives in Zwickau; this copy contains her handwritten instructions and revisions, attested in the foreword by Marie

Schumann.17 These indications offer valuable implications for Clara Schumann performance practice.

15 Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann. Ein Künstlerleben. Nach Tagebüchern und Briefen. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1902-1908), 3:442 quoted in Nancy Reich, Clara Schumann, the Artist and the Woman (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985), 255. 16 Ibid; Robert Schumann, Klavierwerke von Robert Schumann: Erste mit Fingersatz und Vortragsbezeichnung versehene Instruktive Ausgabe. Nach den Handschriften und persönlicher Überlieferung, ed. Clara Schumann, 4 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924). 17 For this dissertation, Clara Schumann’s personal copy of the Instructive Edition has been carefully examined and consulted in its entirety.

Figure I. Cover of Volume III of Clara Schumann’s Instructive Edition of Robert Schumann’s Works. (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

7 As a concert pianist, Clara Schumann used her influence as a recognized artist to publicize Robert’s works. As little is known of how Robert Schumann played his works (his hand injury prevented him from performing in public), Clara Schumann assumed the role of the chief proponent of his works. In reflecting on playing

Robert’s music, she wrote:

The melodies and figures cross so much that it takes a great deal to discover all their beauties. I myself always find new beauties each time I play one of his works. […] One must know them as I do, and then will find his entire personality in his compositions.18

In his turn, Robert raved with delight upon listening to Clara perform his Symphonic

Etudes in public:

It seemed to me, however, as though it were the most perfect playing one could imagine; I will not forget how you played my [Symphonic] Etudes [August 1837]. The way you portrayed them, they were absolute masterpieces – the public cannot possibly understand how to value them – but there was one person sitting in the audience – and though his heart was pounding with other feelings, at that moment his whole being paid homage to you as an artist.19 It is little wonder that Clara Schumann viewed herself as the authority on her husband’s music.

Recent scholarship on Clara Schumann as a pianist includes articles by David

Ferris and Alexander Stefaniak.20 Their description of the performance culture of the time and analyses of her performance practices situate Clara in the nineteenth- century performing world. This research is largely based on contemporary reviews

18 CW/ Diary, September 29, 1839, quoted in Reich, Clara Schumann, the Artist and the Woman, 272. 19 Briefwechsel, I:98-99, quoted in Reich, 274. 20 Ferris traces the strategic evolution of programming of Clara Schumann’s recitals. Davis Ferris, “Public Performance and Private Understanding: Clara Wieck's Concerts in Berlin,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 56, no. 2 (2003): 351–408; Stefaniak explicates the writings of Liszt, Zellner, and Hanslick among other to show how Clara’s contemporaries viewed her as possessing revelatory powers through her interpretation of works. Alexander Stefaniak, “Clara Schumann and the Imagined Revelation of Musical Works,” Music & Letters 99, no. 2 (May 2018): 194-223.

8 of Clara’s concerts as source material. While such reviews give information on Clara

Schumann’s programming as well as general impressions of her performances, they remain too vague in their commentary to draw specific conclusions on Clara

Schumann’s performance practice. Regarding the extemporary practices of Clara

Schumann, Valerie Goetzen and Gili Loftus have explored Clara’s improvised preludes and transitions between pieces or movements which she notated in 1895 at the request of her daughters.21

The greatest source of information on Clara Schumann’s performance practice lies in documentation from her students. In her dissertation from 1978, Siu-Yiu Chair

Fang published the first work that investigates the writings of Clara’s students.22

Fang catalogues a biography of the students and their testimony on Clara’s teachings. Then, she breaks down Clara’s teachings according to technique, touch, phrasing and articulation, timing, pedaling, and other elements of piano playing.

One remarkable source that she references is the collection of Emma Schmidt who was a student of Marie and Clara Schumann in 1884. Though Schmidt’s studies lasted only one year, she left behind scores with Clara’s markings in them – the only known extant scores with Clara’s markings. Annkatrin Babbe’s study, Clara

Schumann und ihre SchülerInnen am Hoch’schen Konservatorium in Frankfurt a. M., gives a more current description of Clara’s students and their contributions to Clara’s pedagogy.23 In addition to delving deeper into the topics introduced by Fang, Babbe

21 Valerie Woodring Goertzen, “By Way of Introduction: Preluding by 18th- and Early 19th- Century Pianists,” The Journal of Musicology 14, no. 3 (1996): 299-337; Gili Loftus, “À la Clara: Recapturing Clara Wieck-Schumann’s Transitional Pianism,” (Doctoral thesis, McGill University, 2016). 22 Siu-Wan Chair Fang, “Clara Schumann as Teacher,” (DMA diss., University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign, 1978). 23 Annkatrin Babbe, Clara Schumann und ihre SchülerInnen am Hoch’schen Konservatorium in Frankfurt a. M. (Oldenburg: BIS-Verlag, 2015).

9 lays out the structure of Clara’s lessons in the conservatory. The most comprehensive publication on Clara’s pianism is Claudia de Vries’ Die Pianistin Clara Wieck-

Schumann: Interpretation im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Individualität.24 What distinguishes this work is that de Vries draws ‘family traits’ from the recordings of

Clara’s students, noting common attributes. She also observes a significant degree of personal liberty that each student takes. To bridge this gap, she concludes that

Clara’s pedagogy is

… most certainly, not the realization, practice, and automation of a distinct interpretation – down to the last detail – but rather an ideal of interpretation that is developed by a standard that combines the individual pursuit of understanding and the search for artistic balance with the confident and controlled application of the wide, ‘test and tried’ performative resources.25

In her research, De Vries places emphasis on tempo taken by Clara’s students (with the difficult task of approximating a metronome marking) and compares them with metronome markings from Robert’s first editions and Clara’s instructive and complete editions.

In this dissertation, I draw from many of the same sources as Fang, Babbe and de Vries, but my aim lies elsewhere. I maintain that historical documentation in writing and in sound could reciprocally inform each other to reveal information about Clara Schumann’s pedagogy. In other words, I propose that concepts that have been discussed by Clara’s students can be located in their sound recordings which, in turn, can give us a more precise definition of these concepts. Thus, I attempt to wed concepts and praxis by providing evidence that points toward the consummation of

Clara Schumann’s pedagogical ideals as practice. In order to do so, I take Clara’s

24 Claudia de Vries, Die Pianistin Clara Wieck-Schumann: Interpretation im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Individualität (Mainz: Schott, 1996). 25 Ibid.

10 discussions of specific works (mainly from Robert Schumann, but also drawn from

Beethoven and J. S. Bach) to extrapolate common themes. The collated information allows for an informed mode of listening that directs the reader to what he or she should listen for. Each recording is then assessed in a case-by-case study to uncover what the performance discloses about the interpretation of the individual performer.

Such listening not only corroborates the written documentation, but also supplements these concepts with additional information regarding other familiar traits shared by Clara’s students.

Through this dissertation, I show how we can use historical recordings as artifacts from the past as agents of a new listening culture which can inform both performers and scholars alike. Just as modern-day musicians are trained to listen for specific values and qualities, we can also learn to listen critically to earlier recordings with nineteenth-century values in mind. This mode of informed listening provides us a key to better understanding the performance practice of the time.

The key primary written (or spoken) sources drawn upon in this dissertation include articles and memoirs published by Clara Schumann’s students: Fanny

Davies, Adeline de Lara, Theodore Müller-Reuter, Eugenie Schumann, and Edith

Heymann. Their written testimony is compared with recordings made by Davies, de

Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz, Carl Friedberg, and Heymann. Recordings by Davies, de

Lara, and Eibenschütz are accessed via Jerrold Moore’s 1986 collection Pupils of Clara

Schumann.26 Friedberg’s recordings are extracted from Carl Friedberg Playing

Schumann and Brahms.27 An indispensable source for this dissertation has been Allan

26 Jerrold Moore, Pupils of Clara Schumann. Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc. 27 Carl Friedberg, Carl Friedberg Playing Schumann and Brahms, Zodiac Records Z-1001, 1954, LP.

11 Evans and his recording label, Arbiter of Cultural Traditions. As an ethnographer of historical performers, Evans has retrieved and released hundreds of unknown private recordings. In his collection Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues, he published Heymann’s BBC interview on Clara Schumann’s teachings as well as previously unknown recordings by Friedberg including excerpts from lessons with his student Bruce Hungerford.28

For this project, I have chosen recordings that best demonstrate the topics at hand. Additional recordings from Clara’s students that I have consulted but not discussed include Davies and de Lara’s recordings of Schumann’s

Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 and Friedberg and de Lara’s recording of Schumann’s

Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13.29 I have also evaluated more obscure recordings by lesser known students such as Marie Baumeyer’s recording of Schumann’s Study in Canon

Form, Op. 56, no. 4. These are not addressed in this dissertation, as my purpose is not a comprehensive review of all recordings, but to analyze the ones that directly relate to the teachings of Clara Schumann.30

It should also be noted that several of Clara Schumann’s pupils formed a relationship with Johannes Brahms. A few of them are key figures in Brahms interpretation, as they had taken lessons with Brahms and heard him perform. In their collection, Performing Brahms: Early Evidence of Performance Style, Michael

Musgrave and Bernard Sherman explore various topics on historical recording as

28 Allan Evans, Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues, Carl Friedberg, Trio of New York, Edith Heymann, Marie Baumayer, Ilona Eibenschütz, Etelka Freund. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. 29 De Vries analyzes the recordings of Symphonic Etudes (Carl Friedberg and Adelina de Lara) and the Davidsbündlertänze (Fanny Davies and Adelina de Lara). Claudia de Vries, Die Pianistin Clara Wieck- Schumann: Interpretation im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Individualität (Mainz: Schott, 1996). 30 Marie Baumeyer, “Schumann: Pedal Etude in A flat, Op. 56, no.4,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc.

12 pertaining to Brahms performance practice and include thorough discussion on writings by Davies, de Lara, and Eibenschütz that contribute to the performance practice of Brahms.31 In Romanticizing Brahms: Early Recordings and the Reconstruction of Brahmsian Identity, Anna Scott goes one step further and analyzes and imitates these recordings to recreate a ‘Brahmsian’ performance.32 She asserts that emulation of recordings allows for a fuller understanding of “the corporeal and psychological excesses, risks, tantrums, and rhapsodies typically associated with Romantic pianism” through the embodiment of this style.33 As Clara’s students do not address the works of Brahms in their lessons with Clara, my dissertation shies away from the implications that Clara’s students have for Brahms performance practice and the intersection between Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann scholarship.

Challenges

Naturally, my research is prone to myriad factors that deem it objectively fallible. The human factor invariably poses the largest challenge. As the majority of documents were written after Clara Schumann’s death, her students relied largely on their memory to recount her teachings. As performers, these pianists were also undoubtedly susceptible to influence from their surrounding musical atmosphere and its move towards modernity. How much of their memory, their self-constructed remains of the past, accurately depicts their lessons with Clara? For instance, to what extent do the recordings of Adelina de Lara and Carl Friedberg from the early 1950s

31 Michael Musgrave and Bernard Sherman eds., Performing Brahms: Early Evidence of Performance Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 32 Anna Scott, “Romanticizing Brahms: Early Recordings and the Reconstruction of Brahmsian Identity,” (Doctoral thesis, Leiden University, 2014). 33 Ibid., LXXIV.

13 – some sixty years after their mentorship under Clara Schumann – reflect Clara’s pedagogy? Also, regarding those recordings, may tempo choices or chaotic passagework be attributed to deteriorating technique or lack of practice rather than musical intent? We should also consider that in some recordings the performers are reluctant to record but decide to do so from outward pressure.34 How do such insecurities translate into performance?

These recordings disclose highly distinctive individual mannerisms complicating this project further: can the frenzied performance of Ilona Eibenschütz and the controlled playing of Carl Friedberg find commonalities that point toward

Clara Schumann’s influence? And, as free agents, do either of them conscientiously oppose Clara Schumann’s teachings?

Materiality presents a significant challenge as well. Clara’s understanding of music was undeniably shaped by Viennese pianos from the early nineteenth century.

Yet, she must have adjusted her use of the instrument and altered her execution of the music (i. e. pedaling, technique, phrasing) to suit the evolving piano.35 Likewise, the early twentieth century witnessed the continual growth and standardization of pianos including the increasing weight of the action and cross-strung technology.

How might Clara’s students, who studied with her in the 1870s-90s, have altered their playing with the changes in pianos? Also, with regard to materiality, the transformation of pianistic technique poses a loophole in my project. As the

34 For instance, Robert Anderson gave an account of recording Eibenschütz at the age of 88. See below, pp. 82-83. 35 In her dissertation chapter “The Pianos,” Gili Loftus examines the evolution of Clara Schumann’s pianos during her lifetime and the influence that they may have had on her playing. Gili Loftus, “À la Clara: Recapturing Clara Wieck-Schumann’s Transitional Pianism,” (Doctoral thesis, McGill University, 2016).

14 reenactment of technique is far too complex a task, this project does not attempt to reconstruct Clara Schumann’s technique in a systematic manner.

Numerous problems arise with the use of recordings as source material. The variability of recording situations (such as instruments, the locations, the acoustics, and recording equipment among other factors) influences the outcome of these recordings. For instance, how do we compare recordings made by Adelina de Lara on a Blüthner of her choice in a hall to teaching clips by Carl Friedberg in Bruce

Hungerford’s lessons recorded on a personal tape recorder in his teaching studio?36

Live performances from recordings often yield different results from those made in a studio.37 How could we pinpoint these differences, and how may we misread the discrepancies that arise from the psychological state of the performer in the diverse situations?

Finally, piano rolls present the last aspect of challenges in materiality. Fanny

Davies made fourteen piano rolls for Welte-Mignon in Leipzig in 1909.38 Among them, she recorded Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Op. 15.39 Likewise, Theodore Müller-

Reuter made piano rolls of several works by Schumann for Ducas in Frankfurt in

1911.40 As these are valuable sources, they are consulted but not analyzed in my

36 See below, p. 88. The International Piano Archives at Maryland hold the recordings of Bruce Hungerford’s lessons with Carl Friedberg. Ann Riesbeck DiClemente transcribes the entirety of these lessons in “Brahms Performance Practice in a New Context: The Bruce Hungerford Recorded Lessons with Carl Friedberg,” PhD Dissertation, (University of Maryland, College Park, 2009). 37 The discrepancy in Friedberg’s two recordings of Schumann’s Romance, Op. 28 (a live memorial concert at the Juilliard School and a studio recording) will be discussed in Chapter 3. 38 Silke Wenzel, “Fanny Davies,“ Musikvermittlung und Genderforschung: Lexikon und multimediale Präsentationen, ed. Beatrix Borchard, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, published 06.26.2007. https://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/Artikel/Fanny_Davies.pdf 39 Fanny Davies’ 1929 sound recording of Kinderszenen is discussed in Chapter 2. The comparison between the sound recording and the 1909 piano roll may provide evidence of shifts (or absence thereof) in performance styles during Davies’ concert career. 40 These piano rolls are kept at the Institute für Musikwissenschaft in Goethe University in Frankfurt. They include movements from Schumann’s Waldszenen, Fantasiestücke, Kinderszenen and Arabesque, as well as the Larghetto from Mozart’s “Coronation” Concerto in D major, D. 537.

15 dissertation for the following reasons: piano rolls and the player pianos used to replay them require a level of expertise in order to properly assess their affordances and limitations and to distinguish the performer from the machine.41 Another methodology that goes beyond close listening would be required to justify the use of these reproductions as source material.

Alas, the scope of questions issues that remain unaddressed is significant.

With the given limitations, I base my findings here on the proposition that (1) those of Clara’s students who published literature on her teachings represent it truthfully as they understood it, and (2) however much they may have veered in their playing, certain aspects of their performances provide undeniably evidence of Clara

Schumann’s basic principles.

Leitmotif

This project is an investigation into Clara Schumann’s pedagogy, centered on her belief that music must be deciphered by reason. A scrupulous study of the notation, understanding of its content, and a conscientious delivery were key to musical artistry according to Clara Schumann.

This dissertation is divided into seven sections. In the first, I provide historical background on the public and private perception of Clara Schumann as a priestess guarding tradition. This view is essential in understanding her philosophy of musical asceticism as key to accessing the genuine revelation of a work – a cornerstone of

Clara’s pedagogy. In chapter two, I introduce my methodology by applying it in two

41 Sebastian Bausch discusses the process of translating these rolls into sound, and how these could be used as historical documents in “Klavierrollen als Interpretationsdokumente: Ein Erfahrungsbericht als Leitfaden für Einsteiger,“ in Rund um Beehoven. Interpretationsforschung heute, ed. Thomas Gartmann und Daniel Allenbach (Schliengen: Argus, 2019), 15-27.

16 segments. In the first, I elaborate on three principles of Clara’s teachings according to

Theodore Müller-Reuter, and in the second, I examine how these principles relate to the recordings of Kinderszenen by Clara’s students. The third chapter deals with the concept of “Das Getragene” and its implications for performance. As Clara’s students recall J. S. Bach as a focal point in lessons, I take Clara’s remarks on Bach in the fourth chapter and break down her approach in interpreting a work through reason.

The fifth deals with how a sympathetic, critical listening of Eibenschütz’ and

Friedberg’s recording of Schumann’s Arabesque offers insight into Clara Schumann’s performance practice. The sixth chapter consults the idea of images as a guiding thread to understanding Robert Schumann’s works. In the last chapter, I engage with

Clara’s view of virtuosity as a defining factor of her ideals in performance.

17 CHAPTER I. CLARA THE PRIESTESS

Figure 1.1 Franz von Lenbach Clara Schumann, Pastel, 1878 Robert Schumann Haus (Zwickau)

In her memoirs, Eugenie Schumann describes one painter’s frustrations in attempting to depict her mother on canvas. The painter complains that with every glance, the aura around Clara Schumann fluctuates, often within moments, between the deepest peace and the most spirited animation, somehow harmoniously resting on her countenance. Multiple paintings from the same session produce widely

18 differing results.1 Eugenie then attempts with words to describe what the portrait does not capture: surely, a still portrait could not capture the moving contour of her mother’s cheeks, the deep penetrating color of her eyes, the tenderness of her lips, and her expressive hands that have an uncanny resemblance to those of Goethe. Her forehead exposed by the parting of her straight dark hair exudes a clarity and purity of thought.2 And how should one draw the soft, radiating light that emanates from her angelic being – a transfiguration that only a few here on earth attain?3

A complete depiction of Clara Schumann, according to Eugenie, would encompass a trinitarian balance of femininity, motherliness, and humanity – all three residing in its fullness in their being.4 Her physical appearance is, simply put, a revelation of her character.

Yet, Clara could not have achieved such perfection without a test of transformative suffering:

She drank from the cup of pain and overcame it through a power granted by her inherent genius thereby transforming all her bitterness into sweetness and elevating her to a higher realm. This genius which initiated her into the priesthood of art […].5

Depicting her mother as a Christ-like figure, Eugenie draws clear parallels: through suffering, Clara is transfigured into a higher being and succeeds Robert as a herald of

1 Eugenie Schumann, Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Engelhornverlag, 1925), 115. 2 Ibid., 115. 3 Ibid., 117. 4 “Sie war ein Bild vollendeter Weiblichkeit, schönster Mütterlichkeit und hoher Menschlichkeit.“ Ibid., 117; unless otherwise noted, all translated passages are my own. 5 “Sie hatte den Kelche des Leidens bis auf die Hefe geleert, aber der ihr innewohnende Genius verlieh ihr die Kraft, alle Bitterkeit in Süßigkeit zu verwandeln und sich zu höchster menschlicher Vollkommenheit durchzuringen. Wie dieser Genius sie zu einer Priesterin der Kunst gemacht hatte, [so verlangte er auch gebieterisch Erfassung aller Charakter- und Gemütsanlagen zu künstlerisch harmonischer Ausbildung.]“ Ibid., 118-119.

19 German tradition. Her art becomes a gospel which she shares through her performance and teaching.

Priestess of Tradition

Eugenie Schumann’s description is just one of many that deify Clara

Schumann. While such writings could easily be dismissed as romantic embellishment and excessive idolization, the flowery narratives about Clara Schumann help situate her position in the nineteenth-century musical world. In this chapter, I examine the writings of contemporaries and students to understand the public and private perception of Clara Schumann. Despite the differences in the writers’ agendas, these narratives remain consistent in portraying Clara as a recipient of a sacred responsibility, a priestess of tradition. In each, they reinforce the narrative of her initiation into priesthood, which accounts for (1) her philosophy of self-denial in performance and (2) her determination to guard a musical tradition. This narrative is essential in understanding Clara Schumann, as she fully adopted this persona as priestess into her pedagogy.

In the mid-1850s, the music critic and pedagogue Leopold Zellner, and Franz

Liszt independently published essays on Clara Schumann. Tracing Clara’s musical development, these contemporaries attempted to explain how she assumed this sacred role. Both writers begin with a depiction of her divine appearance. Like

Eugenie, Zellner notes the physical manifestation of Clara’s divinity in an emanation of light – reminiscent of medieval Christian iconography.

20 In everything that surrounds her, there appears a certain transfigured radiation, which is in fact only a reflection of the depth of her soul.6

Liszt takes it one step further by referring to Christ’s crucifixion and his crown of thorns to depict Clara’s countenance:

From the once moist and youthful glow of her eyes appears a fear-invoking gaze. The otherwise loosely woven wreath of flowers now hardly hides the seared scars deeply imprinted into the forehead by the sacred circlet.7

For Liszt, Clara undergoes an initiation of suffering which is branded into her appearance.

To illustrate the change, both Zellner and Liszt compare the young Clara

Wieck with Clara Schumann. In Zellner’s portrayal, he places emphasis on the absence of self-awareness in the young pianist. Oblivious to her inherent possession of artistic qualities, Clara Wieck performs her fairy-like self in her music, “unfolding charm in involuntary gracefulness.”8 Once she matures, however, she no longer performs her self. According to Zellner, in Clara there resides “the energy of an inextinguishable drive for the recognition of truth penetrating deep into the work with an apparent renunciation of her individuality [that reflects] the unerring truth of her performance.”9 If the unconscious performance of self represents the young

6 “Erscheint Jenen Alles was sie umgibt, in einem gewissen Verklärungsglanze, der in der Tat aber nur der Reflex ihrer höher ausgebildeten Seelenthätigkeit ist.“ Leopold Zellner. “Clara Schumann,“ Blätter für Musik, Theater, und Kunst 2, (11 Jan. 1856), 13. 7 “Auf den feuchten Jugendglanz der Augen ist der starrende angstdurchschauerte Blick gefolgt. Die sonst so lose in‘s Haar geflochtene Blumenkrone verbirgt jetzt kaum die sengenden Narben, die der heilige Reif tief in die Stirne gedrückt.“ Franz Liszt. “Clara Schumann,“ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 41, (1 Dec. 1854), 251. 8 Liszt refers to the young Clara as a “charming fairy”: “So fanden wir die ehemalige meist melancholische aber doch oft heitere und immer reizvolle Fee zur gewissenhaften Dienerin eines Altares geworden, die mehr von Gottesfurcht als Gotttrunkenheit beseelt erscheint.“ Liszt, 252; “Ihre Reize in unbewußter Grazie entfaltete.“ Zellner, 13. 9 “[Bei Clara Schumann ist es] die Energie des unauslöschlichen Triebes nach Erkenntniß, die sie in die Tiefen des Kunstwerks dringen macht, die sichtliche Entsagung im Geltendmachen der eigenen Individualität, die daraus hervorgehende ergreifende Wahrheit ihres Vortrags, die unfehlbare Vollendung ihrer Ausführung – [was uns zur ehrfurchtsvollen Bewunderung bewegt.]“ Ibid., 13.

21 Wieck, the conscious erasure of self in search of musical truth epitomizes Clara

Schumann. By crucifying her being, she personifies the art that she performs. Zellner writes, “she was a poet; now, she is the poem.”10

In Liszt’s understanding, the young Clara Wieck “was not aware that she was poetry.”11 It was only a matter of time that this seed matured, and a “delightful muse

[became] a consecrated, faithfully obedient and strict Priestess.”12 Turning to imagery from Greek mythology, Liszt depicts Clara’s transformation:

When she approaches the seat of the temple, the woman no longer speaks to us as a poet of earthly passion, from the stormy battle of human destiny […]. A subservient, faithful, and reverent prophet to the Delphic gods, she commits to their ritual with trembling allegiance.13

According to Liszt, then, music is a sacred practice for Clara that demands fierce devotion. Such utter piety even invokes fear, as Clara “trembles in case she misses an iota of the proclaimed message or utters a false syllable.”14 Her role as a messenger of the gods requires Clara to “[restrain] her own feeling so as not to become a faulty, deceitful interpreter. She renounces her own inspiration in order to herald the oracle as a flawless mediator and true interpreter. She will explain no obscure passage according to individual inclination.”15

10 “Jene war eine Dichterin, diese ist das Gedicht selbst.“ Ibid. 11 “[Sie ahnte nicht,] daß sie selbst Poesie war, durch alles dies fast anziehender wurden als ihre ernsteren und solideren Eigenschaften.“ Liszt, 250. 12 “Aus der lieblichen Musenspielgenossin ist eine weihevolle, treu pflichtige und strenge Priesterin geworden.“ Ibid., 251. 13 “Wenn sie den Dreifuß des Tempels besteigt, spricht nicht mehr das Weib zu uns, sie unterhält uns weder als Dichterin von irdischer Leidenschaft, vom stürmischen Kampf menschlicher Geschicke […] Eine unterwürfige, glauben- und ehrfurchtsvolle Geweihte des Delphischen Gotten begeht sie mit schauernder Gewissenstreue seinen Cultus.” Ibid. 14 “Zitternd, auch nur ein Iota des zu kündenden Spruches zu vermissen, eine Sylbe falsch zu betonen.” Ibid. 15 “[…] Bezähmt sie ihr eigenes Gefühl, um nicht zur schuldigen, trügerischen Interpretin zu werden. Sie entsagt den eigenen Eingebungen um als unbestechliche Vermittlerin, als treue Auslegerin die Orakel zu verkünden. Keinen dunklen Passus wird sie nach individueller Neigung erklären.“ Ibid.

22 In Liszt’s view, the musical notation is the holy text for Clara, and her role as priestess is to decrypt and deliver the message of the composers to the public. To complete his analogy, Liszt recalls Clara’s performance of Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 57.

For years, we had hardly been able to force ourselves to listen to the F-minor Sonata from Beethoven, as mediocrity has exhausted and jaded our ears through a cold, spiritless repetition of this work. When Clara Schumann recently performed the work, we were seized by the inmost spirit-filled comfort, like a painter who rediscovers the sublime original which has since been followed by tasteless, distorted copies. […] Compared to this, no one will surpass the gripping truth with which she – in full understanding – performs the sacred masters.16

By full subservience to the work, Clara has become a suitable vessel to reveal the mysteries of the work in its original. Using the analogy of a painting, Liszt implies that Clara replicates the sublime aura of the original work in her performance.17

Clara seems to have fully embraced this perception of herself as a priestess who possessed this performance tradition. Furthermore, she saw her students as the recipients to whom she would pass down this tradition. To her students she preached the erasure of one’s self, a submission to notation, and an unceasing search for the true understanding of the work. These principles make up the core of Clara’s pedagogy.

16 “Seit Jahren konnten wir uns kaum mehr zum Anhören der F-Moll-Sonate von Beethoven zwingen, so sehr hatte die Mittelmäßigkeit durch ein kaltes geistloses Ableiern dieses Werkes unser Ohr ermüdet und verdrossen. Als es von Clara Schumann neulich vorgetragen wurde, ergriff uns innerlichstes geistiges Wohlbehagen, wie etwa einen Maler, der ein erhabenes Original wiederauffindet, von welchem ihm seit langer, langer Zeit fade entstellende Copien verfolgten. […] Dagegen wird Niemand in er ergreifenden Wahrheit ihr den Vorrang abgewinnen, mit welcher sie die durch voll Verständniß geheiligten Meister vorträgt.“ Ibid. 17 Alexander Stefaniak explicates the writings of Liszt and Zellner to show how Clara’s contemporaries viewed her as possessing revelatory powers through her interpretation of works. He argues that this view shifted over time – and was not always positively received: “In the end, Liszt left two images of Clara Schumann hanging in mutually qualifying balance – staid performance and over- scrupulous subservience on one hand, and ‘stirring truth’ and authentic revelation on the other – without pinpointing exactly where she stood in relation to his ideal for performance.” “Clara Schumann and the Imagined Revelation of Musical Works,” Music & Letters 99, no. 2 (May 2018): 210.

23 In their writing, Clara’s students reveal awe of their teacher for her single- minded zeal for finding truth in music. In an interview, Fanny Davies shares her first impressions of Madame Schumann:

It was, in the first place, an impression of the sacredness and majesty of the realm which I was about to enter under her guidance. In the second place, it was an impression of the powerful personal simplicity and directness which seemed to be the result of her life’s singleness of aim. One felt that she was in this world for the sole purpose of expounding the messages of the great Masters. A devout single-mindedness in Art, and towards Art, stamped her whole personality with the charm of a triumphant truthfulness.18

Other students also treat her as a heroine whom they place on a pedestal. In a rather amusing anecdote, Mathilde Verne shares her reaction to witnessing Clara knit:

… The divinity became human, and produced a large work-bag, from which she took a ball of grey wool, a pair of useful wooden knitting-needles, and began to knit. As I went home I kept on repeating to myself: “Oh, I wish I hadn't seen her knit,” a point of view arising from too vivid an imagination, and a disproportionate form of heroine worship, but I wonder whether Werther experienced the same shock as I did, when he discovered his ideal Charlotte cutting bread and butter?19

Most striking, however, is that the students share a moral responsibility in continuing this tradition in their own teaching. For Verne, not only music but teaching is a sacred task.

I owe everything to her. She taught me never to lose my ideals, and never to look on teaching as a mere profession. To her each pupil represented a sacred trust, not only in music, but as a character, and she influenced us for good in every way. Small wonder that we all worshipped her.20

This depiction of Clara as a priestess of tradition continued until her death.

For Professor Sell from Bonn who gave the eulogy, it was not a coincidence that

Clara’s memorial service fell on Pentecost – the day when the Holy Spirit was given

18 Henry Mackinnon Walbrook, “Some Schumann Memories. A Conversation with Miss Fanny Davies,” Pall Mall Magazine 207 (1910): 64. 19 Mathilde Verne, Chords of Remembrance (London: Hutchinson, 1937), 47-48. 20 Ibid., 55.

24 to the apostles to share the Gospel to the world. Sell drew a parallel from this reference: just as the apostles transformed from witness to active partakers in a historical event, Clara also played an integral role as she served first as a witness to

Robert Schumann’s musical revelations and later as a proponent of his musical message:

To be able to hear and see what remains hidden to others is a God-given talent of a true genius. How often has Robert Schumann’s work overwhelmed us with the deepest sensation; he must have seen otherworldly visions of wondrous glory and heard sounds never imagined by the human mind. And Clara Schumann was the partner of this revelation, the helper of his work, the partaker of pain and suffering of his genius. Now she is a partaker in his transfiguration [through death].21

While many of these references to Clara Schumann as a priestess seem exaggerated, the way that Clara herself conformed to this role was reflected in her pedagogy. Her students reiterated Clara’s philosophy of musical self-denial as a foundational part of understanding and performing music. This philosophy presents the framework of Clara’s pedagogy as a platform through which she continued her work as a priestess. Reciprocally, accounts of her teachings reveal a glimpse into how to perform the ‘true revelation’ of a work according to Clara Schumann.

21“Es ist die gottverliehene Gabe des Genius, zu hören und zu sehen, was anderer Menschen Sinnen verborgen ist. Wie oft hat uns bei Robert Schumanns Werken die Empfindung übermannt, daß er außerirdische Dinge erschaut haben müsse in wundersamer Pracht, daß sein Ohr Klänge gehört, die nie zuvor in eines Menschen Sinn gekommen sind. Und Clara Schumann war die Teilhaberin dieser Offenbarungen, die Gehülfin seiner Arbeiten, die Genossin der Leiden und Schmerzen des Genius. Jetzt ist sie die Genossin jener Verklärung […].“ Theodore Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens: Musikalische Erinnerungen und Aufsätze (Leipzig: W. Hartung, 1919), 83.

25 CHAPTER II

PART I. Theory into Praxis: The Three Principles of Clara Schumann according to Theodore Müller-Reuter

Of all her students, the Dresden pianist Theodore Müller-Reuter (1858-1919) compiled the most comprehensive documentation of his correspondence with Clara

Schumann in his work, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens.1 Intended as a commemoration of Clara Schumann’s 100th birth year, Bilder und Klänge discloses personal and candid details of Clara Schumann as a teacher. Often poetic and even sentimental, other times packed with trivial detail, Müller-Reuter recounts the dates and places the lessons took place, the repertoire he performed, along with Clara’s commentaries, exchanged letters, and even an account of his payment for lessons.

Theodore Müller-Reuter holds a unique vantage point, as he trained as a child prodigy under Friedrich Wieck (1785-1873) and Alwin Wieck (1821-1885) – Clara’s father (and mentor) and brother.2 In this regard, Müller-Reuter’s early formation as a pianist shadows Clara’s own. Upon Alwin’s recommendation, Müller-Reuter sporadically met Clara Schumann for lessons from 1870 until 1877. In 1877, the relationship deepened, as he decided to commute from Dresden to Berlin for bi- weekly lessons with the Meisterin.3 He shares an interesting moment of wavering in

1877: entranced by the technique of Franz Liszt’s students, Müller-Reuter covertly prepares to study with Liszt in Weimar.

[Alvin Wieck’s] lessons that so exquisitely laid the groundwork could no longer satisfy, as [Theodore] outgrew him. The playing of several Liszt students in Dresden – with their octave scales, chordal leaps, and other

1 Theodore Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens: Musikalische Erinnerungen und Aufsätze (Leipzig: W. Hartung, 1919). 2 In Materialien zu Friedrich Wieck’s Pianoforte-Methodik (Berlin: Simrock, 1875), Alwin Wieck notes the key points of his father’s method of piano playing and replicates numerous exercises that he (and Clara) were required to practice for technical mastery. 3 Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge, 5-7.

26 extraordinary technical flair – sparked wonder and envy. This prompted a secret attempt to study with Liszt in Weimar. At the last moment, however, his suspicious and jealous teacher thwarted this plan and branded him as a complete betrayer of art.4

Under pressure, Müller-Reuter decided to study under Clara Schumann who had been newly appointed as the first female professor of the Dr. Hoch’s Konservatorium in Frankfurt in 1878. Upon completion of his studies in the Fall of 1880, Clara

Schumann secured him a job at the Strasbourg Conservatory as a professor of piano and theory. This harmonious relationship explains Müller-Reuter’s determination to assemble this memoir and share the teachings of his mentor.

In his very first lesson with Frau Schumann at the age of eleven, Theodore

Müller-Reuter plays from Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Etched into his memory are her comments on Von fremden Ländern und Menschen which, in hindsight, encompass what Müller-Reuter views as the three artistic principles of Clara

Schumann: (1) observation and fidelity to the musical text, (2) discovery and delivery of the hidden musical meaning, (3) and avoidance of any exaggeration.

The first comment refers to the first measures which the young Müller-Reuter plays with ease. Clara asks the young student: “Do you believe, then, that my husband would not have taken the effort to write triplets in the melody, should he have wanted them?”5 Clara Schumann’s critique lies in the discrepancy between what is notated and what is performed. For her, Robert Schumann’s notation is not

4 “Sein Unterricht, eine so vorzügliche Grundlage er auch gegeben hatte, konnte nicht mehr befriedigen, man war ihm entwachsen. Das Beispiel mehrerer in Dresden ansässiger Lisztschüler, die mit Oktaven- und Doppelgriffläufen wie sonstiger außerordentlicher Handfertigkeit prunkten, nötigte Staunen und Neid ab und veranlaßte einen heimlich vorbereiteten Versuch, nach Weimar zu Liszt zu gehen. Er wurde im letzten Augenblicke durch den eifersüchtig und mißtrauisch gewordenen Lehrer vereitelt und natürlich als Verrat an der Kunst in Bausch und Bogen verurteilt und gebrandmarkt.“ Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge, 46. 5 “Die unschuldige, an ihn gerichtete Frage: ‚Glaubst Du denn, daß sich mein Mann nicht die Mühe genommen hätte, Triolen in der Melodie vorzuschreiben, wenn er sie haben wollte?‘“ Ibid., 9-10.

27 an approximation of the performance but a scrupulous attempt to notate a musical intent.

Figure 2.1. Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens, (W. Hartung, 1919), 11.

Müller-Reuter reflects on this incident and concludes:

How much more sensible is this calm, lingering rhythm of Schumann’s melody than the square, common embellishment of No. 1? Clara Schumann did not budge until this spot was achieved to her liking. For the first time, the pianist became aware of the principle of highest conscientiousness, without which a fully artistic performance is not possible.6

Muller-Reuter admits that no one else would have cared for such little details

(‘Kleinigkeiten’), but through this instance, Clara Schumann shows him that the notation gives insight into the meaning of the music; thus, negligence with the text

6 “Um wie vieles sinniger ist der ruhige, weilende Schumannsche Melodienrhythmus gegen den eckigen Allerweltsschnörkel bei Nr. 1. Clara Schumann ruhte nicht, bis die Stelle wenigstens annähernd nach ihrem Wunsche gelang. Der Grundsatz der höchsten Gewissenhaftigkeit, ohne die vollwertige künstlerische Leistungen unmöglich sind, trat zum ersten Male in das Bewußtsein des Spielers.“ Ibid., 11.

28 may deter the musician from delivering this meaning. For this reason, Clara obliges the performer to meticulously observe the notation.

The second principle – discovery and delivery of the hidden musical meaning

– deals with what is not notated, namely, interpretation. Clara gently tells Müller-

Reuter that in the second part of the movement, “the bassline must speak, my dear

Theodore, it is in fact the Hauptsache (the main thing).”7 In the score (Figure 2.2), however, Robert Schumann makes no indication that the bass should be brought out.

Figure 2.2. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen from Kinderszenen, Op. 15 Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

7 “‘Sprechen müssen diese Bässe, lieber Theodor, sie sind eigentlich die Hauptsache.‘ Das war wieder etwas ganz neues, denn vorgeschrieben stand ein sprechendes Hervorheben der Bässe nicht.“ Ibid, 10.

29 Müller-Reuter realizes that the first challenge of merely observing the score does not suffice, as notation is incomplete:

Indeed, there is something in the music that is not prescribed in the notation that must be brought out. The second principle for artistic endeavors: Search, recognition, and a deliberate representation of the hidden musical content.8

The observations gathered from notation aid in the discovery of inherent elements required by the music. In this case, the keen pianist will notice the imitation of the opening melody by the bass and naturally bring it out.

In his discussion of interpretation, Müller-Reuter distinguishes the two ways in which one could interpret a work:

Worlds apart are the two modes of interpretation. In recent times, there is a popular obsession with placing highly personal, thus foreign meaning into a work of art rather than searching and deriving the objective meaning.9

According to Clara, then, interpretation is an archeological process of detecting and then extracting meaning that already exists. Instilled into the music by the composer, this meaning lies in the domain that is outside of the self; hence, personal opinions, ideas, and other inclinations play no role in revealing this meaning.

The last principle deals with the transference of idea into sound. Once the artist studies the notation and unearths the hidden musical meaning, she or he must execute the work with modesty, unmarred by exaggeration of any sort. For this principle, Frau Schumann refers to the ritardando transition in this piece and instructs Müller-Reuter to perform this segment “without any jolts, slow down very little, no fermata, serenely glide into the beginning section. […] With my husband, the

8 “Also gab es in der Musik ein Etwas, das, in Notentexte nicht vorgeschrieben, zur Geltung gebracht werden will und muß. Ein zweiter Grundsatz für das zukünftige künstlerische Bemühen: Aufsuchung, Erkennung und bewußte Darstellung verborgenen musikalischen Inhaltes.“ Ibid., 10. 9 “Himmelweit davon entfernt ist das von der in neuerer Zeit so vielfach beliebten Auffassungssucht, die nicht sachlich sucht und ausdeutet, sondern höchst persönlich Fremdes hineindeutet.” Ibid., 10.

30 ritardandos should never be stretched out long. This was a preventative measure against all exaggeration.”10 In Figure 2.3, the ritardando ends with a fermata which leads back to the opening section.

Figure 2.3. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924) This little commentary raises several questions. For one, does Clara Schumann contradict herself (Principle Nr. 1) by undermining the fermata that Robert

Schumann had notated? Or could she rather be challenging our standardized reading of what these signs might mean? In this case, the hairpin crescendo marking seems to offer a clue as it directs the phrase onwards, suggesting the fermata as an indication for a brief temporal lingering without coming to a complete halt.11 Her objection to this exaggeration, however, is ultimately a critique on unbridled performance mannerisms that stem from an imposition of self-will (or even self-indulgence) in the composition. The degree to which one executes any command must be considered

10 “Ohne jede Ruckung, ganz wenig langsamer werden, keine Fermate, ruhig in den Anfang hinübergleiten.“ Dann folgte die wichtige Belehrung: „Bei meinem Manne sind die Rit. Niemals lang auszudehnen. Es war… eine Vorbeugungsmaßregel gegen alle Übertreibung, wie es längerer Verkehr mit Clara in späteren Jahren mehr und mehr erweisen sollte.“ Ibid, 10-11. 11 David Kim discusses alternative meanings of the hairpin symbol in Brahms’ works as “becoming more/less” as observed by pianists from Brahms’ circle who include Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, and Etelka Freund in “The Brahmsian Hairpin,” 19th Century Music 36, no. 1 (2012): 46-57. Sezi Seskir also discusses the implications of these symbols for Robert Schumann’s music in her article, “Die Zeichen sind nicht was sie scheinen: Robert Schumanns agogische Hinweise,” Schumann Interpretieren, ed. Jean-Jacques Dünki (Sinzig: Studio Punkt Verlag, 2014), 463-477.

31 with deliberation – a recurring theme in Müller-Reuter’s lessons in the years to come.12

These three aspects quite accurately encompass Clara’s systematic piano pedagogy. Müller-Reuter breaks down the task of the artist into three stages: observation, interpretation, and execution of the score. According to Clara’s method, each stage requires a degree of awareness from the performer of his own agency in deciphering the text. The performer must undermine his own agency by giving up his own tendencies – or even, his will, in order to unveil meaning that is already encoded into the text. Thus, performance decisions are based on an intentional study of the text, and execution should reflect premeditated interpretation. Self-awareness does not end with the preparation but continues into the performance. The ban on exaggeration, for instance, is just one example of how the pianist should critically examine his or her execution even during the performance. If the erasure of individual agency lies at the heart of Clara’s pedagogy, do her students share noticeable traits that set them apart from their contemporaries? And in what ways do these traits reflect their observance of these three principles? Do they give a rather bland uniform version of the same works?

Recordings of Kinderszenen, Op. 15 survive from four of Clara’s students –

Fanny Davies (1861-1934), Adelina de Lara (1872-1961), Carl Friedberg (1872-1955), and Edith Heymann (1872-1960).13 A comparison of these performances offers insight into these questions.

12 I discuss this topic in depth in its connection to virtuosity in the chapter 7, “Technique as the Servant of Music.” 13 Fanny Davies and Adelina de Lara’s recordings of Kinderszenen (respectively 1929 and 1951) were published in Pupils of Clara Schumann. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc. Carl Friedberg’s 1954 recording of Kinderszenen is extracted from Carl Friedberg Playing Schumann and Brahms. Zodiac Records Z-1001, 1954, LP. Edith Heymann’s 1949 excerpts from Kinderszenen were published by

32 PART II. Praxis into Theory: Kinderszenen, Op. 15

As one of the most devoted advocates of Clara Schumann, Fanny Davies contributes valuable insight into Clara’s pedagogy. One recollection by a fellow student, Mathilde Verne (1865-1936), paints a vivid depiction of Davies’ zeal in a lesson where Davies physically strains to achieve Clara’s ideals.

Fanny Davies played first, what, I do not remember, and I was very much impressed to see her bending over the keyboard with such great fervour: I knew at once that she was thinking of the legato touch, and trying very hard to get it. She hung on every word that fell from the lips of Madame Schumann, with such passion that I was quite astonished, but I understood and admired this attitude of devotion later when I myself fell under the spell of our great teacher.14

After completing her studies under Clara at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in

1883-84, Davies maintained close contact with her former teacher during her career as a concert pianist. Their numerous letters disclose their evolving relationship from that of teacher-student to enduring friendship.15 A letter from December 7, 1885, for example, shows Clara’s delight in hearing Davies’ success as a concert pianist. She writes, “I am absolutely convinced that all the praise you receive will only increase your earnestness in the Art, for I had long known that you have a soul of a true artist.”16 Surely, Clara reserved such comments for students that she held in high regard.

Allan Evans Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. For the convenience of the reader, I have included links to YouTube that replicate these sources which direct the reader to the specific references in the text. 14 Mathilde Verne, Chords of Remembrance (London: Hutchinson, 1937), 33. 15 Many of these letters are kept in the Royal College of Music, Center for Performance History in London. 16 “Nur ein paar Worte, Ihnen zu sagen, wie herzlich erfreut ich bin über Ihr Succès. Ich bin fest überzeugt, dass all das Lob, welches Sie erfahren, Ihren Ernst in der Kunst nur noch steigern wird, denn dass Sie eine ächte Künstlerseele haben, wusste ich längst.“ Clara Schumann to Fanny Davies, 7. Dez. 1885, Royal College of Music, Centre for Performance History, Fanny Davies Archives, Letter, MS 7501b.

33 Apart from her multiple essays and interviews in music journals, Davies recorded several pieces by Robert Schumann in the late 1920’s. In her recording of

Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, Fanny Davies fulfills the three specific requests of

Clara Schumann recorded by Müller-Reuter.17 As in Verne’s description, one can almost hear her effort in the careful placement of the sixteenth note to avoid sounding abrupt. Instinctively, she lengthens this beat. Davies also clearly brings out the bass in the second section and her ritardando is ever-so subtle – all clues that suggest that she must have been acquainted with Clara Schumann’s take on this work.

As with this example, prior knowledge of Clara’s instruction directs the listeners to search for specific characteristics in these recordings. Aside from these aspects, the seasoned listener will encounter recurring themes that Clara had not specifically addressed. For instance, only in the second utterances of the opening phrase (mm. 3-5, 17-19) does Davies emphasize the inner voice. Why does Fanny

Davies bring out these voices in the repeated iterations? Such observations help consolidate other traits unique to the recordings of Clara Schumann’s students such as: faithful adherence to phrasing and articulation, the stretching of beats, gentle arpeggiation of chords, lingering on certain melodic notes, emphasis on different voices in repeated sections, and so on.18

17 Pianopera. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Kinderszenen (1/2).” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/4ETFnpof3Xc 18 Claudia de Vries asserts that students of Clara share certainly undeniable character traits (“Familienmerkmale”) that set them apart from other 19th century pianists from different schools. Claudia de Vries, Die Pianistin Clara Wieck-Schumann: Interpretation im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Individualität, (Mainz: Schott, 1996), 222-223; Several of these tools are, of course, commonly used by other pianists as well. Yet, the distinction lies in the manner and the degree as well as for what purpose these effects are employed.

34 Yet, should we listen to the entire cycle of Kinderszenen, we would quickly find that the employment of these unnotated practices varies widely. For instance, though

Fanny Davies’ execution of the ritardando is brief and fleeting in the first movement, she exaggerates the ritardando in the final moment of Kind im Einschlummern (to be discussed later) to such a degree that it comes to a complete halt. Why is there this discrepancy? In order to find potential answers, we must examine what interpretative decisions these students make and if (or how) the notation justifies these decisions.

To begin, in the three complete recordings of Kinderszenen, we find a curious coincidence in each rendition of Bittendes Kind.19 Each of the performers brings out the chromatic inner voice in the repeated iteration of the phrase in mm. 7-8.20 The listener is directed to this hidden chromatic voice, as the melody momentarily subsides to the background. By withholding this information until the second iteration (which should in fact be pp), the performers grant the listener a secret feature of the music that had previously been hidden.21 Sheer coincidence?

19 Fanny Davies, Carl Friedberg and Adelina de Lara each recorded Kinderszenen. Edith Heymann also recorded a few snippets from her interview. 20 Carl Friedberg’s rendition masterfully captures this shift in voicing in his recording: D60944. “Carl Friedberg (1872-1955): Schumann – Kinderszenen op. 15.” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/r6mWDbui258?t=176 21 Curiously, every pp second iteration from all the performers is scarcely (if at all) softer than the p.

Figure 2.4 Bittendes Kind from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924) With no indication from the score, such interpretative decisions presumably stem from a shared oral tradition. As lessons were mostly given in groups of three students, each of these performers must have experienced Clara’s teaching of this movement.22

After all, Edith Heymann (1872-1960) tells us in her 1949 BBC interview that

Clara loved teaching Kinderszenen. Regarding Bittendes Kind, she recalls:

In this piece from the set, “Entreating Child,” she wanted us to keep a picture of the child kneeling with folded hands and to make the pleading question at the end very expressive.23

22 Students were given group lessons in three or four. “Es wurden stets bis zu vier Schüler zusammen bestellt, jeder erhielt eine halbe Stunde Unterricht, die übrige Zeit hörte man zu.“ Marie Wurm, “Meine zweijährige Studienzeit bei Clara Schumann.” Neue Musik-Zeitung 23 (1919): 282; “We had two lessons a week, with three other pupils in the room in order that we might profit by each others’ struggles.” Marie Fromm, “Some Reminiscences of My Music Studies with Clara Schumann.” The Musical Times 73, no. 1073 (1932): 615. 23 Edith Heymann, “On Schumann’s Kinderszenen,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. Edith Heymann studied with Clara Schumann in Clara’s final years 1894-95. Though retired from the public concert platform, Clara still played to her students. Allan Evans provides additional excerpts from her diary entries on his website: Allan Evans, “Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils and Colleagues,” Arbiter Records, last modified 14, November 2015. https://arbiterrecords.org/catalog/brahms-recaptured-by-pupils-and-colleagues/

36 In whatever way this chromatic inner voice may add to this image, Clara must have thought it consequential in portraying this entreating child.24

Likewise, in Hasche-Mann, Edith Heymann recalls Clara vehemently exclaiming, “staccatos, gradations, accents, sforzandos, must all come out clearly!”25

Figure 2.5 Hasche-Mann from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924) The affinity between the four (including Heymann’s) renditions reveals a shared conscientiousness in observing the notation by explicitly differentiating the articulation.26 In each of their versions, the pupil also performs rhythmically, taking care not to lose the beat.

As a contrasting example, Alfred Cortot’s 1935 recording of Kinderszenen reveals a performance tradition that differs from Clara’s. In this alternate reading,

Cortot takes many liberties with the notation typically avoided by Clara’s students.

For instance, in Hasche-Mann, he disregards the articulation markings and performs

24 The relevance of images will be discussed in detail in the chapter, “Images into Sound.” 25 Edith Heymann, “Kinderszenen: Hasche-Mann exc,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. 26 Adelina de Lara’s recording exemplifies this conscious delivery of articulation. Gullivior. “Adelina de Lara plays Schumann Kinderszenen Op. 15.” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/eWutTfXvuW8?t=132

37 with agility less grounded in rhythm.27 In addition, he adds a large caesura between mm. 16-17, a device he also uses between phrases in Bittendes Kind. As with the chromatic voice in Bittendes Kind, inner voices generally remain hidden as melodies take precedence. The purpose of this comparison is not to discredit other versions of

Kinderszenen, but to point out the traits specific to Clara’s students from a pure observational point of view. Cortot’s imaginative performance takes artistic liberties that disregard the notation – freedoms that Clara’s students abstain from.

Yet, the recordings from Clara’s students often do not correspond with each other. Fanny Davies and Carl Friedberg’s recordings of Fast zu Ernst and Kind im

Einschlummern, for example, yield widely opposing results. Beyond the outward divergence from one another, however, both performers vary their use of expressive devices accordingly to suit their characterization of the movements.

Following Ritter von Steckenpferd and its pure child-like excitement with a toy horse, Fast zu Ernst contemplates the serious deliberations of a child. For Fanny

Davies, the melody here is strung together and unbound to strict rhythm. Naturally breathing in and out, the motion – sometimes going forward or held back – reacts to the sensitive changes in melody, harmony, and inner voices.28 For instance, despite the crescendo, the melody lingers on the high notes in mm. 5-6. Likewise, with every introduction of a new voice (tenor in mm. 23-24, alto in mm. 26), Davies addresses these changes to the listener. Also noteworthy is how she varies the repeat by accentuating the tenor voice in mm. 10-15 but only in the repeat. In each instance,

27 Cortot’s 1935 recording of Hasche-Mann from Kinderszenen: Gullivior. “Alfred Cortot plays Schumann Kinderszenen Op. 15.” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/C48L65xIDLs?t=152 28 Pianopera. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Kinderszenen (1/2).” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/4ETFnpof3Xc?t=481

38 Davies directs the awareness of the listener to these nuances in the music as if to share discoveries from her study of the work.

For Carl Friedberg, this movement presents a melody that floats aimlessly. He intentionally obfuscates the rhythm in order to create a mystifying cloud of day- dreaming. As a result, dislocation of hands is imminent, and the voices seem to be inadvertently stacked on each other. In mm. 10-15, Friedberg brings out a different inner voice than Davies that occurs with the stacking of notes. Increasingly, it seems as if the piece will unravel into a state of unintelligible stream of consciousness. The melody meanders but does not quite consolidate into a point—perhaps just as the ponderings of a child do not materialize into words but remain in the subconscious.29

29 D60944. “Carl Friedberg (1872-1955): Schumann – Kinderszenen op. 15 (nos 10-13).” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/CNCSaFyIwWU

Figure 2.6 Fast zu Ernst from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

40 To obscure the rhythm in Fast zu Ernst, Fanny Davies and Carl Friedberg use the appropriate tools (rubato, dislocation) to an excessive degree in an effort to capture the drifting character of the piece.30 In Kind im Einschlummern, on the other hand, these tools are employed minimally. In Davies’ version, the clear beat pulsates ever so gently as not to stop the rhythmical swaying. Likewise, the chords are struck more synchronously. Yet, as in the previous example, she directs the attention to small changes in the music and makes them special by dwelling on them. For instance, in mm. 9-10, the melodic interval of the sixth is brought out and played gesturally, out of rhythm. Davies also reacts to the change in registers with tempo and character, as the music plunges into the bass in mm. 13-20. With a masterful ritardando, she comes to a stop – the final entry of the child into sleep.31

In Carl Friedberg’s rendition, the asynchronicity ubiquitous in the previous example is now subdued, almost non-existent. Bound to stillness, Friedberg chooses a slower tempo than Davies. Painfully patient at times, the rhythmic execution of this slow tempo causes the listener to fall into slumber. Perhaps that is the purpose of such a delivery: with such a suppressed and rhythmic tempo, the pianist and the listener enter a state of trance. But in some wakening instances, the child still recognizes moments of the subconscious thought processes (i. e. the final moments of

30 See Sandra Rosenblum’s article on how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century treatises explain how the displacement of rhythm in a melody indicates contrametric rubato, in which the melody is treated freely while the accompaniment remains rhythmically steady. Though we do not know whether Clara Schumann interpreted the notation of ‘Fast zu Ernst’ in such a way, Friedberg and Davies’ recordings suggest it as a possibility. “The Uses of Rubato in Music, Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries,” Performance Practice Review 7, no. 1 (1994): 33-53. 31 Pianopera. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Kinderszenen (2/2).” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/JSWpBtNnynY?t=83

41 clarity of the middle voice in mm. 21-24) before falling captive to the world of the unconscious.32

Figure 2.7 Kind im Einschlummern from Kinderszenen, Op. 15. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

32 D60944. “Carl Friedberg (1872-1955): Schumann – Kinderszenen op. 15 (nos 10-13).” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/CNCSaFyIwWU?t=204

42 While these two renditions show differences, both performers derive their interpretation of the work from a conscientious study of the notation. The intentional variation in the degree to which they employ unnotated expressive devices shows that these tools were not merely nineteenth-century mannerisms, but a product of carefully predesignated decisions based on their understanding of the work.

As a matter of fact, their differences enhance our grasp of Clara Schumann’s pedagogy. The unique characteristics of these performers suggest that Clara did not want a standardized school of pianism, but one that bases interpretative decisions on understanding of meaning drawn from the composition. This work to uncover detail, then, is an individual endeavor.

Contrary to what one may assume, two students of Clara affirm that her lessons were not focused on the details. Mathilde Verne, for example, summarizes

Clara’s teaching as “suggestive rather than explanatory.”

After a pupil had played an entire piece through, she would comment on the qualities of the interpretation. For instance, I have often heard her say: “You do not interpret the work poetically,” and again she would say: “You do not understand this Movement. It is not brilliant enough.” She rarely picked anyone's playing to pieces, but sought the complete emotional and intellectual whole. She never criticized with an expressionless face; therein lay her wonderful knowledge of how to bring true criticism home to a pupil.33

Likewise, Fanny Davies adds that “like all great artists she demanded the subordination of detail to the spirit of the whole.”34

33 Mathilde Verne, Chords of Remembrance (London: Hutchinson, 1937), 35. Mathilde Verne (1865-1936) studied for four years with Clara Schumann from 1882-86. In her memoirs, Chords of Remembrance (1936), she recounts her student years in Frankfurt. She, like many others, trained for several weeks with Marie and Eugenie Schumann before she studied under Clara. Also, she shares events not mentioned by other students. In one, Clara sits behind a screen to judge her students play a Scarlatti Sonata and a Clementi study. 34 The basis of her teaching was balance, both in technique and in musical interpretation. Like all great artists she demanded the subordination of detail to the spirit of the whole. The greatest care had to be taken by her pupils to acquire the command of a pure legato, even in the must rapid passages. “Miss Fanny Davies. A Biographical Sketch”. The Musical Times 46 (June 1905): 369.

43 Focused on the interpretative aspects, Clara was concerned with developing the student’s overarching understanding of the music. While Clara asserts the importance of an exacting study of the notation, the details are significant insofar as its contribution to a suitable interpretation of the work as a whole. Should one undergo a detailed study but miss the essence of the work, the work is all for naught.

As demonstrated in Davies and Friedberg’s performances, their illumination of less-obvious details serves to expose their particular outlook on the work.

Additional performance quirks that do not detract from the whole, then, may have been permitted by Clara. Thus, regardless of Friedberg’s tendency to double bass notes or embellish the harmonies, or Adelina de Lara’s impulsive rubatos, their musical intentions – for the most part – seem to reflect considerable interpretative deliberation. Continuing the tradition of their mentor, “the priestess,” these pupils strive to reveal to their listeners hidden secrets unearthed from the music through their dedicated study of the score.

44 CHAPTER III. IN SEARCH OF DAS GETRAGENE

In her article, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Fanny Davies writes that if one were to read a work of Schumann “like a piece of literature,” one would find several main characteristics – the first of which is “das Getragene:”

The long drawn deep breathing melody in one long line with one idea all through; which the Germans call “das Getragene” – “Eusebius,” in fact.1

It is curious that Fanny Davies begins with this unique concept, as oneness in melodic line and thought is not usually associated with Schumann’s works. After all,

Schumann modeled many of his works after the novels of Jean Paul and E. T. A.

Hoffmann which largely contain digressive and broken narratives and bizarre characters.2 Surely, singularity and continuity of thought would be antithetical to the ideals of Schumann? What does “das Getragene” entail, what does it contribute to the performance practice of Schumann, and how does it evoke the spirit of Eusebius in performance?

The Deutsches Wörterbuch gives two references to “Getragen“ in a musical context. In the first, it refers to the composer and music critic, Ferdinand Simon

Gaßner (1798-1851) who associates “Getragen” with:

… Sostenuto. It specifies that a passage or a movement should be performed with a carried, sustained tone as much as possible.3

1 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 215. 2 In his chapter “Schumann’s system of Musical Fragments and Witz,” John Daverio discusses Schumann’s use of musical fragmentation and its tendency to incomprehensibility as reflecting Jean- Paul’s model described in his Vorschule der Aesthetik (1804). John Daverio, Nineteenth-Century Music and the German Romantic Ideology. (New York: Schirmer, 1993): 49-88; likewise, Anthony Newcomb discusses literary concepts like ‘Humor’ which Schumann modeled his compositions after. He writes: “The aesthetic of the early Romantic novel prized incompleteness, interruption, digression, juxtaposition of opposites, even the avoidance of unequivocal closure.” Anthony Newcomb, “Schumann and the Marketplace: From Butterflies to Hausmusik,” in Larry Todd, ed., Nineteenth- Century Piano Music (New York: Routledge, 2004), 271. 3 “Zeigt an, daß eine Stelle oder ein Satz so viel als möglich mit getragenem, fortklingendem Tone vorgetragen werden soll.“ Ferdinand Simon Gaßner, “Sostenuto,” Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst (Stuttgart: Köhler, 1847), 792.

45 In his definition, Gaßner takes “tragen” literally (in German, “carried”) and gives the notion that this indicates a heavy, burdened manner of execution.

In the second definition, the linguist and philologist Johann Christoph

Adelung (1732-1806) relates it to portamento: “The carrying of the voice, in music, based on the Italian portamento, that reflects the precise and gentle tying of tones of a singer so that they appear to be under a singular stretched breath.”4

This association with portamento is unexpected: how is a vocal technique like portamento relevant to pianism? Johann Friedrich Agricola may give insight in his

1757 vocal treatise Anleitung zur Singekunst (Introduction to the Art of Singing). He writes:

Whoever places his determination will listen to the rules of the heart more than the laws of art. To carry the voice (portamento) means to side from one note to another without halting or placing the notes, all the while applying consistent pressure and without increasing or decreasing this pressure.5

According to his explanation, portamento applies to an entire string of notes in a passage. By discouraging an active placement of the note, he implies that the notes organically fall into place without the active impetus of the performer. Also, characterizing it within the ‘rules of the heart,’ he suggests that this technique results from intuition.

4 “Das Tragen der Stimme, in der Musik, nach dem Ital. il Portamento di voce, die genaue und sanfte an einander Schließung der Töne von dem Sänger, daß sie nur ein einziger lang gedehnter Hauch zu seyn scheinen.“ Johann-Christoph Adelung, “Tragen,“ Versuch eines vollständigen grammatisch- kritischen Wörterbuches der Hochdeutschen Mundart. 4 vol. (Leipzig: Breitkopf, 1780), 1022. 5 “Wer sich darinn fest setzen will, der höre mehr die Vorschriften des Herzens, als die Gesetze der Kunst. Die Stimme tragen (portar la voce) heißt, mit beständigem, an Stärke zu und abnehmenden Aushalten, ohne Aufhören und Absetzen, eine Note an die andere schleifen.“ Pier Francesco Tosi and Johann Friedrich Agricola, Anleitung Zur Singkunst (1757). (Celle: H. Moeck, 1966), 220. Agricola’s Anleitung is a translation of Pier Francesco Tosi’s Opinoni de‘ cantori antichi e moderni (1723) with an extensive commentary.

46 Giovanni Battista Mancini gives a similar description of portamento in his 1774 treatise, Practical Reflections on Figured Singing:

By this portamento of the voice is meant nothing but a passing, tying of the voice, from one note to the next with perfect proportion and union, as much in ascending as descending. It will become more and more beautiful and perfected the less it is interrupted by taking breath, because it ought to be a just and limpid gradation, which should be maintained and tied in the passage from one note to another.6

Though he specifies the activity between two notes, Mancini stresses the importance of relating the connected notes to the phrase as a whole – bound together and uninterrupted. Thus, these eighteenth-century interpretations of portamento give a broader definition of portamento than the sliding between two notes.

As a counter example, the nineteenth-century vocal pedagogue Manuel García

(1805-1906) defines portamento in his vocal treatise as “a means, by turns energetic or gracious, to color the melody.” He reserves the use of portamento for “the expression of vigorous feelings.” As for its execution, “it should be strong, full and rapid.”7 His examples imply that portamento is an activity between two notes

(Figure 3.1):

6 Giambattista Mancini, Practical Reflections on Figured Singing, trans. Edward Foreman (Champaign, IL: Pro Musica Press, 1967), 40. 7 Manuel Garcia, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing, trans. Donald Paschke (New York: Da Capo Press, 1975), 82.

Figure 3.1 Manuel Garcia, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing, trans. Donald Paschke. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1975), 82.

This narrower definition of portamento departs from the previous usage in its intentions: while the purpose of the eighteenth-century portamento was to connect an entire phrase, the nineteenth-century practice turned it into an effect to highlight the expressive intervals in a melody.8

Still, the idea of the eighteenth-century portamento survived into the early twentieth century. In describing the phrasing of the twentieth-century singer

Elisabeth Schumann (1888-1952), her student Elizabeth Puritz writes:

Phrases are most easily disturbed by a lack of legato, by a meaningless stress of individual words or syllables, or, on the other hand, by a sentimental slurring from one note to another. This, incidentally, must not be confused with a deliberate portamento, in which the joining line of tone is the finest gossamer thread. […] Lyrical passages require that intervals of pitch be bridged over by this finest of gossamer threads. Without it they sound choppy, and the line of the phrase is broken. But the thread is so fine that it is scarcely distinguishable as sound; the listener merely received the impression that there has been no interruption in the flow of breath from one note to another.9

8 In the nineteenth century, portamento was often freely exchanged (and confused) with the term Portato. In his treatise, Friedrick Wieck also writes of a technique where “the fingers must […] play into the keys with a certain firmness” without which “no lovely portamento, no piquant staccato, no lovely accentuation can be expected.” Friedrich Wieck, Piano and Song: (Didactic and Polemical): the Collected Writings of Clara Schumann's Father and Only Teacher, trans. Henry Pleasants (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1988), 102. 9 Elizabeth Puritz, The Teachings of Elisabeth Schumann (London: Methuen, 1956), 100-101.

48 This idea of portamento as a “gossamer thread” coincides with its earlier definitions that link it back to Fanny Davies’ definition of “Das Getragen.”

The instruction “getragen” appears in two of Robert Schumann’s works: the

Andantino from his second Piano Sonata Op. 22 and the final movement of his

Fantasy, Op. 17 – Langsam getragen Durchweg leise zu halten. Adelina de Lara recorded both of these works, and she speaks of balance in the final movement of the Fantasy in her BBC lecture of 1954.

I feel a balance without any undue accent. A sort of swaying movement, hardly perceptible, but it is there.10

She then demonstrates the first few measures of this movement in a poised manner that achieves a fluidity of motion through its swaying accompanimental figure. The sostenuto melody emerges amidst the continuous accompaniment – both carried forth with the deep pulsating breaths. Such a performance seems to correspond to

Mancini and Agricola’s report of portamento with its focus on an uninterrupted line.

Figure 3.2 Langsam getragen from Fantasie, Op. 17. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

10 Adelina de Lara, “Clara Schumann and her Teaching,” BBC Broadcast, 1954. https://youtu.be/j0H0P6094-8?t=422 (accessed August 5, 2019).

49 It is a curious case that Schumann chooses to close this monumental work, wrought with fantastic passion and unrelenting rhythmic drive, with “das Getragene.”

Perhaps the music represents the performer in an altered state of consciousness, a sort of trance that is not broken by spontaneous thought, accents or rhythm. This distinguishes “das Getragene” from “Cantabile” which require those variants in accentuation of individual notes discouraged by Agricola. After all, in the Fantasy, it is not a human voice but the murmuring of a spirit that is evoked.

In her article, Fanny Davies describes Schumann’s Romance in F-sharp major,

Op. 28, no. 2 as “one of the greatest examples of that characteristic of Eusebius – das

Getragene.”11 She writes:

Of course, the charm of this beautiful little poem is just its simplicity, and ‘Einfach’ is Schumann’s word, as guide to the spirit of the work. Clara Schumann was especially fond of this work and her direction was, for the first section, ‘Innerlich ruhig’ (keep quiet inside); and in the second section the feeling of pressing forward must never become obvious and thus degenerate into an accelerando, which would not only upset the balance but would suddenly represent Eusebius in the spirit of Florestan! The emotional balance of the whole work must ever be repose – and the performer must be physically reposeful if he is to enter the mental repose and convey that to the listener.12

Composure, refrain from forward movement, balanced proportion: these are concepts that relate to Agricola and Mancini’s description of portamento. The constant repose in Eusebius’ character, then, personifies “das Getragene.” Yet, how would these concepts translate into sound? How do the students of Clara Schumann demonstrate “das Getragene” in their recording of this work – if at all?

In his performance, Carl Friedberg takes the “Einfach” (Simple) in this

Romance quite literally. In comparison to his other recordings, he employs

11 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 218. 12 Ibid., 218.

50 expressive devices such as asynchronicity and tempo fluctuation minimally. One might even dare to say his rhythm borders on metronomic, if he did not also achieve this ever-so-slight swaying suggested by Fanny Davies. He captures the spirit of the music precisely through the absence of these expressive tools typically deemed as

“musical.” Only when the music reaches a heightened state of tension (mm. 15-17, mm. 25-30) are these expressive gestures used to a greater degree. Reserving these unnotated tools for such moments, Carl Friedberg finds the general expression of this work in the absence of these devices.13

13 There are two extant recordings of Carl Friedberg performing Schumann’s Romance: (1) from a memorial concert for his friend and cellist Felix Salmond on May 9, 1952 at the Juilliard School and (2) from his 1953 Zodiac studio recording. The circumstances (live performance vs. studio recording) likely attribute to the differences in result, though both keep the use of the aforementioned expressive devices to a minimum. The former performance yields a more ‘sentimental’ affect with its slightly faster tempo and more nuanced timing, probably due to Friedberg’s heightened emotional state. The latter recording is comparatively tentative and reserved. “Musical service in memory of Felix Salmond; May 9, 1952,” Juilliard Performance Recordings, May 19, 2020. http://jmedia.juilliard.edu/digital/collection/p16995coll3/id/10985; Carl Friedberg Playing Schumann and Brahms. Zodiac Records Z-1001, 1954.

Figure 3.3 Romance, Op 28. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

52 On this topic of expressivity, Ilona Eibenschütz shares an anecdote of a lesson with Clara Schumann. Upon being asked, “When you play like that, what are you trying to express?”, she responded, “I am trying to express myself.”14

“Don’t you think that Beethoven is greater than you?” the Frau enquired gently. “You must lose your own personality in the endeavour to reproduce the much greater thoughts and feelings of the masters. There is no greatness for the representative artist without reverence for the composer.”15

Clara saw a division between expressing oneself and expressing the composer’s artistic intention. Surely, this rebellious student did not heed her teacher’s advice as

Clara confided to Brahms: “Between ourselves, I do not think Ilona understands the pieces as they need to be understood. She goes too quickly over everything.”16 Ilona

Eibenschütz’ recording of Schumann’s Romance, however, surprises the listener with her patiently ebbing stillness.17 She too could subdue her otherwise fiery personality and remove her penchant for wild rhythmic and dynamic flexibility in order to achieve “innerliche Ruhe.” Her fiery side does emerge, but ever so briefly in m. 28 upon the return to the home key after brief excursions into foreign harmonies.

14 Jerrold Moore, Liner notes for Pupils of Clara Schumann. Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc, 29. 15 Ibid. 16 Michael Musgrave, “Early Trends in the Performance of Brahms’s Piano Music,” in Performing Brahms: Early Evidence of Performance Style, ed. Michael Musgrave and Bernard D. Sherman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 316. 17 Eibenschütz’ recording of Schumann’s Romance (1950) was published in Pupils of Clara Schumann. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc. Pianopera. “Ilona Eibenschütz plays Schumann (Romanze) and Brahms (Intermezzo).” YouTube, January 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/XV6ji84-8IA

Figure 3.4 Romance, Op. 28. Instructive Edition Personal Copy (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

Another noticeable feature in Eibenschütz’ recording is her discovery and accentuation of the inner voices in mm. 13-15, which remain hidden in most performances. Indeed, even the temperamental Eibenschütz accepts Clara’s instructions and submits herself to the music. Eibenschütz’ daughter attests:

She [Eibenschütz] made the music itself the thing that mattered, just as it was the music, and not the performance of it, that mattered to her. […] A magic touch, charm & integral musicianship, veneration & love for the composer whose work she was playing, kept one’s immediate & whole attention.18

Lastly, Fanny Davies gives one more definition of “das Getragene” in a separate article as “the giving of full value to the inner voices (but never to the detriment of the whole picture).”19 The framework for the quote aids in the interpretation of her definition, as she writes that even the subtle inner voices take part in “forming a well-balanced whole that fits the idea [Schumann] wishes at the

18 Jerrold Moore, Liner notes for Pupils of Clara Schumann. Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc, 29. 19 Fanny Davies, “About Schumann’s Pianoforte Music,” The Musical Times 51, no. 810 (1910): 494.

54 moment to convey.”20 Thus, according to Fanny Davies, unity in concept requires the realization of inner voices, a key characteristic found in the recordings of Clara’s students.

From what we have seen, ‘das Getragene’ involves a meditative stillness in performance to achieve a singularity and continuity of sentiment. This manner of performance would seem applicable wherever the spirit of Eusebius resides. To conclude, Eugenie Schumann reminisces to her sister Elise Sommerhoff in a letter after her mother’s passing.

No, in the last weeks mama could not tolerate any music. The last piece that she appreciated was Papa’s F-sharp major Romance from Op. 28 with the ever diminishing C[-sharp] at the end. […] It was an early spring day in mid- March. The windows were left wide open for the music, and Ferdinand had to perform the piece. After he finished, she said softly, “Now, it is enough.”21

With these ever-diminishing C-sharps, Clara closes her ears to music. Yet Eugenie reassures her sister that the sound does not end but “das Getragene” serenely continues into that other realm: “It fades into the unperceivable, the unheard, but it vanishes not, it ends not…”22

20 “The salient features of Schumann's pianoforte music are in its great rhythmical variety and complexity, the extraordinary wealth and ‘fineness’, or subtlety, (Feinheit) of inner voices, all forming a well-balanced whole that fits the idea he wishes at the moment to convey.” Ibid., 493. 21 “Nein, Mama konnte in den letzten Wochen keine Musik mehr vertragen. Das Letzte, was sie wahr nahm, war Papas Fis-Dur-Romanze aus op. 28 mit dem immer leiser werdenden C am Ende; das versicherte mir Marie, die dabei saß. Es war ein Vorfrühlingstag Mitte März, die Fenster vom Musik immer standen offen und Ferdinand musste ihr das Stück vorspielen. Nachdem er geendet, sagte Mama leise: ‚Es ist nun genug.‘“ Letter, Eugenie Schumann to her sister, Elise Sommerhoff, November 9, 1897. 22 “Es verklingt ins Unhörbare, Unerhörte, aber es vergeht nicht, es endet nicht… ” Ibid.

55 CHAPTER IV. ON J. S. BACH, „DAS TÄGLICHE BRÖT“

Diligently play the Fugues from the good master, above all from Joh. Seb. Bach. The “Well- Tempered Clavier” should be your daily bread. Then, you will certainly become a competent musician.1

Clara and Robert Schumann viewed Bach’s music as a sort of ‘spiritual’ nourishment to the aspiring musician. In his “Musikalische Haus- und

Lebensregeln,” Robert even alluded to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier as “daily bread,” essentially branding it as a kind of Bible for the musician.2 The virtuous musician, then, had a duty to study, understand, and consume this work for his musical edification. Likewise, Bach played a fundamental role in Clara’s pedagogy. In fact,

Mathilde Wendt recalled: “For Clara, Bach counted as daily bread for the student.”3

A page from Edith Heymann’s practice diary from October 1894 reveals the consistency with which Clara demanded of her students to study Bach.

[Clara] said half an hour’s Bach a day sufficient and yet to learn a fresh prelude and fugue every week and always keep in practice two former ones as well! Perfectly impossible for me to do it in that time; came home very disgusted with myself…4

Bach, however, did not merely serve as an exercise in musical discipline; for Clara,

Bach was a religious ritual. In her BBC interview, Heymann describes a New Year’s practice:

1 “Spiele fleißig Fugen guter Meister, vor Allem von Joh. Seb. Bach. Das ‚wohltemperirte Clavier‘ sei dein täglich Brod. Dann wirst du gewiß ein tüchtiger Musiker.” Robert Schumann, “Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln,“ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 32, no. 36 (May 1850): 2-3. 2 Bodo Bischoff discusses Robert Schumann’s involvement with the founding of the Bach Gesellschaft in 1850. Bodo Bischoff, “Das Bach-Bild Robert Schumanns,“ in Bach und die Nachwelt, edited by Michael Heinemann and Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1997), vol. 1, 421-499; see also: Meebae Lee, “Rewriting the Past, Composing the Future: Schumann and the Rediscovery of Bach” (dissertation, The City University of New York, 2011). 3 “Bach galt ihr als das tägliche Brot für den Schüler.“ Mathilde Wendt, “Meine Erinnerungen an Clara Schumann,“ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 37, no. 38 (1919): 233. 4 Allan Evans, Liner notes for Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Carl Friedberg, Trio of New York, Edith Heymann, Marie Baumayer, Ilona Eibenschütz, Etelka Freund. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc, 21.

56 Madame Schumann used to begin the new year by playing Bach. It was quite a religious rite. […] In Bach’s music she remains supreme to those who heard her. It was indeed a spiritual experience, never to be forgotten.5

While her exaggerated language exposes sentimental devotion, Clara’s other students and colleagues similarly portray her as a faithful disciple of Bach.

For example, Fanny Davies recalls that Clara perceived herself as the

“truthful” protector and proselytizer of the tradition that Bach established. Davies writes:

The Schumann tradition does not begin with Schumann! It begins with Bach, and goes on through Beethoven, and all the great Masters who lived in an age in which one could find time for contemplation.6

One felt that she was in this world for the sole purpose of expounding the messages of the great Masters. A devout single-mindedness in Art, and towards Art, stamped her whole personality with the charm of a triumphant truthfulness.7

Adelina de Lara also considered Clara Schumann as the torchbearer of this tradition.

Echoing Clara, de Lara shares that tradition is a time-capsule intercepted through lineage. She thus discredits contemporary musicians (who do not possess this tradition) for their modern editions which falsify music of the past.8 For this reason, heavily-edited editions by contemporary musicians kindled Clara Schumann’s righteous anger. Should a student bring such an edition to the lesson, she faced the wrath of her teacher…

5 Edith Heymann, Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. 6 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 215. 7 Henry Walbrook, “Some Schumann Memories. A Conversation with Miss Fanny Davies,” Pall Mall Magazine 207 (1910): 64. 8 “THE interpretation of pianoforte music as taught by my Clara Schumann, is a matter of tradition; and tradition much in those days now so far off. We are not merely guided by editions brought out, more or less responsibly, by contemporary musicians.” Adelina de Lara, “Clara Schumann's Teaching,” Music & Letters 26, no. 3 (1945): 143.

57 Le Beau’s Memoirs

In the summer of 1874, Luise Adolpha Le Beau (1850-1927) sought out Clara

Schumann for lessons. In her memoirs, she shares her first lesson where she brings

Hans von Bülow’s edition of Bach’s D-minor Gavotte:9

In my guilelessness and my complete ignorance of the circumstances, [I committed] the greatest imprudence and played Bach’s D-minor Gavotte (by memory) for her with Bülow’s performance suggestions. In doing so, I unknowingly provoked her. Irritated, she said it was a pity that ‘with such fingers,’ the instructions were wrong; I play with an entirely erroneous perception! A pianist like Bülow would allow himself anything – ‘We, musicians, do it differently!’10

So began this complicated relationship between teacher and student. Clara’s dismissal of von Bülow’s edition as well as his musicianship left a sour impression on the young student.

Le Beau’s honest account proves to be one of the most insightful and entertaining of reports, as she eventually defects to the opposite side and takes refuge under von Bülow who becomes Le Beau’s greatest advocate. From the point of view of a dissident, Le Beau’s struggles depict Clara as the failed teacher whose lack of sympathy, warmth, and encouragement almost destroyed Le Beau’s self-worth as a pianist.11 Notwithstanding her initial earnest attempt to submit herself to Clara’s

9 A contemporary of Le Beau, Alfred Grünfeld (1852-1924) recorded the Bach’s D-minor Gavotte in 1908. Though Clara would have certainly disapproved of the amount of staccato in this performance, it captures a 19th century approach to Bach that is full of rhythmic vitality. The music is accessible via: https://youtu.be/q1xzBALZq2Q 10 “[Ich beging] in meiner Arglosigkeit und völligen Unkenntnis der Verhältnisse die größte Unklugheit und spielte ihr Bachs D-Moll-Gavotte (allerdings auswendig) in Bülow’scher Vortragsbezeichnung vor. Damit forderte ich unbewußt ihre Gereiztheit heraus. Sie sagte, es sei schade, daß ‚bei solchen Fingern‘ die Anleitung falsch gewesen sei; ich spiele mit ganz verkehrter Auffassung! Ein Pianist wie Bülow könne sich ja alles erlauben – ‚wir Musiker machen das anders!‘” Luise Le Beau, Lebenserinnerungen einer Komponisten (Baden-Baden: Emil Sommermeyer Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1910), 48. 11 “Meine Tagebuchnotiz lautet: ‚Ihre Auffassung ist wirklich sehr schön und ich kann viel bei ihr lernen, wenn sie auch nicht so brummig sein sollte, wie sie ist! Liebenswürdigkeit besitzt sie nicht; sagt alles so ungeduldig, selbst brutal, daß ich leider wenig Sympathie für sie behalten kann.‘” Le Beau, Lebenserinnerungen einer Komponisten, 48.

58 teachings, Le Beau found Clara’s instructions confusing – inflexible in musical interpretation, yet full of contradictions. For instance, in her next lesson, Le Beau confides in her memoirs:

Then I played Bach’s D-minor Gavotte. In the Musette, she said: “Haven’t you ever heard a Savoyarden?12 It should be played straight like a barrel organ!” – Although this went against my every feeling and conviction and I would never have otherwise dared to ruin the great Thomaskantor in this manner, I needed to trust Frau Schumann and attempted to play as inexpressively as possible. As I came to the end, she surprised me with an exclamation: “It lacks spirit!” I noted in my diary: “One needs to be superhuman in order to unite a barrel organ with spirit!” Am I not wrong to think that Frau Schumann wants to bully me? … And it went on with pure trivialities; what she wanted in one lesson, she contradicted in the next…13

Le Beau felt victimized, as her futile attempts to please her teacher were met with little approval. This excerpt succinctly reveals the divergence of their musical philosophy. Set on unveiling Bach’s vision of the piece, Clara asks Le Beau to envision a hurdy-gurdy. For Clara, the hurdy-gurdy must be played rhythmically with little variation in pulse and articulation, which captures Bach’s spirit in the music. Le Beau, however, translates Clara’s statement as “play mechanically without expression, rubato, and articulation” which Le Beau attempts with all her might. The distinction lies in two words: spirit vs. expression (Ausdruck). In her perception of

Clara’s interpretation, expression plays no role in this work and one must strive to

12 A Savoyarden refers to a type of hurdy-gurdy used by the musicians of Savoy. 13 “Ich spielte nun Bachs D-Moll-Gavotte. Bei der Musette sagt sie: ‚Haben Sie noch nie einen Savoyarden gehört? Gerade wie eine Drehorgel muß das gespielt werden!‘ – Obgleich mir dies sehr gegen Gefühl und Überzeugung ging und ich nirgends gewagt haben würde, den großen Thomaskantor so zu verderben, mußte ich bei Frau Schumann dennoch daran glauben und mich bemühen, so ausdruckslos wie möglich zu spielen. Als ich zu Ende war, überraschte sie mich mit der Ausstellung: ‚Der Spiritus fehle!‘ ‚Man muß allerdings übermenschlich weit sein, um Drehorgel und Spiritus zu vereinigen‘ notierte ich in mein Tagebuch! Mußte ich da nicht denken, Frau Schumann wolle mich schikanieren? ... So ging es fort mit lauter Kleinlichkeiten; was sie in einer Stunde haben wollte, widersprach sie in der nächsten…“ Ibid, 48-49.

59 capture the inherent spirit of the music, while for Le Beau, expression is the spirit of the music.

Given Clara’s description of the piece and Le Beau’s mention of the Musette,

Le Beau must have erred: the G-minor English Suite BWV 808 (not the D-minor) contains a Musette that follows the Gavotte with a bass that imitates the drone of a hurdy-gurdy. Le Beau most likely played this piece for Clara Schumann.

Figure 4.1 Gavotte II from Bach’s English Suite in G minor (Henle Verlag, 1971)

In her interview, Edith Heymann recalls playing this Musette for Clara who marked in her score pp and circled the repeated pedal notes. Following these instructions,

Heymann creates a unique effect that imitates the hurdy-gurdy. The performance is otherwise straight-forward, legato throughout with minimal variation in tempo. If an interpretation like this was Clara’s ideal, Le Beau must have found this rendition nonsensical, dull, and certainly inexpressive.

Yet, Le Beau is not vindictive in her memoirs of Clara, as she fairly accesses the unraveling of their relationship. For one, Le Beau admires Clara’s playing and even praises her Beethoven playing as “unsurpassed.” As for her rendition of Robert

Schumann:

60 Robert Schumann certainly had an effect on her art that was transfiguring, even liberating! She played his works beautifully, at times with more mind than heart – at least for my feelings.14

Though she praises Clara’s playing of Schumann, Le Beau shrewdly notes that Clara plays with more “mind than heart.”15 It is Clara’s Bach playing that gets the brunt of her criticism:

She replicated Bach in the old Leipzig way (without expression), which Wagner accordingly labeled as “Greek serenity.”16

By pinpointing Clara’s lack of Ausdruck to her allegiance to the Leipzig school of playing, Le Beau attributes the discord in their relationship to Clara’s defense of the weakening Leipzig school against the gaining popularity of the Liszt-Wagnerian school. In a way, Le Beau sees herself as the projected object of Clara’s aversion to her opponents.

With her serious, dignified approach to performance, Frau Schumann must have felt uncomfortable by the current realm of virtuosity, whose most brilliant representative was Franz Liszt. In fact, Liszt spoke very approvingly of the young Clara Schumann in earlier times, and she was fascinated by Liszt’s playing. Later, though, she stood against the Liszt school as well as the works of Richard Wagner, and the more their success increased, the more her resentment against this new school grew. In 1873, the realm of virtuosity had become the norm, and the old Leipzig school fell into decline.17

Thus, Le Beau – a child prodigy who had thought of herself as a talented pianist – explains Clara’s behavior towards her as part of her agenda to “undo” her training as

14 “Robert Schumann wirkte sicherlich auch auf ihre Kunst verklärend, ja befreiend! Sie spielte seine Werke schön, zuweilen mit mehr Verstand als Herz - für mein Gefühl wenigstens.“ Ibid, 47. 15 This observation will be discussed shortly in relation to Hanslick’s article on Clara Schumann. 16 “Bach reproduzierte sie in der alten Leipziger Weise (ohne Ausdruck), die Wagner so treffend als „griechische Heiterkeit“ bezeichnet.“ Ibid, 47. 17 “Bei ihrer ernsten, gediegenen Richtung mußte Frau Schumann sich durch das eigentliche Virtuosentum, dessen glänzendster Repräsentant Franz Liszt war, unangenehm berührt fühlen. Zwar sprach sich Liszt seiner Zeit sehr anerkennend über die junge Clara aus, und diese war von Liszts Spiel begeistert. Später aber stand sie der Liszt’schen Schule wie den Werken von Richard Wagner unfreundlich gegenüber, und ihr Groll gegen die neue Richtung wuchs, je großartiger sich deren Erfolge mehrten. Im Jahr 1873 stand man schon völlig unter dem Zeichen der Virtuosentums, und die alte Leipziger Methode befand sich Niedergang.“ Ibid, 47.

61 a virtuoso pianist. Le Beau cannot accept the “removal of self-expression” as a musical virtue, which leads to her eventual resolution not to return to Clara but to reach out to Hans von Bülow who revives her motivation and self-confidence as a performer. The curious case of Luise Le Beau thus offers immense insight into the teachings of Clara.

Illumination through Understanding (Beleuchtung durch Verstand)

Le Beau writes that Clara reproduced Bach in the “old Leipzig way.” For her, the notion of simple reproduction deprives a performance of expressivity. But this idea of conservation by reproduction is precisely what Clara sought. Fanny Davies echoes the philosophy of her teacher, as she equates the performer as the agent whose vision must be subservient to that of the composer. In other words, the vision

(or “picture”) is already there; the performer must simply reveal it.

Unfortunately, the composer cannot dispense with the reproducer. Has not, then, the reproducer a very great responsibility, and ought he not to ‘know his place’ when he comes in contact with a genius like Schumann’s? To pick out certain details arbitrarily, and grossly to exaggerate them, thereby destroying the whole true proportion of the parts the composer has laid stress upon, is often the only way a player knows of being original.18

Davies asserts that a musical masterpiece has an architectural structure with inherent properties of “true proportion.” She then criticizes the performer who, in an effort to be “original,” distorts this balance by “exaggerating” details. Exaggeration has no justified purpose as it does not contribute to the work’s meaning. It is small wonder that during lessons with Clara, “affectations, self-conscious effects, and

‘improvements’ on the composer’s intentions were barred like poison.”19

18 Fanny Davies, “About Schumann’s Pianoforte Music,” The Musical Times 51, no. 810 (1910): 493-4. 19 Henry Walbrook, “Some Schumann Memories. A Conversation with Miss Fanny Davies,” Pall Mall Magazine 207 (1910): 65.

62 In his 1856 Neue Freie Presse article on Clara Schumann, the music critic

Eduard Hanslick presents Clara as the model of the reproducing artist. This piece captures how Clara applies theory into practice through three main topics:

(1) The subordination of one’s subjectivity (2) The revealing of the work’s inherent architecture (3) Illumination (“Beleuchtung”) through intellectual understanding of the work

The three concepts function sequentially: (1) allows for (2) through which (3) can be achieved.

As an ally of Schumann and Brahms, Hanslick portrays Clara as a prophet who “proclaimed the gospels of the strict German masters” that include Bach,

Beethoven, and Schubert, but also contemporaries such as Chopin and Henselt.20

According to Hanslick, Clara holds a vital place in musical history by establishing the

Germanic canon and resisting modern music – such as that of Wagner and Liszt – plagued by virtuosic display. Hanslick writes:

With her playing, Clara Schumann gives a consummate reproduction of each musical work which she conceptualizes in its entirety, examines in the finest detail, and revives in the original concept of the composer. Clara regarded the true artistic subordination of her own subjectivity to the intention of the tone- poet as an unbreakable law.21

For Hanslick, this subordination enables Clara to awaken the work in the spirit of its conception. He implies that it is not only Clara’s overarching understanding of a work, but her examination of details that serves as a key function in achieving this

20 “Als junges Mädchen schon stellte sich Clara Wieck dem flachen Getändel der Virtuosität abseit und verkündigte eine der Ersten das Evangelium der strengen deutschen Meister.“ Eduard Hanslick, “Musikalische Briefe,” in Sämtliche Schriften Band I, 3, ed. Dietmar Strauß (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 1995), 200. 21 “Clara Schumann gibt mit ihrem Spiel eine vollkommene Reproduction jedes Tonwerks, das sie im Großen und Ganzen aufgenommen, im feinsten Detail durchforscht und nun treu im Sinne des Tondichters wiederbelebt. Das echt künstlerische Unterordnen der eigenen Subjectivität unter die Absicht des Tondichters achtet Clara Schumann als unverbrüchliches Gesetz.“ Ibid.

63 revival of the work. His reading resonates with the thoughts of Fanny Davies: reproduction, then, is the highest aim for the performing musician.

The main task that the artist [Clara] confronts is to clearly reveal each work in its inherent musical style and within its pure musical proportions and distinctions. […] For those listeners who wish to be awestruck, let them not be blamed for wishing for a small but bold deviation from the straight lines of the Greek profiles. […] Clara does not produce an enrapturing, powerful, moving effect. Her playing is the faithful image of the great compositions, but not an unleashing of her own immense personality.22

Hanslick praises Clara for remaining truthful to the work in its inherent properties – including its peculiarities, yet not deviating from the straight lines of the “Greek profiles” in order to please the listeners with arbitrary effects or virtuosic display.

Eugenie Schumann also compares her mother’s playing to grand architecture that captivates the viewer:

I felt towards my mother’s playing as towards a monument of Gothic art, where the strict symmetry of all the lines which tend upward to the highest point seems ever new to the eye, however often we may have looked upon it. She built up every piece of music grandly, passionately, logically. There was no hurry, no sudden climax; conforming to strict artistic laws, yet apparently spontaneous and free, each creation flowed from the hand of the artist, holding the listener in thrall to the end.23

Eugenie points out the paradox: the fixed structure remains the same, but each viewing appears new to the eye. Just as the strict lines of Gothic architecture guide the eye to the top, Clara dutifully follows the artistic laws of the music to its climax.

Only by subjecting herself to the strict laws of the work does Clara become a suitable

22 “Jedes Werk in seinem eigenthümlichen musikalischen Styl und innerhalb dessen wieder in seinen rein musikalischen Proportionen und Unterschieden deutlich zur Erscheinung zu bringen, ist allzeit die Hauptaufgabe, welche die Künstlerin sich stellt. [...] Falls etwa manchem der letzteren [Hörer die ergriffen sein wollen] eine kleine kühne Abweichung von der reinen Gradlinigkeit der griechischen Profile erwünscht gewesen wäre, so ließe sich dies darum nicht tadeln. […] Hinreißend, gewaltig, ergreifend wirkt Clara Schumann nicht. Ihr Spiel ist getreuestes Abbild großartiger Compositionen, aber nicht Entfesselung einer eigenen gewaltigen Persönlichkeit.“ Ibid., 201. 23 Eugenie Schumann, The Schumanns and Johannes Brahms: The Memoirs of Eugenie Schumann, trans. Marie Busch (New York: L. MacVeagh, 1927), 198.

64 vessel through which the music can sound “spontaneous and free.” True freedom, according to Clara, does not come from a freedom from rules but the fulfillment of them. Truly Protestant in origin, this concept asserts that by abiding by the moral law of the text (the “Word”) which one must personally study, one can experience the fullness of truth which sets one free.24 By refraining from taking personal license,

Clara gives space for the images of the compositions to appear. Hanslick observes that this is evident even in her touch and contrasts it with that of others:

The small accents that she often used and loved are strangely unlike the accentuation with which most pianists attempt to place their own feelings in every single note. In the latter, it is affectation and subjective sentiment; hers is constant careful illumination of rhythmic and harmonic contrasts.25

In place of affectation, Clara provides clarity of the music’s natural properties in its distinct harmonies and rhythm.

The final comment that Hanslick makes reflects the male hegemony of the time: Clara achieves illumination by denying her femininity:26

Nothing feminine, fluid, or effusive in feeling prevails in the playing of Clara Schumann: it is all intentional, clear, specific, like a sketch with a pencil.27

24 John 8:31-32 (ESV) So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 25 “Die häufigen kleinen Accente, die sie liebt, unterscheiden sich merkwürdig von dem Nachdruck, mit welchem die meisten Pianistinnen in jede einzelne Note ein eigenes Gefühl zu legen suchen; was hier Affectation der subjectiven Empfindung, ist dort stets nur sorgfältiges Beleuchten rhythmischer der harmonischer Gegensätze.“ Ibid., 202. 26 Regarding the role of gender, Nancy Reich writes in her biography. “There was no question of a ‘weaker sex’ as far as Clara Schumann’s musicianship was concerned. She had been trained as a professional, she was a figure of power and authority in the musical world before she was forty, and as an artist was either extravagantly admired or fiercely criticized by both men and women. […] She was generally regarded as unique, almost above gender.” Nancy Reich, Clara Schumann, the Artist and the Woman, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985): 177. April Prince challenges this view of Clara as overcoming her gender; rather, she writes that gender played a role in forming Clara’s performance identity as it “demanded constant mediation.” April L. Prince, “(Re)Considering the Priestess: Clara Schumann, Historiography, and the Visual,” Women and Music 21 (2017), 110. 27 “Nichts Weibliches, Zerflossenes, Gefühlsüberschwengliches herrschte in dem Spiel Clara Schumanns: es ist alles bestimmt, klar, scharf, wie eine Bleistiftzeichnung.“ Hanslick, 202.

65 In other words, Clara suppresses not only her personality but her sex and alleged tendency to allow “emotions to outweigh reason.”28 To overcome her female weakness for sensation, Clara maintains a masculine intellect – the means through which Beleuchtung of a musical work is possible. Even in the more “feminine” pieces

(generally slower with more Empfindung), Clara remains level-headed, not allowing her mind to be overridden by excess of feeling:

Even in this predominantly feminine territory of expression, the performance of the artist sounded with more understanding than feeling.29

Hanslick’s praise of the masculine Clara reveals more about the culture of the time than her actual playing; yet, it is probably just this perception of her that enabled her to achieve status in the music world.30 For instance, Joachim Raff justified hiring

Clara in the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt in 1879 by calling her a man:

With the exception of Madame Schumann there is no woman and there will not be any women employed in the Conservatory. As for Madame Schumann, I count her as a man.31

Hanslick does give one gentle criticism of Clara for the very thing he praises in her playing. He questions whether gaining clarity through understanding (Beleuchtung durch Verstand) is the end goal of every musical work. For instance, in Chopin’s music, he deliberates: does it need to be illuminated by reason?

However, whether Chopin’s music benefits from it – that one should cast daylight upon a dreamlike chiaroscuro – is not for us to decide.32

28 His choice of adjectives expresses the 19th century view of the female susceptibility to emotions (note the word, “Gefühlsüberschwengliches”). 29 “Auch in diesem ganzen vorzugsweise weiblichen Bereich des Ausdrucks wollte uns der Vortrag der Künstlerin mehr tief verständig, als tief empfunden klingen.“ Ibid. 30 In her article, “(Re)Considering the Priestess,” April Prince describes Clara Schumann as “one of the preeminent symbols for this masculine aesthetic.” (i. e. Werktreu) In this regard, using visual evidence, Prince suggests that Clara, in fact, “was able to […] embolden (rather than degrade) the ascendancy of the masculine.” April L. Prince, “(Re)Considering the Priestess: Clara Schumann, Historiography, and the Visual,” Women and Music 21 (2017) 107-140. 31 Nancy Reich, Clara Schumann, 292. 32 “Ob aber auch Chopin’s Musik dadurch gewinne, daß man ihr süßträumendes Helldunkel durch taghelle Beleuchtung zerstreut, möchten wir nicht entscheiden.“ Hanslick, 202.

66 While not giving a clear opinion, Hanslick seems to suggest that the mystical shroud in Chopin’s music should not be deciphered through rhythmic and harmonic clarity but remain in obfuscation.

In this profile, Hanslick portrays Clara as a self-sacrificial figure deserving of admiration and respect for her religious obedience to music. In contrast to others, she does not perform for the purpose of pleasure, but as a spiritual, moral duty.33 The idea of Beleuchtung durch Verstand remains the overarching theme in Clara’s philosophy of performance, and every concept in this dissertation relates to her intention to reveal the work through understanding.

33 “In der Sucht, Allen gerecht zu werden, tragen sie aber den Keim der Zerstörung in sich selbst; denn auch die Musik ist eine moralische Macht, mit der sich nicht spaßen läßt.“ Ibid, 202-3.

67 The Nitty-Gritty Work: Dissecting Bach’s C-Minor Fugue

Figure 4.2 Reprint of a Christmas letter from Clara Schumann to Müller-Reuter in Bilder und Klänge des Friedens (W. Hartung, 1919).34

In this letter to the young Theodore Müller-Reuter, Clara Schumann presents her student with a different edition of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. She challenges him to develop the “highest conscientiousness” through the study of this music which involves more diligence than talent. But what did such a study involve?

A common piece that several of Clara’s students recall having studied with her is the C-minor Fugue, BWV 847, from the Well-Tempered Clavier. Combined, the students’ comments reveal a method with which Clara investigated a work in its details, and they point to the performance-practice questions that she asked.

34 “You will receive here a small Christmas present: the [Well]temp. Clavier from Bach (another edition from what you have). I hope that it will bring you joy and will motivate you to study diligently, namely [aiming] towards conscientiousness.“ Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens, 18.

68 Eugenie Schumann recalls the difficulty she faced while working on the opening of this piece. Clara Schumann would not budge from the first few measures until the smallest details were met to her liking – which include “a strictly legato playing with the finest rhythmical shading.”35 Once mastered, Eugenie confides that the rest of the fugue was a “won game.” Though ambiguous in her description,

Eugenie shares that a strict and disciplined study led to unlocking the challenges of the entire work.

Theodore Müller-Reuter’s descriptions of his lesson in 1873 on the C-minor

Fugue show the step-by-step process of the detailed study. Like Le Beau, Müller-

Reuter brings in a forbidden edition (he presumes it was the Czerny edition) which leads to a discussion of markings in editions – especially articulation.

Figure 4.3 Bach’s C-minor Fugue, BWV 847 Czerny’s Edition of Preludes and Fugues (Leipzig, 1863)

35 “Nach der Etüde kam eine Fuge von Bach, die in c-moll aus Heft 1 des Wohltemperierten Klaviers als erste. An dem Thema lernte ich streng gebundenes Spiel und feinste rhythmische Schattierung. Meine Mutter gab sich mit diesen wenigen Takten unsägliche Mühe; als ich sie dann aber zu ihrer Zufriedenheit ausführte, war die ganze Fuge gewonnenes Spiel, und ich lernte sie schnell so gut, daß ich sie mir zu eignem Vergnügen oft spielte.“ Eugenie Schumann, Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Engelhornverlag, 1925), 122-23.

69 Clara directs Müller-Reuter to a letter that Robert Schumann wrote to the music publisher Härtel:

In my opinion, there is still no good edition of the Well-Tempered Clavier by J. S. Bach. The Czerny edition with its unnecessary fingerings and ridiculous performance instructions is like a caricature; the older editions are for the most part incorrect. Therefore, I aim for the most accurate edition based on the autograph and the earliest prints with information on the different versions.36

Müller-Reuter explains that Clara did not explicitly forbid staccatos. Rather, she warned the performer against blindly following modern editions which present a

“caricature” of the original. To provide the contrast, Clara pulls out the Bach

Gesellschaft Edition.37 Müller-Reuter recalls:

For this reason, she took out the enormous Gesamtausgabe and placed it in front of the student which contained the ‘authentic’ reading. This read according to the autograph:38

Figure 4.4 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens (Leipzig: Hartung, 1919)

By providing this edition, Clara shows Müller-Reuter to what extent the additional performance indications falsify the text. More importantly, she teaches him that the job of the performer is to take part in this learning process of decrypting, analyzing and understanding the work of Bach prior to performing it.

36 “Es fehlt nämlich nach meiner Meinung noch an einer recht schönen Ausgabe des wohltemperierten Claviers von J. S. Bach. Die Czernysche mit ihrem unnötigen Fingersatze und den wirklich albernen Vortragsbezeichnungen u. scheint mir wie eine Caricatur; die älteren sind zum größten Teil incorrect. Also eine möglichst correcte, auf die Originalhandschrift und die ältesten Drucke gestütze, mit Angabe der verschiedenen Lesarten versehen Ausgabe bezweckte ich...“ Müller-Reuter, 19-20. 37 Johann Sebastian Bach, Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, in Bach Gesellschaft, ed. Franz Knoll (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1866). 38 “Zu diesem Zwecke griff sie zur großen Gesamtsausgabe und legte dem Schüler die darin enthaltene urkundliche Lesart vor. Diese lautet nach der Urhandschrift.” Müller-Reuter, 20.

70 The next section, replicated in full, shows Clara’s explication of the Fugue subject.

Figure 4.5 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens (Leipzig: Hartung, 1919)39

39 “Read it calmly through, sing it aloud, try to determine the hidden musical content of the melody, learn to read between the lines. Doesn‘t [something] lie in the main point of the melody – then she played – […] melancholy and a soft lament? Can you now imagine that staccato is not appropriate? Then she took it apart, so that the sixteenth notes with the adjacent eighth note were nothing less than an embellishment of a quarter-note C, which gave way to a syncopation through the removal of these ornaments, yielding the following subject: […] At the end, the following reading and execution arose from this thorough instruction: […] With that, the fugue had become a completely different, much more substantial piece of music.“ Ibid., 20.

71 This analytical progression demonstrates several aspects of Clara’s method.

First, she encourages the young student to “sing the melody, attempt to penetrate the hidden musical meaning of the melody, learn to read between the lines”. Clara asserts that the student must use the voice before turning to the intellect with the intent to find the meaning behind the notes.40 Then, she employs an analysis that isolates a skeletal outline of the key scale degrees. This framework unveils the character of the piece: “Wehmut und leise Klage” (Melancholy and soft lament).

Müller-Reuter notates Clara’s performance in the score with dynamic and phrase markings which trace her analytical thought-process. The phrase structure and dynamics are the outcome of Clara’s discovery of the work’s “true” character by

“reading between the lines.” Interpretation for Clara, then, is a matter of discovering the character of a work via analysis.41

Several years later, Müller-Reuter brings this piece back to Clara to see whether her tastes have changed over the years. He records the response:

Still, she remained constant in her resolve that a Bach melody must not be performed staccato. Spitta (see Johann Sebastian Bach I, p. 775) speaks of an ‘indescribable graceful, charming Fugue,’ but cannot help but remark that a ‘thoughtful line was not missing.’42

Clara’s consistent reproach lies not in the use of staccato, but that the staccato misrepresents the spirit of this fugue.

40 Clara’s main mentor – Friedrich Wieck – was deeply concerned with the pianist’s emulation of the singer in his work, Clavier und Gesang. Didaktisches und Polemisches. Whichling, Leipzig 1853. 41 Also noteworthy in these excerpts are Clara Schumann’s slur markings over the barline, which shows Clara as a product of the nineteenth century. Pretty much universal by mid-century, such phrasing stands in direct opposition to the main musical tutors of the eighteenth century. Hugo Riemann and Carl Fuchs expounds on this nineteenth century understanding of phrasing in Practical Guide to the Art of Phrasing (New York: Schirmer, 1890). 42 “Immer blieb das Ergebnis, daß im Bach’schen Melos eine staccato-Ausführung nicht liegen kann. Spitta (s. Johann Sebastian Bach I, S. 775) spricht von der ‚unbeschreiblich graziösen, reizenden Fugue‘, kann aber nicht umhin, zu bemerken, daß ihr ‚ein nachdenklicher Zug nicht fehlt.‘“ Müller- Reuter, 21.

72 Still, as Müller-Reuter published his book decades after Clara’s death, he raised a further question that framed her reading of Bach in a different light: how would this be applicable on a harpsichord or clavichord? Well-aware that Clara’s performance of Bach does not take historical instruments into account, Müller-Reuter seeks a stylistically-correct solution to perform Bach on the modern piano.43 Müller-

Reuter concludes that a completely legato performance would not be suitable for the harpsichord and suggests an alternate solution by Albert Schweitzer who employs a combination of legato and staccato to produce a “masculine Bach, graceful yet on stilts.”44

Figure 4.6 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens (Leipzig: Hartung, 1919)

By attributing articulation to gender (legato as feminine and staccato as masculine),

Müller-Reuter not only illustrates the development of Bach performance practice in latter part of the nineteenth century but also attributes Clara’s legato interpretation of

Bach as gendered.

A short exchange between Brahms and Eugenie contributes yet another view of Bach interpretation in the Schumann circle. Eugenie writes:

In the Bach pieces, Brahms occasionally permitted me to employ a heavy separation of notes (portamento), but never staccato. ‘You must never play

43 “Ganz gleich jedoch ob Cembalo oder Clavichord, es handelt sich darum, wie auf unseren heutigen Klavierinstrumenten die Bach’sche Fuge stilgemäß zu spielen ist?“ Ibid., 22. 44 “Das ist der männliche Bach, bei dem auch die Grazie noch auf Stelzen geht.“ Ibid., 23.

73 staccato in Bach,’ he told me. ‘But mama sometimes uses staccato in Bach,’ I replied. And here, he informed me: ‘Back in the days when your mother was a child, it was fashionable to play Bach staccato, and she retained this in some particular passages.’45

If Clara sparingly allowed staccato where she thought appropriate, then Brahms’ performance of Bach must have been more legato (or feminine, according to Müller-

Reuter.) These accounts elicit many questions without clear answers: how did Clara’s own view of Bach performance evolve through the decades?

While notions of Clara Schumann’s Bach playing are speculative, Edith

Heymann’s recordings may give a glimpse into how her ideals might have translated into sound. In her BBC interview, Heymann discusses and demonstrates the opening of the C-minor Fugue.

In Bach she exacted from us pupils a super legato touch with no exaggeration of tone or tempo and little use of pedal except in chords. Everything had to be done with sensitive fingers, warm tone, and phrasing more by tone gradation with only occasional half staccato.46

This description corresponds with the other accounts of Clara’s Bach playing, though

Heymann hints that Clara’s view on staccato in Bach may have indeed been influenced by Brahms after all. The short segment of Heymann’s playing of the C- minor Fugue does not aim for personal expression but rather a clear Beleuchtung of the rhythmic and melodic lines.47 One can almost hear the strained effort that

Heymann gives to replicate an analyzed ideal with careful control of tempo and

45 “Brahms erlaubte mir in Bachschen Stücken gelegentlich ein schweres Abheben der Noten (Portamento), nie aber ein Stakkato. ‚Sie müssen Bach nicht stakkato spielen,‘ sagte er mir. ‚Aber Mama bedient sich doch manchmal des Stakkato in Bach,‘ erwiderte ich. Und da meinte er: ‚Die Kindheit Ihrer Mutter fällt noch in die Zeit, wo es Mode war, Bach stakkato zu spielen, und da hat sie es an einzelnen Stellen beibehalten.‘“ Eugenie Schumann, 172. 46 Edith Heymann, Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. 47 Edith Heymann, “Bach: Well Tempered Clavier Bk.I: Fugue no.2 in c minor exc.,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc.

74 gradation of tone. Such a recording presumably characterizes the rendition of Bach as taught by Clara Schumann.

It must have been precisely this type of playing that put off Luise Le Beau.

One can only envision Le Beau’s stupefied and distrustful reaction upon hearing such playing and her struggle with Clara over the meticulous work on a few measures of Bach. Such an approach in teaching frustrated the former prodigy, previously praised for her bravura and expression in playing. This was certainly not what she came to Clara Schumann for.

One can only surmise the extent to which Clara Schumann’s philosophies on

Bach influenced modern ideals. As she took part in establishing a Germanic canon in the recital hall, Clara claimed Bach as her pianistic domain, defending it against the

Hans von Bülows of her day.48 As an advocate of the nineteenth-century Werktreu ideology, she contributed to the foundation of the perception of Bach’s music as a discipline for exercising self-denial of “Romantic” expression and replacing it with the critical study of the work.49 As witnessed by Müller-Reuter’s discussion of articulation and instrumentation, this strand of reception of Bach performance continued into the next generations in their striving towards reenacting Bach.

48 Ferris observes how Clara introduced works of forgotten or lesser known composers (such as Scarlatti or Schumann) by arranging her program into suites and pairing these works with more virtuosic, contemporary works. Davis Ferris, “Public Performance and Private Understanding: Clara Wieck's Concerts in Berlin,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 56, no. 2 (2003): 351–408. 49 See Angelika App, “Die ‘Werktreue’ bei Clara Schumann,“ in Clara Schumann: Komponistin, Interpretin, Unternehmerin, Ikone, ed. Herbert Schneider and Peter Ackermann (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1999), 9-18.

75 CHAPTER V. A CURIOUS CASE OF SCHUMANN’S ARABESQUE

From his piano works, Schumann’s Arabesque, Opus 18 – together with its sister piece Blumenstück, Opus 19 – stands out from his more substantial works for its simplicity and uniformity. In his article, “Schumann and the Marketplace,” Anthony

Newcomb traces the evolution of Schumann’s piano works and suspects that Clara may have influenced Robert in his move away from ambitious and complex musical ideals. Newcomb quotes a letter from April 1839, in which Clara writes:

Listen Robert, won’t you for once compose something brilliant, easily understandable, and something without titles, something that is a complete, coherent piece, not too long and not too short? I would so love to have something of yours to play in concerts, something written for an audience. Admittedly, that is degrading for a genius, but politics demands it now; […] See if you can – maybe variations? You wrote such things once – can’t you do so again? Or a Rondo?1

In essence, Clara requests Robert to suppress his own idealistic endeavors for the sake of winning the public. In her opinion, he must get rid of his bizarre musical ideas with their esoteric associations and simplify his works to realign with the norm.

Schumann takes this into regard, as witnessed by his products from 1839 which include the Arabesque.

John Daverio notes this shift and dismisses Arabesque (along with Blumenstück) as a diminutive piece suitable for a bourgeois salon. He states “neither could lay

1 “Höre Robert, willst Du nicht auch einmal etwas Brillantes, leichtverständliches componieren, und Etwas das keine Ueberschriften hat, sondern ein ganzes zusammenhängendes Stück ist, nicht zu lang und nicht zu kurz? Ich möchte so gerne Etwas von Dir haben öffentlich zu spielen, was für das Publikum ist. Für ein Genie ist das freilich erniedrigend, doch die Politik verlangt es nun einmal: […] Sieh, dass Du es kannst, vielleicht Variationen? Du schreibst ja schon einmal Welche – kannst Du es nicht noch einmal? Oder ein Rondo?“ Clara and Robert Schumann. Briefwechsel: Kritische Gesamtausgabe 2, ed. Eva Weissweiler, (Frankfurt, 1984), 469-70, quoted in Anthony Newcomb, “Schumann and the Marketplace: From Butterflies to Hausmusik,” in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music, ed. Larry Todd (New York: Routledge, 2004), 271.

76 claim to being high art.”2 In visual arts, the term ‘arabesque’ “refers to the decorative filigree framing a portrait of a landscape; likewise we would expect a ‘flower-piece’ to be graceful and elegant, but little more.”3 For Daverio, Schumann’s Arabesque serves as decorative background music. Holly Watkins takes a slightly different approach and reconsiders the “diminutive” in Schumann’s Arabesque (as possibly one of the original “Blumenstücke”) as a link between femininity and the flower. She writes, “Schumann’s designation of his Blumenstück [and Arabesque] as ‘delicate – for ladies’ represents a similarly casual conflation of women and flowers and deprecation of flower painting as a woman’s genre.”4 The nineteenth-century depiction of flowers and Schumann’s Arabesque complement each other since both radiate the charming and the fragile; in fact, their fragility is their charm.

For these reasons, I had always conceived of Schumann’s Arabesque as a diminutive work, rather delicate in character – garnished with intricate decorations like those on Islamic art. In my own rendition, I envisioned an ancient poet stringing together sweet utterances to form a mosaic of sound. My performance strove towards a tender, orderly reading of this work which reflected the aesthetics of modern performances and recordings.5

It came as quite a surprise, then, when I first discovered Ilona Eibenschütz’

1950 recording of this piece.6 I dismissed it instantly as it opposed my ideals:

2 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 277. 3 Ibid. 4 Holly Watkins discusses the origins of the “Kleine Blumenstücke” of which Arabesque may be one of them according to some commentators, such as Daverio. Holly Watkins, “The Floral Poetics of Schumann’s Blumenstück, Op. 19,” 19th-Century Music 36, no. 1, (Summer 2012): 28-31. 5 Shin Hwang. “Schumann Arabesque, Op. 18.” YouTube, August 14, 2019. https://youtu.be/GGYS1H1RUeg?t=40 6 The recording is uploaded by historical recording specialist, Mark Ainley. He wrote an article on Eibenschütz’ past and discusses her recordings in his article.

77 frivolous, even frantic at times, her clumsy treatment of touch, dynamic, and tempo left much to be desired. Surely, Eibenschütz’ bad habits must have followed her into her old age to produce such catastrophic results? After all, Clara Schumann constantly admonishes her for carefree performances that deviate from Clara’s ideals.

I was really rather disappointed yesterday, to note that none of the pieces which you played were perfect, and I think you should therefore, have another fortnight’s quiet study here in Frankfurt, to prepare for Cologne and Berlin. I have told you so often of my fear that because of the ease with which you learn you are tempted not to practice CONSCIENTIOUSLY ENOUGH. I COULD PROVE THIS TO YOU IN EVERY PIECE WHICH YOU PLAYED YESTERDAY and would like to go through them all once more with you. I wish I could spare you the experiences which are inescapable if you do not learn to be STRICTER WITH YOURSELF. You will surely see in my candor only motherly concern and forethought. (September 6th, [18]90)7

Despite these misgivings, a closer listen to Eibenschütz’ recording offers several clues to the performance of Arabesque. For one, Eibenschütz’ recording is one of the rare few that reach Robert Schumann’s metronome marking of 152 or even Clara’s at 126.8

While not exactly following Schumann’s instructions of “zart” and pp, Eibenschütz’ whimsical opening brings an unmatched lightness (“Leicht”) into the piece. The uneven, swinging treatment of the dotted rhythm creates a spinning effect that resembles the spinning songs of Mendelssohn and Schubert. This dizzying circularity

Mark Ainley, “An Appreciation of Ilona Eibenschütz.“ Accessed 31 July, 2019. https://www.thepianofiles.com/an-appreciation-of-ilona-eibenschutz/ The Piano Files. “Ilona Eibenschütz plays Schumann Arabesque (1950s private recording).” YouTube, August 14, 2019. https://youtu.be/4bAURHVz4u4 7 Allan Evans, Liner notes for Behind the Notes: Brahms Performed by Colleagues & Pupils. Alfred Hoehn, Max Fiedler, Etelka Freund, Carl Friedberg, Ilona Eibenschütz, Joseph Joachim. Arbiter 160, 2012, compact disc, 25. 8 Assigning a metronome marking to a recording is a challenging task that requires analysis via advanced technology. As metronome markings are not the most essential aspect of my project, I estimate them according to the first few phrases of a recording in my dissertation. An important source regarding metronome markings is Brian Schlotel’s article, “Schumann and the Metronome,“ in Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, ed. Alan Walker, (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972), 109-19. He discusses Robert Schumann’s metronome markings in relation to those given by Clara Schumann in her editions (including the Instructive Editions). He refutes the “faulty metronome” theory of Gustav Jansen and concludes that Clara’s interpretations of Robert’s tempos must have differed from what he intended.

78 of rhythm provides jolts of energy that coincide with Schumann’s fragmented phrase markings. Only when she brings out the hidden inner voices in mm. 20-22 does the circularity momentarily subside into the background. In realizing Schumann’s metronome marking, she suggests that the nature of this work might not be reverent at all (as per my original idea, stated above) but rather playful and fleeting.

Figure 5.1 Arabesque, Op. 18, Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

In the following section, Minore I, Clara Schumann pencils in a suggestive metronome marking of 144 in her personal copy of Arabesque, which correlates with

Robert’s indication of “etwas langsamer.” Again, many interpreters equate the slower tempo with a heavier execution of each eighth note. Although Eibenschütz’ rendition seems a bit too tempestuous, her treatment of the eighth notes as gestural rather than rhythmical allows her to execute this section in a tempo that even exceeds

Clara’s suggestion. Just as she borders on the chaotic, she enters mm. 89 – a free fantasy-like interlude that offers refuge from the storm. While her recording may

79 lack grace, it reveals many new interpretative possibilities to Arabesque in terms of tempo and character that fairly challenge modern day norms.

Figure 5.2 Arabesque, Op. 18, Clara Schumann’s Personal Copy of Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

In a clip from his teaching in the 1950’s, Carl Friedberg provides an alternate view of the work, as he demonstrates sections of Arabesque to his student Bruce

Hungerford.9 Friedberg begins the clip with a warning against the rhythmic jolt that

Eibenschütz injected and in its place provides a more delicate and singing execution.

For Friedberg, Arabesque is not at all a spinning song but rather a delicate Lied. Far below the metronome marking, Friedberg’s version exudes a certain stillness that leans toward the “zart” rather than the “leicht.” The resulting tempo of the Minore I

(Etwas langsamer) becomes approximately half of Clara’s suggested tempo. The tempest is inward and more sentimental in character. Regarding tempo and character, Friedberg’s reading aligns itself more with the modern ideal – gentle and tender.

9 This teaching clip was published by Arbiter taken from the International Piano Archives at Maryland. Carl Friedberg, “Schumann: Arabeske, Op. 18 (extracts),” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc.

80 What might have caused such an extreme discrepancy of ideals between these performers, both students of Clara Schumann? Personality undoubtedly played a role, as Eibenschütz’ fiery character opposed the mild temperament of Friedberg.

Their respective spheres of influence must also have impacted their style. While

Eibenschütz had long retired from the concert platform in the early 1900s, Carl

Friedberg continued to engage in concert life until his death. As a professor at

Juilliard until the late 1940s, Friedberg must also have been influenced by current musical affairs. Could it be that Eibenschütz preserved more of her nineteenth- century pianistic tendencies?10

Whatever the case may be, both sound examples reveal a significant commonality: the choice of tempo is a byproduct of the envisioned character of the music by both performers. The tempos, therefore, will inevitably change accordingly

– even within sections. Friedberg demonstrates this in his Minore II. In the first iteration which remains in p, Friedberg executes this section with much rubato to create a singing line to this longing melody. In the second refrain, the tempo changes with the music, as it becomes more pressing and rhythmical to adjust to the emboldened character of the music. Friedberg’s ideals may have changed, but he has not forgotten the ideal that tempo must change with the character of the music, and character in Schumann’s music is often volatile.

10 Jerrold Moore posits that Eibenschütz’ playing changed little in her lifetime. He finds proof from her two recordings of Brahms A flat Waltz (Op, 39, no. 15) – “recorded all but sixty years after her first disc of the piece, and as alike as two performances could possibly be.” Liner notes for Pupils of Clara Schumann. Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc, 31.

Figure 5.3 Arabesque, Op. 18, Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

At the end of the sound clip while playing the fantasy-like interlude (mm. 89-

96), Friedberg utters with reverence, “according to Clara Schumann” suggesting that he studied this work with Clara. The interesting question remains: how would Clara

Schumann have reacted to both renditions? Would she have approved of one or the other?

In the liner notes from his published collection of recordings Pupils of Clara

Schumann, Jerrold Moore shares an anecdote from his friend Robert Anderson, who visited Ilona Eibenschütz and made a final recording of her playing at the age of 88:

Her grandson suggested she might play to me. She thought I couldn’t be interested and she wasn’t prepared. But she did play, the Schumann Arabeske, fleetly, sensitively, a bit impressionistically, but with flair and imagination. It was easy enough to believe this was the same pianist Hanslick had admired as a ‘Wunderkind’ in Vienna. … The family knew I had a tape-recorder, and step by step a plot was concocted to record Ilona. She raised every objection: she

82 would be too nervous, her technique would let her down, her memory would fail. But this was to be a keepsake for relatives and friends, and in the end she said she would try.

Her eyesight was failing a bit; but she studied the scores in bed, with nose glued to the page. She was decisive about what she would play, uncertain of her ability to do it justice. When the recording day came, she was pleased and excited to be working. She loved the machine; the main problem was to persuade her not to comment too much while playing… But with amazing ease the recording was completed. Her fingers had done what she wanted them to, and something of her qualities had been captured. Nothing, I suspect, was slower than when Shaw heard her, nor less energetic than when Hanslick did.11

This account of the eighty-eight-year-old Eibenschütz frames her recording of

Arabesque in a different light: the music reflects her temperament. The witness,

Anderson, observes that Eibenschütz carefully studies the score before her recording.

He is certain that she performs with just as much flair as she had in her youth.

While Clara’s students may not be in accordance with each other, they do not negate nor diminish the value of the other. Quite the contrary, an amalgamation of both interpretative possibilities might provide a link that enriches our understanding of how Clara understood this work. How would the Arabesque sound, then, should one possess Eibenschütz’ light execution which reaches Schumann’s tempo marking and Friedberg’s tender touch and careful assessment of changing characters? Such would produce precisely what Schumann asks for in the directions of the work:

Leicht und Zart.

11 Jerrold Moore, Liner notes for Pupils of Clara Schumann. Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc, 30-31.

83 CHAPTER VI. IMAGES INTO SOUND; SOUND INTO IMAGES

Vision at 9 in the evening To Clara Wieck

An angel-child descended Now she sits at the piano, musing on old songs; And when she touched the keys, There appeared above, Floating in a magic circle

Figure upon figure Image upon image: The old Elfking And gentle Mignon, And defiant knights, Their lustrous weapons poised, And nuns on bended knee Lost in pious devotion.

Those who heard her raved, Praising her as if she were a renowned prima donna; But dismayed and feather-light She vanished into her homeland.1

A. L.

Under his pseudonym A. L., Robert Schumann writes of Clara Schumann as a sorceress who conjures fantastic images through sound. The listeners fall under a trance and enter another realm as mythical creatures and medieval figures take lifeform and begin to roam. Once the music ends, Clara returns to reveal a paradox; alas, this great magician is merely an angel-child.

As his own music was birthed in imaginative fantasy, Robert must have seen

Clara as his counterpart who evoked those images captured in the music. If Robert imprinted his imagination into sound, then Clara reversed the progress and revealed

1 GS 1, p. 327; translation from John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 171.

84 that imagination through sound. In fact, Robert writes in his Tagebuch of the three- stage process of mastering a musical work which culminates in precisely this: with the synthesis of imagination and technique, the performer becomes the music.

What should I say of the third stage, where spirit and form, mechanics and fantasy flow into one another, that one becomes corporeal music? Let me see your paradise!2

In a similar manner, Eugenie Schumann describes her mother’s performance of two

Brahms Intermezzos (E-major from Op. 116 and C-sharp minor from Opus 117) after a period of diligent practice.

Earlier, they had been delightful pieces of music, but now, spirit, soul, transfiguration! One no longer heard the individual beauties; they stood there like a sculpture carved from marble, glowing with life and intimacy.3

As in the poem, Clara fades into the background as the music takes a living and moving form of its own.

In her earlier lessons, Eugenie Schumann recalls her mother speaking of how life events subtly inspired Robert Schumann’s music:

With your father, he translated everything that he saw and experienced into music. When he lay down on the sofa and read poetry, new songs would instantly emerge in his head. When he saw you playing, the games would turn into small pieces of music. While he composed ‘Humoreske’, acrobats appeared one day on the street that we live on, and the music that they made radiated into his composition. This, however, was an entirely unconscious process in composition; that there was an intention is out of the question. Papa came up with the title of the works once the work was finished. They are quite appropriate and could indeed help with understanding the work – but they are not necessary.4

2 “Was soll ich aber von der dritten sagen, wo Geist u. Form, Mechanik u. Fantasie ineinander fließen, daß man leibhafte Musik ist? Laß mich deine Paradiese sehen! (18 July 1831).“ Robert Schumann, Tagebücher Band I 1827-1838, ed. by Georg Eismann (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1971), 354. 3 “Früher waren es herrliche Musikstücke gewesen, jetzt Geist, Seele, Verklärung! Man hörte nicht mehr einzelne Schönheiten; wie plastische Gebilde standen sie da, in Marmor gehauen, von Leben und Innigkeit durchglüht.“ Eugenie Schumann, Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Engelhornverlag, 1925), 226. 4 “Bei eurem Vater übersetzte sich alles, was er sah, las, erlebte, in Musik. Lag er nach Tische auf dem Sofa und las Gedichte, so wurden sie in seinem Kopfe gleich zu Liedern. Wenn er euch spielen sah, so

85 Here, Clara emphasizes the unconscious absorption of these experiences into the music. Thus, Schumann’s music may be representative of his visions and thoughts, but they are not depictions of an explicit narrative. In her own practice and teaching,

Clara relied on images to offer an ‘inner insight’ into the music (in Eugenie’s words,

“inneres Schauen”) which were used as suggestive guides to performance.5 For example, on ‘Kleiner Morgenwanderer‘ from Album für die Jugend, Op. 68, Eugenie writes:

She taught me to play the chords as though I were lifting my feet in marching, not quite legato, and I felt at once that this gave the right character to the piece. She thought that the little wanderer was rather depressed in the beginning of the second part, at the thought of leaving home, but soon relieved his feelings with a yodel and walked on bravely, until the village was lost to his sight and he only heard the church bells ringing.6

These seemingly programmatic descriptions are images evoked by Clara to clearly define the nuances of changing moods in this piece. These images, therefore, serve a guiding function in providing imaginative pacing and soundscapes to the notes on the page rather than a fixed narrative.

wurden aus den Spielen kleine Musikstücke. Während er an der ‘Humoreske‘ schrieb, kamen eines Tages Seiltänzer in die Straße, in der wir wohnten, und die Musik, die sie machten, strahlt sich in das Werk hinein. Es war dies aber ein völlig unbewußter Vorgang im Komponisten, von irgend einer Absicht konnte da nie die Rede sein. Die Titel zu den Stücken erfand der Papa erst, als sie fertig waren. Sie sind sehr zutreffend und können wohl das Verständnis erleichtern - nötig sind sie nicht.“ Ibid., 123. 5 “Aber meine Mutter war mit solchen Erläuterungen keineswegs verschwenderisch; nur wo sie zum Verständis beitragen konnten, bediente sie sich derselben, ja, oft vielleicht ohne Absichtlichkeit, aus reinem Vergnügen an diesem inneren Schauen. Später frug ich sie einmal, ob sie bei jedem Stück solche Bilder sehe, und da sagte sie: ‘Ja, fast bei jedem, und je älter ich werde, desto mehr.‘“ Ibid., 126. 6 Eugenie Schumann, The Schumanns and Johannes Brahms: The Memoirs of Eugenie Schumann, trans. Marie Busch (New York: L. MacVeagh, 1927), 100.

Figure 6.1 Kleiner Morgenwanderer from Album für die Jugend, Op. 68. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

87 Adelina de Lara recalls that Clara considered visions as one of the necessary qualities of an artist:

We were exhorted to be truthful to the composer’s meaning, to emphasize every beauty in the composition, and to see pictures as we played – “a real artist must have vision,” she would say.7

Clara Schumann’s comments on Schumann’s Carnaval, Op. 9 exemplify how these

‘portrait studies’ influence performance. Of Clara’s students, only Adelina de Lara recorded this work.8

From an initial listen to de Lara’s recording, I found a lack of sensitivity and reflection that she displays in some other recordings. Many of the movements seem rushed over and her conception of the work not clearly defined. The producer of this recording, Michael Thomas, recalls this recording session:

As the day proceeded, her tone would get louder and fuller, and the engineers accordingly reduced the recording level for fear of overloading the tape. Both the Études symphoniques and the Carnaval came at the end of morning sessions, Faschingsschwank auf Wien and the Sonata op. 22 at the commence of afternoon ones. The latter simply poured forth after having been bottled up for some time – she had been waiting, somewhat impatiently, for another pianist to finish his session. […] The performances were straight through without re- takes. She used the printed music throughout the sessions.9

Taking her situation into account, perhaps one could easily attribute the shortcomings of this performance to de Lara’s ambitious insistence on recording such an immense breadth of Robert Schumann’s piano works at the age of 80.

De Lara’s writings, however, offer an explanation for some of her interpretative decisions. Surprisingly, many of the movements I found problematic

7 Adelina de Lara, “Clara Schumann's Teaching,” Music & Letters 26, no. 3 (1945): 145. 8 De Lara’s recording of Schumann’s Carnaval (March 1951) was released in Pupils of Clara Schumann. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc. 9 Jerrold Moore, Liner notes for Pupils of Clara Schumann. Fanny Davies, Adelina de Lara, Ilona Eibenschütz. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc, 40.

88 were those that de Lara recalls from lessons with Clara. For instance, in my opinion, de Lara performs Pierrot not contemplatively enough to represent the sad clown and far too fast for a moderato. De Lara, however, echoes her teacher who paints quite a different picture of Pierrot:

There are things in Schumann which are played too slowly by most pianists, as for example the ‘Pierrot’ in Carnival’. It is marked moderato, to prevent performers from doing it too quickly, I suppose, but it should sound bright and mischievous, not ponderous or sentimental. Madame Schumann, on teaching it to me, would give me playful little digs at each recurrence of the quaver figure.10

With this revelation, de Lara justifies her use of a faster tempo which lends a lighter

Affect that portrays the sad clown in his lighthearted guise. The “playful little digs” that correlate with the portato notation further suggest that Clara sought a light execution from this work.

Figure 6.2 Pierrot from Carnaval, Op. 9. Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879)

10 De Lara, “Clara Schumann's Teaching,” 146.

89 De Lara’s rendition of Paganini – arguably the most technically difficult of the set – is surprisingly brilliant. Her careful phrasing, articulation, pedaling, as well as control of the pacing provide clarity amidst the commotion. Perhaps de Lara truly attempts to imitate the great violinist, as Clara advises her:

It must be made to sound as though the player were tackling the special difficulties of a violin. Strict attention must be given to the phrasing, it should not be played too quickly, but may be speeded up here and there to avoid its sounding like a technical exhibition.11

Figure 6.3 Paganini from Carnaval, Op. 9. Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879)

Of the movements, de Lara’s performance of Aveu offended me the most. I could not abide its nonchalant sentiment and lack of any tentative or tender qualities of a confession of love. This time, Theodore Müller-Reuter provides support in his memoirs for this alternative reading of Aveu.

‘Aveu’ (Confession) had been played and Frau Schumann gave her opinion: ‘In this piece, I always envision a girl from the countryside with a big, white straw hat in front of me.’ In her rendition, she played with an awkward, hurried timidity and a bit of abrupt whispering in the second part which gave the ‘confession’ a different perspective than what the student had in mind.

11 Ibid., 146

90 This is no hesitant, faltering, adolescent confession in the dim light in a salon corner or a secluded arbor; this is passion in the glorious sunshine, her crimson cheeks covered and shaded by the large, white straw hat. Strange picture, surprising interpretation!12

Figure 6.4 Aveu from Carnaval, Op. 9. Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879)

With these divergent pictures in mind, it is small wonder that I found de

Lara’s version so disagreeable. Like Müller-Reuter, I initially envisioned a confession confined to that of timidity and uncertainty. In hindsight, what I deemed as a lack of sentiment in de Lara’s playing was in fact the intentional outcome of an entirely different picture. Schumann’s marking of passionato (which he also uses in Chiarina to depict the impetuous young Clara) further supports Clara’s reading of Aveu as a passionate confession. These pictorial descriptions offer valuable insight into alternate interpretative possibilities that may more closely reflect the original

12 “‚Aveu‘ (Geständnis) war gespielt worden und Frau Schumann ließ sich vernehmen: ‚Bei diesem Stück sehe ich immer ein Mädchen vom Lande vor mir mit einem großen, weißen Strohhut.‘ Die verlegene, hastige Scheu, mit der sie dann beim Vorspielen das Stück ausstattete und das ein wenig überstürzte Flüstern im zweiten Teil gaben nun freilich dem ‚Geständnis‘ ein anderes Gesicht, als wie es dem Schüler vorgeschwebt hatte. Das ist also kein zögerndes, stockendes, backfischiges Geständnis im Dämmerlicht einer Salonecke oder in verschwiegener Laube, es ist Leidenschaft im Sonnenglanze, das Purpurrot der schämigen Mädchenwangen verdeckt und beschattet durch den großen weißen Strohhut. Seltsames Bild, überraschende Deutung!“ Müller-Reuter, 38-39.

91 conception of the composer. Indeed, Müller-Reuter utters a resounding reaction shared by many: “Strange pictures, surprising interpretation!“

In a similar manner, Clara depicts scenes from Waldszenen, Op. 82. In her comments on Vogel als Prophet (“Bird of Omen”), Fanny Davies reminds the readers that “Schumann has written titles and suggestions of moods and not photographic, realistic, or anecdotal descriptions of happenings in the material world.”13 She then identifies one performance habit that removes the mystical element of prophecy and

“kills the spirituality and turns the Vogel als Prophet at once into anecdote”, namely, the stress on every beat.

Figure 6.5 Excerpt from Fanny Davies’ On Schumann & Reading Between the Lines

Echoing her ‘Meisterin’, “[the bird] do (sic) not hop from tree to tree! He is a sad little bird who tell of a sad story to come; you must tell the story.”14 In other words, playing this figure from beat to beat would be a literal representation of the bird flitting from tree to tree – rather than a figurative divination of future sadness.

On the other hand, Davies also warns against random affectation of rubato which she mocks in the following figure:

13 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 216. 14 Ibid., 217.

Figure 6.6 Excerpt from Fanny Davies’ On Schumann & Reading Between the Lines

Thus, a balance must be found between elasticity and intelligibility of rhythm, where the rubato does not obscure the rhythmical scheme and melodic line.

Müller-Reuter similarly recalls Clara’s image of the bird to justify the use of rhythmic freedom (Taktfreiheit) in this piece. He gives a practical solution to add fluidity to the opening passage:

The singing, covert bird couldn’t care less about man-made 4/4 rhythm which is why Clara Schumann approved of all freedom in tempo. One could add a bit of time to the dotted eighth notes which could then be deducted from the thirty-second notes.15

In other words, flexibility comes not only from the larger rhythmical scheme, but also from the manipulation of the smaller-valued notes. By extending the dotted quaver and compressing the faster notes, the phrases will be performed more gesturally and less mechanically.

In her Instructive Edition, Clara Schumann also gives an unusual suggestion of fingerings that aid in the execution of this opening passage.

15 “Der flötende, versteckte Vogel kümmert sich auch nicht um von Menschen ersonnen Viervierteltakt; deswegen gestattete und billigte Clara Schumann allerlei Taktfreiheit. Den punktierten Achteln konnte man ein weniges an Wert zusetzten, das man dann den Zweiunddreißigsteln wieder abzuziehen hatte.“ Müller-Reuter, 41-42.

Figure 6.7 Vogel als Prophet from Waldszenen, Op. 68. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

On the chromatic ascent from the dotted quaver to the faster notes, she suggests sliding the thumb from the black to the white keys (even if it takes a 5-1 finger substitution) to allow for a Portamento effect, an inadvertent sliding of pitch.

Suggestions such as these serve not to ease technical challenges, but rather to better realize Clara’s image of this prophetic bird.

Here, de Lara’s recording falls short in capturing Clara’s vision. For one, she lands on each beat (which Davies admonishes) without much use of rhythmic variety. Also, instead of lengthening the dotted quaver, she generally shortens it, as a result normalizing any sense of rhythmic tension. One wishes for that precise

Taktfreiheit that Clara (through the voice of Davies and Müller-Reuter) demands.16

16 Though not a student of Clara Schumann, Alfred Cortot’s 1948 recording of this work might better reflect what Clara may have been seeking to represent. Xper2xper. “Cortot play Schumann “Vogel als Prophet.” YouTube, August 14, 2019. https://youtu.be/3HQ9yxiDLSM

94 Lastly, in the most detailed ‘play-by-play’ explanation of tempo flexibility,

Theodore Müller-Reuter shares his account of how he was taught to interpret

‘Einsame Blumen’ from Schumann’s Waldszenen.

One can easily tread on the solitary flower to death; this will most certainly happen should the eighth notes in the melody be played strictly in time. One should slightly linger on the first two eighth notes, which can then be followed by a flowing of the next two lightly into the next measure. An unintentional [‘zufälliges‘] arpeggio upon every entrance of the second voice is recommended, as is a slight accelerando in the 5th and 6th measures followed by a holding back in measure 7; treat the following measures likewise, as if the solitary flower sways back and forth in a tender breeze.17

Figure 6.8 Einsame Blumen from Waldscenen, Op. 82. First Edition (Leipzig, 1851)

This little description reveals much: not only is tempo flexible on the larger phrase level, but even the quavers must be played unequally in order to portray the ‘soft breeze, swaying back and forth’. Also, the interweaving of voices produces

‘spontaneous arpeggios’ which sound unintentional – a trait often found in early

17 “Die ‚Einsamen Blumen‘ kann man leicht tot treten; ganz sicher geschieht das, wenn die Achtel der Melodie schülerhaft streng im Takte abgespielt werden. Auf den ersten beiden Achteln durfte man ein wenig verweilen dann konnten das dritte und vierte leicht in den nächsten Takt fließen; ein wie zufälliges arpeggio beim jeweiligen Eintritt der Zweistimmigkeit (Beginn des 2. 4. usw. Taktes) wurde vorgeschlagen, ebenso eine geringe Beschleunigung im 5. und 6 Takte in Verbindung mit Zögern im 7. und den folgenden Takten, ‘gleichsam‘ als ob die einsamen Blumen von zartem Windhauch leise hin- und hergeweht werden.“ Müller-Reuter, 40.

95 recordings. Lastly, Clara suggests moving forward and holding back in mm. 5-7, which do not coincide with the notation. While I may only infer how this may have sounded, I have recorded two variants of this passage – once as typically performed with equal lengths of quavers, absence of arpeggiation, and no “lingering effect,” then again as guided by Clara’s instructions.18

All these suggestions seem a far cry from one of Clara’s main principles, “Play what is written; play it as it is written… It all stands there.”19 Clearly, notation alone proves to be insufficient.20 What Clara gives through these examples is the license to use devices absent in the notation for the sake of fulfilling the image of a piece. For

Clara, then, to have a vision is an interpretative imperative that the performer must take in order to awaken the lifeless notation into pictures. Should this picture be of a dead flower with dried-up petals rather than one with life and even feeling, Clara would have given different suggestions with limited tempo flexibility. All the performative suggestions that Clara makes are inextricably tied to the meaning of the music derived from the “picture” for which there is no prescribed method of determining other than the use of one’s own imagination. Accordingly, Edith

Heymann scribbles advice in her diary:

For those who have no poetic imagination or temperamental fire and warmth, the big works of Schumann had better remain closed.21

18 Orpheus Instituut. “Historical Piano Summer Academy 2018 - Shin Hwang.” YouTube, August 14, 2019. https://youtu.be/nTV7pzep3cQ?t=223 19 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 215. 20 Malcolm Bilson discusses how the notation in these measures contains certain information on musical syntax that mimics the inflections in speech. He argues that the slur markings of the right hand require the performer to compress the four eighth notes, resulting in an uneven execution. Cornell SCE. “Malcolm Bilson: Taste in Mozart and Chopin,” YouTube, May 22, 2020. https://youtu.be/geUwFLLqO3o?t=428 21 Allan Evans, Liner notes for Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Carl Friedberg, Trio of New York, Edith Heymann, Marie Baumayer, Ilona Eibenschütz, Etelka Freund. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc, 19.

96 Indeed, in the spirit of Clara: out of images the music was birthed, to images it shall return.

97 CHAPTER VII. ON VIRTUOSITY: TECHNIQUE AS THE SERVANT OF MUSIC

For Clara Schumann, technique was “merely the servant of musical thought, only a vehicle for the expression of the soul.”1 Once mastered, Clara believed that it should subside into the background and play a supporting role in performance.

Clara found no value in the outward display of virtuosity for its own sake. A true master, according to Clara, learned to gird his technical abilities in order to deliver the message of the composer.

The evolving relationship between Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt sheds light into Clara’s stance on virtuosity.2 In his 1854 Neue Zeitschrift für Musik article,

Liszt praises Clara Schumann’s role in the music world. Yet, he refutes Clara’s view on virtuosity, instead calling virtuosity “not an outgrowth, rather a necessary element of music.”3 This discrepancy in thought marks the beginning of the decline of their relationship which led to a divisive rivalry studded with biting remarks.4

In his virtuosic prose, Liszt compares music to an organism with distinct members of which virtuosity is an “integral part… without which music cannot evoke its wonders.”5 Liszt writes that virtuosity is in fact not “a passive servant of

1 “Weil bei ihr die Technik nur der Diener des musikalischen Gedankens, nur Mittel zum Ausdruck seelischen Empfindens, und weil sie als solche absolut vollkommen und unfehlbar war.“ Eugenie Schumann, Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Engelhornverlag, 1925), 227. 2 Wolfgang Seibold traces the relationship between the Schumanns and Liszt via letters exchanged. Wolfgang Seibold, Robert und Clara Schumann in ihren Beziehungen zu Franz Liszt (Frankfurt, 2005). 3 “Nicht ein Auswuchs, sondern ein nothwendiges Element der Musik ist die Virtuosität.“ Franz Liszt. “Clara Schumann,“ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 41, (1 Dec. 1854), 246. 4 Also notable is the discontinuity of correspondence between Franz Liszt and Clara Schumann upon Robert Schumann’s death in 1856. Their relationship may have served a more diplomatic purpose as Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt respected each other. 5 “Dieser Rangstreit kann nur durch die Erkenntniß entschieden werden, daß alle Glieder des musikalischen Organismus demselben eben so nothwendig sind als die des menschlichen Körpers dem Menschen zu seiner freien Entwicklung, und daß die Virtuosität bei weitem mehr integrirender Bestandtheil der Musik ist … ohne die genannten Künste ihre Ansprüche auf Bewunderung für ihre Werke geltendmachen, die der Ausführung ermangelnde Musik ist aber nur eine Uebung des Verstandes, die wir Musiker etwa durch die Gewohnheit, den Klang aus den Anschauen seiner Zeichen zu vergleichen und zu errathen, schon vor dem Anhören beurtheilen können, die aber ehe sie durch die Ausführung lebendig gemacht wird, zweck- und bedeutungslos bleibt.“ Liszt, 246-7.

98 composition, for the life and death of a musical work hang on her very breath. She can render [the work] the splendor of its beauty, freshness, and excitement or warp, disfigure, and blemish it.”6 By attributing “breath” to virtuosity, Liszt labels it as the life-giving source to music. While he praises it for its powers, he also acknowledges the dangers of its misuse. Without this breath, the music becomes merely “a

[meaningless] exercise of the mind through which musicians, by habit, determine how it should sound with a view of the notation.” Here, Liszt posits that a pre- determined plan for the execution of music hinders creativity and inspiration. His criticism lies on “habit” – a repetitive and predictable behavior – by which the performer forms a preconceived idea of the sound from its signs rather than molding the music freely through its plasticity in its sound world. Adamant that the notation is not the music, Liszt chastises those who transform music into Augenmusik (music for the eyes) that is regarded for its “theoretical and scholastic worth.”7 For Liszt, replication of an ideal performance is not the goal of a musician.

Although this view stands in opposition to Clara’s, Liszt acknowledges that the overall aim of the musician is indeed to summon the original spirit of the work.

This summoning, however, lies not in the notation nor in precise reiteration, but in the “overflow of movement” by the interpreter.8 Through this embodiment of

6 “Nicht passive Dienerin der Composition ist die Virtuosität, denn von ihrem Hauche hängt Leben und Tod des ihr anvertrauten geschriebenen Kunstwerkes ab; sie kann es im Glanz seiner Schönheit, Frische, Begeisterung wiedergeben, oder es verdrehen, verunschönern, entstellen.“ Ibid., 247. 7 “Schwerlich aber würde ein Musik fortfahren seine Partituren mit gänzlicher Verzichtleistung auf irgend eine Aufführung, als sogenannte Augenmusik für die Wenigen zu schreiben, die aus dem bloßen Ansehen den theoretischen oder scholastischen Werth solcher Arbeiten zu würdigen verstehen.“ Ibid. 8 “[Alles muss man machen und streben um] die ganz besondere Bewegung überströmen zu lassen, die der Schöpfer des Originalwerkes beabsichtigte.“ Ibid.

99 movement, the performer resurrects the work into life through his emotions. The following example further distinguishes his stance on performance from Clara’s:

The singer, who must restore a precisely determined expression through the text, is able to replicate the human word as roughly as the painter, a physiognomic (facial) expression. Both must penetrate into the character of the person – of the word – that they must visualize in order to produce a seal of truth. He would not be an artist, should he merely follow the contours with uncomprehending exactitude.9 This lacks the breath of living being – portrayed through the image of passion or feelings.10

Liszt argues that as a good singer supplies the text with his own expression, the artist must bring his interpretative voice to a work. Liszt’s emphasis on the concept of a

“word” clarifies his argument: the person who speaks ‘the word’ is the generator of the expression, and in order to bring ‘the word’ into the present, the speaker must fill it with meaning through his or her own expression.

Despite their clash in ideals, Liszt commends Clara for her “inner understanding” of music:

Through a great deal of playing, or rather, despite a great deal of playing, she accrued an inner understanding of the works that she played […]. Without doubt, she grasped music differently from the way people attempted to teach it to her, and that saved her! From that point, she sought to press her spirit upwards into the higher mysterious regions of Poetry (Poesie)!11

Could this excessive praise be a gesture of friendship? Or does Liszt truly believe

Clara’s spirit to extend into the secret realms of Poetry?

9 Contours refer to the musical lines as well as the features of the face. 10 “Der Sänger, der durch das Wort genau bestimmten Ausdruck wieder zu geben hat, darf das menschliche Wort so wenig wie der Portraitmaler den physiognomischen Ausdruck in grober Genauigkeit wiedergeben. Beide haben sich mit dem Charakter der Person - des Worts - das sie vergegenwärtigen sollen, zu durchdringen, um ihrer Interpretation das Siegel geistiger Wahrheit auszudrücken. Der wäre kein Künstler, der mit verständnißloser Treue blos den ihm vorliegenden Conturen folgte, ohne sie mit dem aus der Auffassung der Leidenschaften oder Gefühle geschöpftem Leben zu durchhauchen, deren Ausdruck sie darstellen.“ Liszt, 247. 11 “Durch vieles Spielen, oder vielmehr trotz des vielen Spielens erwuchs ihr zuletzt statt Ueberdruß, wie man wohl glauben möchte, das innere Verständniß dessen, was sie spielte. Ohne Zweifel begriff sie die Musik anders, als man es ihr lehren suchte, und das rettete sie! Von da an versuchte ihr Geist immer höher in die geheimen Regionen der Poesie aufwärts zu dringen.“ Ibid., 249.

100 According to a later report, Liszt sheds a different light on Clara Schumann.

One student recalls a lesson given by Liszt on Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 48, nr. 1. This time, he refers to Clara mockingly as “die göttliche Clara” and imitates her playing.

The first lady played the theme at the beginning extremely sentimentally and fragmented, whereupon the master sat down and played the theme in an extremely broad and expansive manner. The young lady continually swayed along back and forth, to which Liszt said ‘Keep perfectly calm, child. This tottering is ‘frankfurtisch,’ just do not totter so.’ He sat down and said: ‘Even the wonderful [Clara] Schumann sways like that,’ and he humorously imitated it. Then he came to speak about the fashionable fragmenting of all themes and said: ‘Disgusting! I thank you, that is certainly the opposite of all good manners.’12

Liszt revises his original view of Clara from that of a virtuous priestess to one who pretentiously feigns virtue, thereby suppressing inspiration. Though the specific details of his criticism are not provided, Liszt’s reference to the fragmentation of themes most likely refers to Clara’s emphasis on the controlled delivery of phrases.

For Liszt, a deconstructed revelation of a work holds no place in the realm of performance.

Clara’s diatribe against the Lisztian school is equally condemning as witnessed in her 1882 diary entry on the playing of Sophie Menter, a student of Liszt.

In her performance nothing is moderated but is rather a continuous alternation of ritardandos and prestos. . . . She belongs to the school of pedal- rattling or una corda sentiment, as my father would say. . . . Such playing pleases the people at the moment, the younger generation imitates it, and where does beautiful piano playing remain? Who tries to get a noble sound from the piano, who makes it a task to be just to the intentions of the composer? . . . Where is the piety that faithfully renders compositions as they were conceived? . . . These are the fruits of Liszt’s virtuosity. They imitate his errors but lack his genius. Before Liszt, one played, after Liszt, one hews and whispers! He has the downfall of piano-playing on his conscience.13

12 Kenneth Hamilton, After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 191, quoted in Richard Zimdars, ed., The Piano Masterclasses of Franz Liszt: Diary Notes of August Göllerich (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 22. 13 “‘Im Vortrag ist nichts vermittelt, sondern ein fortwährender Wechsel von Ritardandos und Prestos. . . . Sie gehört ganz in der Schule des Pedal-Gerassel oder Verschiebungsgefühl, wie mein Vater sagte. . . . Solch ein Spiel gefällt nun den Leuten, die junge Generation ahmt es nach und wo

101 This criticism captures the essential points of Clara’s view of virtuosity further discussed in this chapter: an unkempt virtuosity leads to distortion in tempo and rhythm. While the gains of virtuosity are enticing, the pianist must prize moderation in performance. Clara criticizes this disingenuous motivation behind virtuosity as an affect (“hews and whispers”) to win applause, and she condemns Liszt for propagating such a school of pianism.

One rule from Schumann’s collection of Musikalische Haus- und Lebens Regeln epitomizes Clara’s adamant rejection of virtuosity:

Do not search for mastery in technical dexterity or bravura. Rather seek to produce the impression that the composer had in mind in the composition; anything further is a caricature.14

For Clara, the pianist’s search for musical truth finds its answers in the prescribed meaning of the work; anything additional is a distortion.

bleibt das schöne Clavierspiel? Wer bemüht sich nun dem Clavier einen edlen Klang abzugewinnen, wer macht es sich zur Aufgabe den Intentionen der Componisten gerecht zu werden? . . .Wo ist die Pietät, die die Compositionen getreu so giebt, wie sie gedacht sind? Das sind die Früchte des Liszt’schen Virtuosenthums. Die Fehler ahmen sie nach, die Genialität fehlt ihnen. Vor Liszt wurde gespielt, nach Liszt gehauen und gesäuselt! Er hat den Verfall des Clavierspiels auf dem Gewissen.’“ Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann: Ein Künstlerleben nach Tagebüchern und Briefen (Leipzig, 1908), iii. 438, quoted in Alexander Stefaniak, “Clara Schumann and the Imagined Revelation of Musical Works,” Music & Letters 99, no. 2 (May 2018): 218. 14 “Suche es nie in der Fertigkeit, der sogenannten Bravour. Suche mit einer Composition den Eindruck hervorzubringen, den der Componist im Sinne hatte; Mehr soll man nicht; was darüber ist Zerrbild.“ Robert Schumann, “Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln,“ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 32, no. 36 (May 1850): 2.

102 The Sin of Schleppen und Eilen: A Distortion of Rhythm

In his “Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln,” Schumann gives two aphorisms that seem to contradict what is required from his music.

Play in rhythm! Some virtuosos play like a drunk singer. Do not take these as a model.15

Dragging and rushing are both serious errors.16

Surely, Schumann’s music – full of fantasy and whimsical changes in temperament – requires manipulation of tempo? As witnessed by the various recordings of

Kinderszenen by Clara’s students, tempo rubato is a quintessential tool for a successful delivery of his music. In the framework of Clara’s teachings, these two statements are not an ordinance for pianists to refrain from rubato as an expressive tool but rather a warning against arbitrary tempo fluctuation that distorts rhythmic clarity, particularly in virtuosic passages.

For example, Fanny Davies uses Aufschwung from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke,

Op. 12 to show how a careless performance distorts the listener’s perception of the rhythm. She sketches a caricature to show the absurdity of such a performance and the extent to which it deviates from the original. In this hypothetical caricature, the violation of tempo results in a confusion of rhythm for the listener in which the upbeat of the first measure is not perceived, resulting in a 7/8 measure. In addition to rhythmical distortion, Davies also adds that the meaning is lost at such a tempo,

“because if it is too fast one gets the impression of restless fuss instead of exuberant

15 “Spiele im Takte! Das Spiel mancher Virtuosen ist wie der Sang eines Betrunkenen. Solche nimm dir nicht zum Muster.“ Robert Schumann, “Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln,“ 1. 16 “Schleppen und eilen sind gleich große Fehler.“ Ibid.

103 aspiration.”17 Perhaps this example resembles the “song of a drunkard” that

Schumann mentions in his critique of virtuosos.

Figure 7.1 Excerpt from Fanny Davies’ On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines

Figure 7.2 Aufschwung from Fantasiestücke Op. 12 First Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1851)

17 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 219.

104 One devoted student of Clara Schumann, Leonard Borwick (1868-1925), discusses rhythm in his article “Rhythm as Proportion.”18 He begins by quoting King

Richard II from Shakespeare’s eponymous play:

Music do I hear? Ha! Ha! Keep time: How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept. – King Richard II.19

Borwick sees the wisdom of Shakespeare’s fictional character who understands not only music’s inseparable relationship with time, but that true rhythm is “time – in right proportion.”20 In other words, the combination of broken time and false rhythmical proportions leads to the spoiling of “sweet music.”

To explain proportion, Borwick contrasts the notation with a typical execution of a movement from Mozart’s String Quintet in G-minor, K. 516. While the two versions seem identical aside from the placement of the bar lines, Borwick notes that

Mozart intentionally de-normalizes the phrase structure by beginning with an upbeat so that the sfp lands in the middle of the beat. He urges the performer to give heed to what the listener hears as the rhythmical structure of the piece, as the proportions of this work will be otherwise skewed, resulting in a “counterfeit and relatively humdrum version.”21

18 Although Leonard Borwick had been noted as Clara Schumann’s key students, little remains regarding his playing due to his untimely death and lack of recordings/written evidence. “It was plain that Mr. Borwick was the pupil of Mdme. Schumann, and had been carefully trained by her to regard himself as the exponent of the thoughts of his author, rather, than as is so common now-a-days, the self-assertive performer bent on exhibiting his own individuality.” Annkatrin Babbe, Clara Schumann und ihre SchülerInnen am Hoch’schen Konservatorium in Frankfurt a. M, (Oldenburg: BIS- Verlag, 2015): 105. 19 Leonard Borwick, “Rhythm as Proportion,” Music & Letters 6, no. 1 (1925): 11. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid, 13.

105

Figure 7.3 Excerpt from Leonard Borwick, “Rhythm as Proportion”

In both Davies’ and Borwick’s examples, comprehensibility of the rhythmical scheme in the right proportion is an essential element for the effective delivery of a work.

106 The Virtue of “Doing Without” (Entbehren)

One of Clara Schumann’s common criticisms of a performance was excessive speed – often in the performance of Beethoven’s piano works. Fanny Davies recalls playing the Prestissimo from Beethoven’s Sonata in C-minor, Op. 10, No. 1:

[...] At the last bars Madame Schumann exclaimed: ‘Very good, I see you want to show off your nice chromatic scales, but this is not the time or place for Glockenspiel; what about the left hand which must be played piano?’ ‘Entbehren sollst du’ was the thought immediately aroused. It was just this word ‘Entbehren’ that was the keynote to her glorious teaching, for she never allowed a pupil to forget that in order to forego the “something,” that “something” must first be there.22

While the technical ability to perform this movement at the Prestissimo tempo is a prerequisite, once achieved, the pianist must also be able to resist the tendency to play at top speed and must “do without.” Thus, the noble pianist must control the desire to impress the listener and restrain his technical capabilities.

While this specific reference in this movement remains ambiguous, Clara may have referred shortly before to the second theme of the Prestissimo where the character of the piece changes. In his live recording, Carl Friedberg does not hold back the tempo but his clarity in rhythm yields an electrifying effect.23 To contrast the frenetic chromatic runs, Friedberg relaxes the tempo to suit the pleasant nature of the piano second theme. This instance demonstrates Clara’s description of “entbehren:” the master pianist must be able to leverage the tempo accordingly even in an excited state.

22 “Miss Fanny Davies. A Biographical Sketch”. The Musical Times 46 (June 1905): 370. 23 Carl Friedberg, “Beethoven Sonata in C minor,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc.

107

Figure 7.4 Finale from Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 10, Nr. 1 First Edition (Eder: Vienna, 1798)

Eugenie Schumann shares a similar anecdote in which her mother scolds her for her fast tempo in the second movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata, Op.

27, No. 2.

When I initially worked on the C-sharp Sonata from Beethoven, I took the Allegretto quite fast. “You cannot play like that,” said my mother. “That is way too fast, it loses the entire character of an Allegretto.” “But I feel it fast,“ I retorted, to which she responded, “You must feel this movement in relationship to the other movements; it should serve as a medium between the Adagio sostenuto and the Presto agitato; but if you play it too fast, it generates too strong of a contrast to the first movement.”24

In this case, Clara challenges Eugenie to question her rationale for her chosen tempo.

Clara argues that an attentiveness to the relationship of tempos in the overarching structure of the piece will yield a more logical solution to what Beethoven might have meant by Allegretto. Clara also suggests that each tempo marking suggests an inherent character. In the same way that Clara dismisses Eibenschütz for “expressing

24 “Als ich zum ersten Male die cis-moll Sonate von Beethoven studierte, nahm ich das Allegretto sehr schnell. ‚So kannst du das nicht spielen,‘ sagte meine Mutter, ‚das ist viel zu schnell, verliert ganz den Charakter eines Allegretto.‘ ‚Ich empfinde es aber schnell,‘ sagte ich und da erwiderte sie: ‚Du mußt diesen Satz im Zusammenhang mit den beiden andern empfinden; er soll vermitteln zwischen dem Adagio sostenuto und dem Presto agitato; wenn du ihn aber so schnell spielst, so bildet er wieder einen zu starken Kontrast zum ersten Satz.‘“ Eugenie Schumann, Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Engelhornverlag, 1925), 230.

108 herself,” Clara encourages Eugenie to suppress not only her technical abilities but also her intuition to play this movement at a faster tempo. (“But I feel it fast.”) Again,

Clara urges her student to deny herself for the sake of understanding.

In the most animated language, Theodore Müller-Reuter shares his lesson on the final movement of this sonata which shows the extent of the lasting impression left on this captivated student. His descriptions portray Clara as the impassioned teacher who makes gross exaggerations – perhaps even stomping with her feet out of excitement – to make her point. He also paints Clara as the personal teacher who shares sentimental aphorisms by her father. But once again, he is most enthralled by the wise priestess who shares deep musical truths:

In this hour, the student received sight. The teacher generously scattered seeds with full hands to the receptive student, as if on loosened ground of deep understanding.25

The religious analogies are obvious and numerous: Müller-Reuter depicts Clara as a

Christ-figure who helps the blind student see, and plants seeds of understanding on fertile grounds.

The sharpest rebuke came from the first twenty measures of the last movement: ‘But Herr Müller, the passion does not lie in the speed!’ Stomping with the foot, she gave a reference to an aphorism used by her father: The Presto itself must have a calmness, Should one feast on mastery. Then, she went on: “The bass must pulsate, every eighth-note equal and crisply articulated, not smeared by the right hand, every sixteenth-note as if on a gold scale, no pedal!”26

25 “In dieser Stunde wurde der Schüler sehend. Der Boden zum tieferen Verständnis ward gelockert, aufnahmefähig für die Samenkörner gemacht, die die Lehrerin mit vollen Händen ausstreute.“ Theodore Müller-Reuter, Bilder und Klänge des Friedens: Musikalische Erinnerungen und Aufsätze (Leipzig: W. Hartung, 1919), 29. 26 “Die ersten zwanzig Takte des letzten Satzes trugen zunächst die heftige Zurechtweisung ein: ‚Aber Herr Müller, die Leidenschaft liegt doch nicht in der Schnelligkeit!‘ Auf dem Fuße folgte die Bezugnahme auf einen Bauernspruch (s. Friedrich Wieck) des Vaters, der also lautet: Das Presto selbst muß Ruhe haben, Soll man sich an Beherrschung laben.

109 This aphorism reveals one central principle of Clara’s pianism. Even in Presto agitato, the most excited of tempos, Clara demands Ruhe (inner composure). Ruhe does not refer to the state of the performance, which requires fire and excitement, but rather to the state of the performer. It connotes a state where the pianist does not lose him or herself with excitement to the tempo. This precise Ruhe was the target of Liszt’s criticism of Clara. For Liszt, control must be let go, and the pianist must allow himself to be overcome with emotions to play expressively. Clara, on the other hand, asks for a complete discipline of one’s self: Ruhe, Entbehren, and conscientious attention to the composer’s intentions.

Figure 7.5 Presto Agitato from Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 27, No. 2 First Edition (Gio. Cappi e Comp: Vienna, 1802)

Dann hieß es weiter: ‚Pulsieren müssen die Bässe, ganz scharf abgestoßen, ein Achtel genau wie das andere, in der rechten Hand nicht wischen, jedes Sechzehntel auf die Goldwaage legen, kein Pedal!‘“ Ibid.

110 “Speed Like Charity”

Edith Heymann’s short demonstration from the Intermezzo from Schumann’s

Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26 is a prime example of how a pianist holds the reins on the tempo for the sake of musical expression.27 She takes this movement slightly slower than Clara’s suggested tempo from her instructive edition (104) in order to ensure clarity in all the accompanying notes. Yet, it is precisely the clarity in rhythm and tone that makes the performance more exciting. Especially effective are the delays before the high notes in an escalating degree.

Figure 7.6 Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. Instructive Edition (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1924)

27 Edith Heymann, “Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: Intermezzo exc.,“ Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc.

111 Edith Heymann’s attentiveness to tempo must have been molded by Clara’s diatribes against excessively fast tempi. She recalls Clara stating that, “Tempo must never be quicker than would allow phrasing and the musical line to be heard clearly by the listener. Speed in music, like charity, covers a multitude of sins.”28

Again, using a theological analogy, Clara emphasizes the virtue of a slower tempo as a prevention against many musical offenses. Here, she directs her student to the listener: the listener must be able to perceive not only the rhythmical scheme, but also the musical line. To demonstrate, Heymann shares an incident in her lesson on “Grillen” from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, where Marie and Clara disagreed on the tempo. In her 1949 BBC lecture, Heymann attempts to reenact the slower “correct” tempo desired by Clara.29 As this recording was made well over fifty-years after her lesson with Clara, the unreliability of her claim is high. Curiously, however, in the copy of her “Instructive Editions” from 1887, Clara Schumann finds an error in a metronome marking in “Grillen” and pencils in 192 as the correct tempo which roughly coincides with Heymann’s tempo of “Grillen.”

Figure 7.7 Grillen from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 Instructive Edition Personal Copy (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

This modest tempo enables Heymann to give attention to the details in the notation.

Yet, it is not simply her careful delivery of notation that makes this snippet

28 Edith Heymann, “Clara Schumann on Tempo,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163, 2015, compact disc. 29 Edith Heymann, “Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: Grillen exc.,” Brahms: Recaptured by Pupils & Colleagues. Arbiter 163 2015, compact disc.

112 interesting but her nuanced variations on the music’s rhythmical scheme. For instance, Heymann opens the movement (mm. 1-16) with a rhythmic swing with significant hesitations for rhetorical emphasis. The tentative piano section (mm. 17-

24), on the other hand, carries an even rhythm, followed by a pompous forte section

(mm. 25-36). True to the notation, Heymann accentuates and slightly lengthens the third beats in the third section. The recording shows how Heymann accommodates the changing characters by varying the rhythm.

Figure 7.8 Grillen from Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 Instructive Edition Personal Copy (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1887)

Regarding this excerpt, Fanny Davies chides one editor of Schumann’s

Fantasiestücke for straightening out the slur markings in Grillen so that they do not extend over the bar lines. Davies argues, “this most clearly denotes Florestan in an

113 exuberant vein when he was fond of leaping into the air, as Beethoven when in an extra happy and joyous mood is said to have stood on his head! Now all this may appear to be a very small matter, but the one phrasing is most commonplace, the other most uncommon.”30

Figure 7.9 Excerpt from Fanny Davies’ On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines

Indeed, such uncommon notation and images demand an equally uncommon delivery. Yet, most recordings of this movement yield similar results: the performers make small or no changes in terms of tempo and rhythm between the three sections

30 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 219.

114 despite these character changes. Even early recordings made by Vladimir de

Pachmann (1848-1933) and Harold Bauer (1873-1951) reveal the straight-forward execution of these segments.31 This discrepancy suggests that Heymann’s rather fragmentary performance of the work points to Clara Schumann’s influence. As even the finest notation is only a vague resemblance of how the music was conceived in the mind of Robert Schumann, perhaps Heymann’s recording with its rhythmical swing and character variation rings closer to Schumann’s conception.

31 Beckmesser2. “Schumann Grillen from Fantasiestücke De Pachmann Rec 1916.” YouTube, December 12, 2019. https://youtu.be/-rjZA6DHQUw; The Piano Files. “Harold Bauer plays Schumann Fantasiestücke Op. 12 (1935).“ YouTube, December 12, 2019. https://youtu.be/n-FDjvy5EJg?t=678

115 A Concerto for (Non-)Virtuosos?

Robert Schumann’s search for titles in his works gives us an insight into his imaginative world of ideas. Perhaps the most intriguing is the elusive pursuit of a title for his Fantasy, Op. 17, which began as Grosse Sonata f. d. Pianoforte für Beethovens

Denkmal with movements recalling Greek antiquity: Ruinen, Trophäen, Palmen. Other potential titles included: Die alte Fantasiestücke, Fata Morgana, Dichtungen: Ruinen,

Siegesbogen, Sternbild. Such eclectic allusions elicit the enigmatic visions of

Schumann’s consciousness which he eventually dismissed for the all-too-familiar genre, the Fantasy – an object of his obsession.32

In the original conception of his Piano Concerto in 1841, Schumann also ascribed the first movement as “Phantasie für Klavier und Orchestra in a-Moll”. His reluctance to label his work as a concerto deals with its implicit virtuosic associations.

He confided to Clara: “I cannot compose a concerto for virtuosos […] but must light on something different.”33 For Schumann, virtuosity must be subordinate to fantasy.

Unable to publish the work, however, he renamed the work, “Allegro affettuoso für

Pianoforte mit Begleitung des Orchesters,“ but to no avail. Despite his intent to divorce the work from the genre, he reluctantly expanded the work into a standard three-movement concerto and published his “Concert für das Pianoforte mit

Begleitung des Orchesters, Op. 54.” Yet, are there still remains of a fantasy in this work?

32 Richard Taruskin discusses the shifting titles of Schumann’s Fantasy, Op. 17 and the implications that the erasure of these specific titles may have on a metatextual level for the performer and listener. Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 309- 318. 33 Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 141.

116 In 1928, Fanny Davies recorded this concerto with the Royal Philharmonic

Orchestra under the conductor Ernest Ansermet.34 Her writings reveal that she witnessed Clara perform this work and she aspired to emulate Clara in her performance. Likewise, Adelina de Lara performed this work in May 1951 with the

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow conducted by Ian Whyte.35 Before the performance, she delivered a speech to the audience in which she expressed her alliance to Clara’s pedagogy:

You may say, it is all so long ago, but I do assure you that as we get older, time ceases to exist. My studies might have ended last year, so clearly do I remember Clara Schumann‘s teachings.36

De Lara also shared that she performed this concerto with Clara’s daughter on the second piano in Frankfurt during her days as a student of Clara Schumann.37

Despite the notable differences in these two performances, a study of these recordings compared with the notation reveal a pianistic praxis that applies the key features of Clara’s principles:

1. Detailed study and observation of the notation 2. Delivery of specific characters in the piece 3. Clarity of the bringing out musical lines in melody, bass, and inner voices 4. Command in rhythm by keeping/holding back the rhythm

The two soloists together with Theodore Müller-Reuter give commentary on each movement that elucidate their approach, citing performance issues raised by Clara

Schumann in their lessons.

34 Davies’ recording of Schumann’s Concerto in A minor (June 1928) was published in Pupils of Clara Schumann. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc. 35 This recording is accessible via the British Library Sound Archive. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.

117 In his recollections, Müller-Reuter shares an anecdote from 1841 of Clara’s first rehearsal of the Fantasy with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Despite limited rehearsal time, Clara does not budge until the oboist executes the following trill to her liking.

Figure 7.10 Excerpt from Theodore Müller-Reuter‘s Bilder und Klänge des Friedens

That Clara distinguishes the latter version as “expressionless” shows that an incorrect reading removes the original expressive intent of the composer. In their performances, Davies and de Lara must have relayed this information to the oboist, as every appearance of this trill is executed with great urgency. Their solo sections likewise reflect this small detail.

It is not only in their close reading of the notation that brings their interpretation closer to Clara Schumann’s exemplar: De Lara and Davies aimed to deliver defined characters in their performance. Davies shares her impressions on

Clara’s performance with the Gewandhaus Leipzig:

With the very first chords she plunged her listeners into the mood dominating the whole of the first movement, and one realized the great foundational line of thought: passionate aspiration. She showed us that it was not as a preparation for a sickly, sentimental melody that Schumann has chosen that elemental introduction with its precipitous descent in chords.38

38 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 221.

118

Figure 7.11 Allegro Affettuoso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

This “dominating mood” explains Davies’ impassioned drive in the first movement.

Even with each character change, Davies leaves little room for ease between the sections, and she associates each section with an uplifting image. For instance, she describes the Animato section as “taking wing.” She recalls that in Clara’s performance, “each arpeggio [was] rolled out to the very end, it was spacious, brilliant, but never flurried – its wings were never clipped.”39 Adelina de Lara adds that “the liquid second subject should never be hurried, but played strictly in time with careful attention to the diminuendi in the left hand.”40

Figure 7.12 Allegro Affettuoso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

39 Ibid., 222. 40 Adelina de Lara, “Clara Schumann's Teaching,” Music & Letters 26, no. 3 (1945): 147.

119 Davies executes this section quite strictly in time with concern for clarity of the notes.41 However, she lacks the fluidity and diminuendi mentioned by de Lara. In this case, de Lara’s excerpt from her lecture-recital illustrates this winged flight much more naturally.42 With each build-up, she lingers on the top note – each iteration, slightly longer. Also, her slower tempo allows her to roll the diminishing arpeggio spaciously to the very end. Perhaps she allows herself this liberty to linger in certain places in accordance with her teacher’s warning against passage work:

“Keine Passagen”, she would cry out in despair if one tried to rattle through any rapid figuration with mere empty virtuosity. To her there was meaning in everything he wrote […] “Why hurry over beautiful things”, she would ask; “why not linger a little and enjoy them?”43

Here, Clara urges her student to enjoy the lingering in music as an antidote to virtuosic display. Her command to enjoy urges the performer to partake in human pleasure while playing the work. Passagework or “empty virtuosity,” then, implies a mechanization of the music.

In the development section of the first movement, Davies identifies the different musical lines as a means of building tension.

[The] three rhythms each play their part simultaneously – (the melody rhythm and the two underlying rhythms of the accompaniment and the marching basses) – the values of each and all were made perfectly clear to the listener, together with the foundational line of thought – aspiration.44

41 Gullivior. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Concerto in A minor Op. 54,” YouTube, September 6, 2019. https://youtu.be/CB9zQVjh8CQ?t=135 42 Adelina de Lara, “Clara and her Teachings (1949),” Pupils of Clara Schumann. Pearl Records CLA 1000, 1986, compact disc. Accessible via: Adelina de Lara, “Clara Schumann and her Teaching,” YouTube, September 6, 2019. https://youtu.be/j0H0P6094-8?t=508 43 De Lara, 146. 44 Davies, 222.

120 Her recording exemplifies how she achieves this effect.45 She guides the listener with her emphatic entrances of the melodic lines in different voices until all three lines pound simultaneously on the arrival on the climactic ff. Through her deliberate execution, she builds the lines gradually and ensures that no voice is neglected. The following excerpt demonstrates her faithful emulation of Clara’s performance.

45 Gullivior. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Concerto in A minor Op. 54,” YouTube, September 6, 2019. https://youtu.be/CB9zQVjh8CQ?t=390

121

Figure 7.13 Allegro Affettuoso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 (Leipzig: C. F. Peters, 1870)

In the cadenza, Robert Schumann defies the typical function of the cadenza as a platform for virtuosic display and instead uses it to showcase “something different” through an expressive solo that develops contrapuntally. The cadenza becomes a site for the performer to display his or her intellectual and emotional capabilities. The performer must effectively restrain the desire to show off technical prowess. De Lara explains:

The cadenza is too often misunderstood. Thought, not technique must be the basis of its interpretation, according to the true Schumann tradition; it should be played very calmly, pensively and peacefully, with humility and love helping one in a task that is far from easy, for to express beauty through simplicity is harder than any conceivable technical task.46

According to de Lara, only by intellectual reflection (“thought”) can one gain this understanding of the work.

In de Lara’s recording, the cadenza serves as a pensive refuge from the passionate activity of the concerto. Each phrase unravels one by one as with much

46 De Lara, 147.

122 reflection. De Lara takes more liberty than Davies in her use of rubato as an expressive tool. Here, the rubato seems appropriate in portraying the cadenza’s espressivo function in the concerto.

If De Lara’s rendition is defined by introversion and holding back, Davies’ version of the cadenza focuses on simplicity. Her effort to show “beauty through simplicity” is apparent in her lack of rubato and delivers the text “as is.” She accentuates the different voices and carefully shades dynamic and tempo. This stillness does not last, however, as the cadenza gradually unravels “as the petals of a blown rose,” and bursts into the animated coda.47

Figure 7.14 Cadenza from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

Although De Lara and Davies make sparse commentary regarding the second movement, their writings highlight the different aspects of their interpretation.

Davies recalls that “the Intermezzo Clara Schumann played with a certain simple

47 Davies, 222; Gullivior. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Concerto in A minor Op. 54,” YouTube, September 6, 2019. https://youtu.be/CB9zQVjh8CQ?t=657

123 and eager sincerity, and not too slowly.”48 Davies’ rather moving tempo correlates with Clara’s suggested tempo marking and adheres to her warning against playing too slowly.49 One can also hear in her playing the straight “orchestral rhythm” advocated by Clara.50 Aimed at simplicity, the equal sixteenth-notes also contribute to a regularity in the rhythm which seems to sacrifice a flexibility in tempo and with it, the grazioso character.

De Lara gives a different reading of the second movement. For one, she takes a significantly slower tempo than Davies. In her recollections, she recalls neither remarks on tempo nor simplicity, but rather Clara’s warning against sentimentality in this “impassioned conversation” between orchestra and soloist:

In the second movement, if we tried to be at all sentimental, Frau Doktor would have none of it. She said it was an impassioned conversation between the orchestra and the soloist, though at times very gentle and kindly.51

While the meaning of sentimentality in playing remains vague, de Lara’s patient and flexible rendition of this movement suggests that Clara did not equate sentimentality to rubato.

48 Davies, 222. 49 Gullivior. “Fanny Davies plays Schumann Concerto in A minor Op. 54,” YouTube, September 6, 2019. https://youtu.be/CB9zQVjh8CQ?t=820 50 “At all times Clara Schumann insisted on depth of tone, correct and perfect phrasing and rhythm, which I call orchestral, for real strict rhythm is only achieved by an orchestra directed by a great conductor, and by these standards Clara Schumann's rhythm was orchestral.” Adelina de Lara, Finale (London: Burke, 1955), 44. 51 De Lara, “Clara Schumann's Teaching,” 147.

124

Figure 7.15 Andantino Grazioso from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

In the final movement, the two performers once again show their diverging takes. De Lara’s rendition demonstrates constant variety in tempo; every character change seems to take on a different tempo. For instance, the opening theme begins with a sluggish tempo and remains restraint until the texture changes in m. 40. On the other hand, Davies performs with a bridled but constant tempo as she aspires for

“nobility and pride as well as exuberance.”52 Her controlled precision in rhythm, which seemed stifling in the second movement, adds much excitement to the third.

Yet, whether the rhythm is held back or constant, both performers demonstrate their ability to command the tempo in their performance of this fast movement.

52 Davies, 222.

125 Adelina de Lara notes one crucial moment in the movement that deals with rhythm:

The wonderful third subject in cross-rhythm in the finale raises another point of phrasing. It is sometimes played as though the time had changed to a 3-4 motion twice as slow as the prescribed speed, but the player should continue to think of it as going on at the original quick 3-4 pace – a very subtle and elusive difference, but there is a difference. One should be able to waltz right through the whole movement, which at that particular moment assumes the character of what the French call a valse a deux temps.53

Although absent in the notation, de Lara accents each downbeat to emphasize the 3-4 rhythm, which contributes to a heavy affect. Davies does not accent the downbeats but delineates the cross-rhythm by lightly accentuating each beat and playing with articulation. In this section, one can also hear how Davies uses different articulation and timing to capture the changing characters. For instance, when the piano solo comes, Davies takes a slower tempo to communicate a sweeter character.

Figure 7.16 Allegro vivace from Schumann’s Concerto, Op. 54 Clara Schumann’s Complete Edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1883)

53 De Lara, 147.

126 For Davies, the change in tempo always accompanies a change in mood. She states that this mastery of conveying nuances in mood consummated Clara’s performance.

But she possessed to such a degree that rare and consummate power of dominating every mood at the moment, and the necessary technique which enabled her adequately to convey every shade to the listener.54

All in all, Davies’ performance of the Schumann Concerto exudes ambitious discipline. Overly conscious of tempo and rhythmic alterations employed only to project different characters, she abides by the guidelines of Clara Schumann. In her playing, Davies successfully suppresses many of her intuitive desires, and along with it potentially expressive opportunities. Still, does this disciplinarian performance reflect the initial concept of Robert Schumann of this work? After all, does not the genre Fantasy – which Schumann initially had in mind – imply a certain degree of rhythmic freedom and creative departure from the norm? In fact, where would

Schumann have drawn the line between real fantasy – an immersion into the self – and replication of an Ur-performance?

Perhaps an union between these two performances might reveal how Clara may have wed Fantasy with her sober principles: the liberties taken by de Lara together with the more disciplined approach of Davies could yield a result that remains within the boundaries of Clara’s demands, while allowing for an improvisatory expression of the fantasy.

These diverging interpretations show how two students of Clara internalized distinct aspects from their lessons on the same work and differently implemented

Clara’s concepts. Without doubt, however, the principles of Clara are branded into both pianists, as their performances reflect a “thinking” interpretation based on

54 Davies, 222.

127 observing the notation, communicating the character, and commanding the rhythm.

After all, Clara’s ideals could be summarized by one motto from Schumann’s

“Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln,” which states:

What does it mean to be musical? In one word, when you acquire music not only in the fingers but also in the head and heart.55

These performances of this Fantasy-Concerto are the outcomes of thinking performers whose scrupulous study of the work penetrated into their performance.

55 “Was heißt denn aber musikalisch sein? Mit einem Worte, wenn du Musik nicht allein in den Fingern, sondern auch im Kopf und Herzen hast.“ Robert Schumann, “Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln,“ Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 32, no. 36 (May 1850): 3.

128 CONCLUSION

According to the testimony of her students, the core of Clara Schumann’s pedagogy could be summarized in these three concepts: the observation of the composer’s precise notation, the interpretation of music through its inherent musical meaning, and the faithful representation of this meaning in its rightful boundaries. In all three aspects, she required the upmost self-discipline – a constraint of one’s ideas, emotions, and even physicality. For Clara, the end goal of a pianist’s endeavors was a search for and revelation of musical truth. These ideas alone, however, might leave the reader thinking, “What imprints did Clara Schumann’s ideologies leave on her students? Did her narrow views on reenactment of past music restrict musical variability? And, did this demand for full command of oneself result in an overly controlled, rigid, metronomic playing?”

In spite of the written information, the recordings of Clara’s students provide evidence of a diverse, not monotone nor dogmatic, tradition. What united the students was a common approach to music, which Fanny Davies summarized with three questions:

By thus listening, the elements of self-criticism were borne in upon us; and we could ask ourselves, ‘Do we really know what we want to do?’ – ‘Are we really doing what we think we are doing?’ – and, ‘Are we really playing what the composer meant us to play?’ – three very important questions, on the answers to which so very much depends. She made her pupil endeavour to accomplish the perfect recreation of a piece to bring out the whole of its poetical content, its warmth. […] Harmoniousness, Truthfulness, and Simplicity were her passwords of admittance through the portals of Art. Affectations, self-conscious effects, and ‘improvements’ on the composer's intentions were barred like poison.1

1 Henry Walbrook, “Some Schumann Memories. A Conversation with Miss Fanny Davies,” Pall Mall Magazine 207 (1910): 65.

129 The pedagogical link that bound the students was not merely their outward similarities, for the students maintained highly individualized styles in performance.

Clara’s students exemplified performance that eschewed virtuosity and effects for the sake of revealing musical meaning. Their concern to represent the music truthfully led to a degree of self-awareness and self-control in performance that distinguished them from the pupils of other nineteenth-century pianists.

In her critique of piano playing, Davies assumed the polemical voice of her teacher:

We all know that the trend of to-day is rush and hurry, short cuts, machinery, commercialism, hectic speed, a great deal of superficiality, much conceit and self-advertisement, all of which is most antipathetic to Schumann’s ideals. So that in order to read between Schumann’s lines one must steadily refuse to let any one of these later influences poison one’s power of interpretation.2

Taking a moral position, Davies reminds the readers that Clara’s pedagogy is a religious one, one that requires self-control over individual fancy, patience over speed, plan over whim. And the recordings of Clara’s students are the archeological evidence of how these ideas transfer into sound.

In this reconstruction of pedagogy, we have seen that the written body of knowledge is insufficient in representing Clara’s pedagogy. Through the marriage of historical written documentation and recordings, however, we were able to extrapolate how these teaching concepts apply to performance. Furthermore, we gained additional information on her pedagogy not explicitly expressed in the written accounts. By engaging with historical recordings as sources for pedagogical praxis and evaluating them for their interpretation of music and not for their performative quirks, we have come closer to reconstructing Clara’s pedagogy.

2 Fanny Davies, “On Schumann: And Reading between the Lines,” Music & Letters 6, no. 3 (1925): 216.

130 With each reconstruction of a nineteenth-century school of piano playing, we come closer to understanding the colorful musical climate of this century. Continuing in this vein, a foreseeable research project might entail the reconstruction of the pedagogy of Theodore Leschetizky (1830-1915). Alongside the numerous recordings left by him and his famed students (among them Ignaz Paderewski and Ignaz

Friedman), the abundant quantity of literature and commentary on his pedagogy would contribute to deciphering one more school of piano playing amidst the diverse performance practices of this time.3

3 In his biography, Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist, Allan Evans replicates lessons from Ignaz Friedman recalled by his students. Allan Evans, Ignaz Friedman: Romantic Master Pianist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009); Allan Evans also uncovered Ignaz Friedman’s Instructive Edition of Chopin’s Etudes published by Breitkopf & Härtel. Allan Evans, “Ignaz Friedman’s lost Instructive Edition for Chopin’s Etudes,” Arbiter Records, last modified 25, October 2019. https://arbiterrecords.org/music-resource-center/ignaz-friedmans-lost-instructive-edition-for- chopins-etudes/; Malwine Brée, The Groundwork of the Leschetizky Method (New York: G. Schirmer, 1905).

131 Postlude

By immersing myself in this project, I have inadvertently become a pupil of

Clara Schumann. I have noticed that I listen differently – to new and old recordings – with her values in mind. And when I learn a work, I also strive to find its musical meaning and represent it in an honest manner. This project has even infiltrated my work as a pedagogue, as I often borrow her aphorisms to demonstrate concepts that I had absorbed while engaging with the material. Most of all, this dissertation has changed me as a performer, as I apply her principles into my own performance of a work. It has brought me one step closer to knowing the music of Robert Schumann.

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136 RECORDINGS

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137