The Schumanns in love

Composers Datebook

Synopsis

In 1840, immensely talented German pianist Clara Wieck was eagerly awaiting the eve of her 21st birthday, when she would be free to legally marry the 30-year-old composer and music critic Robert Schumann. The couple had hoped to wed years earlier, but the match was bitterly opposed by Clara’s father.

Clara and Robert kept in touch by letters, which were sometimes intercepted by Papa Wieck.

Early in 1840, Clara wrote, “Dear Robert, I love you so much it hurts my heart. Tell me what you’re writing. I would so love to know, oh please, please. A quartet, an overture — even perhaps a symphony? Might it by any chance be — a wedding present?”

The marriage finally took place on today’s date in 1840. As she had guessed, Robert presented Clara with a musical wedding present: not a quartet, overture, or symphony, but a set of 26 songs, published as his Opus 25.

The opening song, Dedication, is a Rückert poem which contains this refrain: “You are my heart and soul, my bliss and pain, you are the world I live in and the heaven I aspire to, my good angel, my better self.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): (transcribed by Franz Liszt) Widmung; Michael Ponti, piano; Marco Polo 223.127

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Widmung; Sophie Daneman, soprano; Julius Drake, piano; EMI 72828