UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Biographical Listening: Intimacy, Madness and the Music of Robert Schumann Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3x17409s Author Braunschweig, Michelle Elizabeth Yael Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Biographical Listening: Intimacy, Madness and the Music of Robert Schumann By Michelle Elizabeth Yael Braunschweig A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Richard Taruskin, Chair Professor Mary Ann Smart Professor Charis Thompson Spring 2013 Biographical Listening: Intimacy, Madness and the Music of Robert Schumann Copyright, 2013 by Michelle Elizabeth Yael Braunschweig Abstract Biographical Listening: Intimacy, Madness and the Music of Robert Schumann by Michelle Elizabeth Yael Braunschweig Doctor of Philosophy in Music University of California, Berkeley Professor Richard Taruskin, Chair Evaluating music as psychological utterance and biographical confession emerged as a mode of music criticism during the early to mid-nineteenth century. Ever since, critics have characterized Robert Schumann as a composer whose works and life are bound together inextricably. The ramifications of these values in Schumann reception and scholarship form the subject of this dissertation. The origins of this practice can be found in the late eighteenth century, when German writers began describing instrumental music as the most inward of artistic genres. Promoting the value of “unity” between life and works bestowed authenticity and aided canonization. It was, furthermore, a view of self that Schumann actively encouraged through his writings. Following an introduction on the concept of biographical listening, I use the frameworks of “intimacy” and “madness” to delineate how such listening has affected the popularization of Schumann’s music. More than mere style descriptors, “intimacy” and “madness” connect Schumann’s music and persona. They shape how and what listeners hear. Conceptions of the music’s intimacy were rooted in reports of Robert’s struggle to marry the pianist Clara Wieck. In order to broach perceptions of Schumannian intimacy, I study the reception history of “Träumerei.” By the 1890s, “Träumerei” had become the most arranged and published piece by any composer in German-speaking lands, inspiring paintings, poems, short stories, popular songs and even novels. In my first chapter I argue that biographical interpretive methods underlay its popular success, as writers and publishers used perceptions of Schumann’s life to promote his music as inward. In my second chapter, I study how changing conceptions of gender during the 1930s- 1950s helped reshape biographical readings of “Träumerei.” The 1944 German film Träumerei and the 1947 Hollywood film Song of Love each prominently featured “Träumerei” in their retellings of the Robert-Clara love story. Juxtaposing German and American cinematic, scholarly, and fictional portrayals of Clara Schumann, I examine how “Träumerei” was used at this time to market both music appreciation and family values. Besides the love story, a second Schumannian tale has gained notoriety: Robert’s early death in a mental institution. I devote two chapters to the relationships between his music, his biography, and his “madness.” First, I study the history of Schuman’s psychiatric diagnoses. In 1 addition to Schumann’s letters, diaries and compositions, many factors have shaped the diagnoses he has been given. I demonstrate how particular social values, molding both psychiatric research and aesthetic evaluation, have shaped Schumann’s complex twentieth- century diagnostic history. My last chapter is a study of the recent compositional reception of “late” Schumann. Until the 1980s, the late music was often heard as representing an increasingly confused mind. Since then scholars have begun to reclaim these works as rational and music-theoretically lucid. Simultaneously, contemporary European composers have begun composing homages to the mentally-ill Schumann. Demonstrating “health” and romanticizing “pathology” not only show the tenacity of the biographical interpretive mode, they reveal how aesthetic evaluations of Schumann’s music are affected by the stigma as well as the mystique of mental illness. 2 Contents List of Figures and Examples ii List of Appendices vi Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Intimacy, Madness and the Music of Robert Schumann Chapter 1 14 Biographical Listening and the Popularization of “Träumerei” Chapter 2 52 “Träumerei” and Family Values Chapter 3 69 Robert Schumann and Retrospective Psychiatric Diagnosis Chapter 4 119 Reflections on the Life and Sound of Late Schumann by Killmayer, Rihm and Holliger Bibliography 196 Appendices 220 i List of Figures and Examples Figure 1.1 Page 170 from Myrtle Reed, The White Shield. New York: 15 G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912. Figure 1.2a Front cover and page 250 from Albert Morris Bagby, ‘Miss 16 Träumerei:’ A Weimar Idyl. New York: Published by Author, 1903. Figure 1.2b Miss Träumerei, Lithograph by Ethel Reed, 1898. 17 Table 1.1 Publication statistics for Schumann’s “Träumerei” in 18 German-speaking lands, 1844-1933. Table 1.2 Publication statistics for pieces appearing in the greatest 19 number of editions in German-speaking countries by Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann, 1892-1903. Table 1.3 Publication statistics for pieces appearing in the greatest 20 number of editions in German-speaking countries by Badarzewska, Eilenberg, Lange, Lefébure-Wély, Oesten and Schumann, 1892-1903. Example 1.1 “Träumerei” as published in the first edition of 24 Kinderscenen. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1839. Figure 1.3 Advertisement for Kinderscenen. Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 25 8 (1838): 124. Figure 1.4a Score cover to Schumann, “Träumerei” and “Romance.” 34 New York: Edition de Luxe, early twentieth century. Figure 1.4b Score Cover to Schumann, “Träumerei” and “Romance.” 34 New York: Edition de Luxe, early twentieth century. Figure 1.4c “Träumerei” from Schumann Album of Children’s Pieces 35 for Piano. Illustrations by H. Willebeek Le Mair. London: Augener, 1913. Figure 1.4d Postcard entitled “Träumerei.” Artwork by M. Loebell, c. 35 1908. Figure 1.4e Postcard entitled “Träumerei.” Artwork by Wilhelm 35 Menzler, 1895. ii Figure 1.5 Front cover to Karl M. Weber, Wie wird man musikalisch? 38 Eine Anleitung, sich musikalisches Verständnis anzueignen und über Musik richtig zu urteilen, ohne Musik studiert zu haben. Leipzig: Modern-Medizinischen Verlag, 1908. Figure 3.1 Figure from page 110 of Haecker and Ziehen, “Über die 82 musikalische Vererbung in der Descendenz von Robert Schumann.” Figure 3.2 Martin Kreisig, “Stammbaum der Familie R. Schumann.” 84 Zwickau: A. Hallmeier, 1930. Figure 3.3 Family Tree adapted from Titus Frazeni, Johannes Brahms 86 der Vater von Felix Schumann: Das Mysterium einer Liebe. Bielefeld: Manfred, 1926. Figure 3.4 Figure from page 31 of Jon Alfred Mjöen, Die Vererbung 90 der musikalischen Begabung, Schriften zur Erblehre und Rassenhygiene. Berlin: Alfred Meßner, 1934. Figure 3.5 Figure adapted from Adele Juda, “The Relationship 97 between Highest Mental Capacity and Psychic Abnormalities,” American Journal of Psychiatry 106 (1949): 298. Figure 3.6 Figure adapted from Eliot Slater and Alfred Meyer, 99 “Contributions to a Pathography of the Musicians: 1. Robert Schumann,” Confinia Psychiatrica 2(1959): 91. Figure 3.7 Figure from page 142 of Emil Kraepelin, Manic-Depressive 101 Insanity and Paranoia. Edinburgh: E&S Livingstone, 1921. Figure 3.8 Figure from Franz Hermann Franken, “Robert Schumann in 113 der Irrenanstalt Endenich: Zum Verlaufsbericht seines behandelnden Arztes.” In Robert Schumanns letzte Lebensjahre: Protokoll einer Krankheit. Berlin: Stiftung Archiv der Akademie der Künste, Archiv Blätter 1 (1994): 12-3. Example 4.1 Killmayer, Paradies, measures 1-15. 124 Example 4.2 Killmayer, Paradies, measures 21-5. 125 Example 4.3 Killmayer, Paradies, measures 259-94. 125 iii Example 4.4 Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich, measures 1-13. 130 Example 4.5 Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich, measures 26-30. 131 Example 4.6 Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich, measures 35-44. 132 Example 4.7 “Innere Stimme” from Schumann, Humoresque, op. 20. 133 Example 4.8 Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich, measures 58-64. 135 Example 4.9 Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich, measures 78. 136 Example 4.10 Killmayer, Schumann in Endenich, measures 108-19. 137 Example 4.11 Rihm, Jakob Lenz, Kammeroper, measures 121-7. 146 Example 4.12 Rihm, Jakob Lenz, Kammeroper, measures 156-64. 148 Example 4.13 Schumann, Piano Trio No. 3, op. 110, first movement, 155 measures 1-20. Example 4.14 Schumann, Piano Trio No. 3, op. 110, first movement, 156 measures 81-92. Example 4.15 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen II, measures 1-4. 156 Example 4.16 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen II, measures 24-30 and 77-81. 157 Example 4.17 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen II, measures 96-7. 159 Example 4.18 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen II, measures 417-35. 160 Example 4.19 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen III, measures 1-19. 161 Example 4.20 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen III, measures 41-3. 162 Example 4.21 Rihm, Fremde-Szenen III, measures 56-61. 164 Example 4.22 Schubert, String Quartet No. 14, D. 810, first movement, 165 measures 1-21. Example 4.23 Holliger, Gesänge der Frühe, first movement, measures 1-9. 167 Example 4.24 Schumann, Gesänge der Frühe, op. 133, first movement. 172 iv Example 4.25 Holliger, Gesänge der Frühe, first movement I, measures 175 39-42. Example 4.26 Holliger, Gesänge der Frühe, excerpt from second 181 movement. Example 4.27 Holliger, Gesänge der Frühe, third movement, measures 1- 182 6. Example 4.28 Holliger, Gesänge der Frühe, fourth movement, measures 184 4-12. Example 4.29 Holliger, Gesänge der Frühe, ending of fourth movement. 187 Example 4.30 Holliger, Sketches for Romancendres. 191 Example 4.31 Holliger, Romancendres, excerpt from first movement. 192 Example 4.32 Holliger, Romancendres, Kondukt I, measures 1-4. 194 Example 4.33 Holliger, Romancendres, fourth movement, measures 1-6.