MUSIC.

THE GIRLHOOD OF CLARA WIECK.

Miss FLORENCE MAY'S earlier venture into the domain of musical biography was not only an admirable piece of work in itself—its merit has already been attested by the demand for a German version—but it was an excellent preparation for the task which she has now carried to an entirely successful com- pletion. Brahms was linked to Schumann and his wife by peculiar ties of gratitude and affection. It has been said of him that his attitude to the widow of his first benefactor was one of filial reverence, and we can well understand how Miss May was prompted by a natural process to carry her studies a stage further back.* In the present instance the scope of her work is more limited and less ambitious. She lays no claim to the discovery of any hitherto unpub- lished details of biographical interest, and her narrative closes with the marriage of Clara Wieck. But if her materials are more or less familiar her handling of them is fresh and engrossing. The book is much more than a mere biography. As Miss May puts it in her Preface, "the years covered by Clara Wieolc's activity as a pianist coincide with a • The Girlhood of Clara Schumann. By Florence May. London: Edward Arnold. ins. 8d. not.1

clearly defined, period in. the progress both of creative axtd. executive art, with the developments of which her achievement stood in distinctive and important relation." It has accord- ingly been Miss May's aim not only to discuss the peculiar services which Clara Wieck rendered to art as the pioneer interpreter of the classical and romantic writers alike—of Bach and Beethoven as well as Schumann and Chopin—but to contrast her achievement with that of her famous contempo- raries Liszt and Thalerg. Again, we have a faithful presentment, not only of the great figures with whom she was brought into contact, but of the social and artistic environment in which she and they had. their being. We learn a great deal about the state of taste and criticism in the 'thirties and 'forties; of the difference in atmosphere

between Leipzig and Vienna. In dealing with the romantic psychology of Robert Schumann's early compositions, :which

form so wonderfully sensitive and illuminating a commentary on his relations with Ernestine von Fricken and Clara Wieck, Miss May approaches her task with a fine technical equipment supplemented by a perfect familiarity with all the literature of

the subject—Schumann's letters and contributions to the Nemo Zeitschrift fur ,111usik, and the standard biographies of

Wasielewski and Litzmann. But all the industry in the world avails little without literary skill, sympathy, and discrimination. Miss May is not a great artist in expression, but she writes with admirable lucidity, sincerity, and taste. As she proved

in her Life of Brahma, her admiration is never idolatrous or fulsome. The book abounds in critical estimates of Clara

Wieck's contemporaries, and Miss May's task often leads her on delicate ground. But as her admiration is void of effusive- ness, so is her criticism free from asperity. Fairmindedness and equanimity are shown on every page of her work.

Clara Wieck inherited her musical talent on both sides, but her father, of whom Miss May has given us by far the fullest and the most impartial account yet published in English, was her first, best, and, speaking strictly, only teacher. There were two sides to Friedrich Wieck ; and though the angu- larities of his character occasionally affected him in his personal relation to artists, his views on art were, in the main, enlightened and discriminating, and until the estrangement from his daughter became acute he never allowed his objec-

tions to Schumann as a son-in-law to interfere with his appreciation of the composer. His method, in which he ranged himself with the school of Cleinenti as opposed to that of the bravura school of Vienna, was sound and extra- ordinarily thorough, though he carried his theories on

specialization to an extreme pitch in discouraging his daughter from reading. That he was in a sense devoted to his daughter is beyond question, but his devotioU was always governed by a sense of proprietorship. " You can hardly form an idea of his fire, his judgment, and his understanding of art," wrote Schumann to his mother in 1830, " but when he speaks in his own or Clara's interest he is as unmannerly as a peasant." But though his grounds for opposing her early

marriage to a gifted but impecunious musician who had not yet

secured general recognition may have been largely selfish, they had a substantial basis of worldly wisdom. His reason- able objections during the early years of the attachment are

set forth with the utmost fairness by Miss May (see pp. 162-3). It vas only when the strength of their mutual devotion had

been tested by time and Schumann's position confirmed by well-earned success that his hostility degenerated into 'vindic- tiveness. Turning back for a moment to the period of Clara's training, We may note that Miss May defends very effectively the educational value of the bravura music of Herz, Hiinten, Pixis, and Dobler which figured so largely in her early programmes, but from the very start her father en- couraged 'her to brave the danger of displeasing the public by disregarding its craving for the facile and meretricious. It was Clara Wieck who introduced Chopin to Spoilt. in 1831. She converted Schumann to Bach's fugues, and at the age of sixteen invited Mendelssohn to assist her in the first public performance of Bach's triple concerto, and she was the first to perform in public Beethoven's " Appassionata " sonata. Thus before she was eighteen she had made her mark, " not only as the interpreter of Bach, but also of Beethoven, taking her position in so doing, so far as concerned her own branch of art, by the side of Mendelssohn and, for the time being, alone by his side." As Hanslick wrote of her, " Beethoven's sonatas found their place in the programme oF.

.,the virtuoso in the first instance through Clara's example, an& , soon afterwards through that of Liszt." In this context one may.note that in England, too, it was a case of dux fenvinal• faeti, so far as Beethoven's later pianoforte sonatas are con-- cerned, „Maclaine .Ivabella Goddard being the first to introduce- them to the British public in the "fifties." Side by side with Clara Wieck's development as an interpreter Miss May has traced that of Schumann as a creator.. The book is thus in great measure a study in parallel biography, in which the reaction of the two characters on. each other is illustrated by a wealth of happily chosen extracts from the correspondenoe, which passed between them and by a number of excellent- characterizations of Schumann's pianoforte works. The won- derful efflorescence of his genius in song which marked the close of the period dealt with in this volume is finely describe& in the following passage :- " The whole soul of the man had, indeed, found its expression in this new medium.. It was as though the finest essence of the- fruits of ten years had distilled, unperceived, into a hidden.. fountain of inspiration that had now suddenly broken forth from. the more impulse of its own vital energy. It was not to be quickly restrained. Throughout the year 1840, Schumann wrote songs,. and nothing but songs, chiefly for one vbice,.sometimes for two or more ; 138 in all. They are, from first to last, the songs of a poet- whose nerves vibrato in sympathy with the lightest wave of. emotion that has left its,record in the verse he is setting, and of a. master musician able to render the subtlest shades of feeling in his own language of tone. They are, too, the songs of a true man,.. to whom sincerity is a law of being and whose emotional energy proceeds from the experience and conviction of his own life.. , Schumann's activity as a song composer, upon which he entered at the precise moment of his career that was pre-eminently favourable.' for its success, marks a now phase in the development of the German Lied. With a rich store of emotional experience garnered within.' him, he was still a young man, loving and beloved, whilst his ten., years' absorbed study of the possibilities of the pianoforte from. the standpoint of romanticism had put him in possession of a.' resource which had been at the command of no previous song. composer. It would be trite to write in detail about such beloved and familiar possessions as his settings of Chamisso, Ruckert, Eichendorff, and, above all, Heine. They are no mere melodies set„ with pianoforte accompaniment, to words. They are pictures, expressions, suggested by the most intimate convictions of his spirit, in the utterance of which the pianoforte has an equal share with the voice. In Schumann's songs the ideal of the German romantic poets lives purified and transfigured by the sincerity in which their muse was sometimes lacking ; in them German. romanticism has attained its most enduring vitality ; and it may- be said of Clara, that to have given her lover strength, by being-. what she was, for the luxuriant blossoming time of his genius and his striving which the songs represent, constitutes not the least of her claims to remembrance."

In a brief epilogue—a model of effective condensation—Miss. May sketches the sequel of Clara Wieck's marriage ; her fewi years of happiness soon closed by domestic tragedy and bereave- ment; her return to the concert platform ; and the long period of her mature career as an interpreter of the greatest chamber music, whether as soloist or in partnership with Joachim,. l?iatti, and other illustrious artists. In middle age as in youth she kept abreast of her time. "As the career of Clara Wieek had been historically distinctive in the, annals of musical art, as to Clara Wieck attaches the. glory of having been the first pianist to lead her musical public to the appreciation of the masterpieces for her instruineut of Bach and Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin,. so did it fall to the lot of Clara Schumann to be the pioneer of the pianoforte works of Brahma. She it was who intro- duced his name in the first instance, not only to the music... lovers of many German towns, but to the public of -Vienna,' and London." Miss May, who knew the subject of this Memoir, concludes with an estimate of her character which., is at once sympathetic, sane, and judicial :- " Frau Schumann retained to the end of her artistic life the simplicity of manner that had characterized her in her girlhood when before the public, combining with it in her maturity the- unconscious dignity of bearing that comes insensibly to those who have faced and conquered the sorrows of life, and the pathetic attractiveness of her appearance in middle age, with the atmosphere of romance that surrounded her, added a touch of reverence to the- affection with which she was regarded that seemed to place her on terms of sympathetic affection with the great audiences that used to. assemble to hear her play. In private life she was regarded with. profound veneration and esteem, which she justified by her great. goodness of heart and devotion to duty. That prolonged intimate association with her was always easy cannot be said. Her- naturally sensitive nerves had been rendered acutely susceptible-. to passing impressions by the conflicts of her life and the strain of a long public career, and she became apt to see slights and insults. where none wore intended. She could not easily be induced to- believe there might be another side to a question on which she halo

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farmed a. strong' opinion; nor, once seriously offended, did she readily forget and forgive. Her Innate power of commanding

affection was;. however, so great that those who had once loved her could not choose but love on, even though they might know them- selves misjudged by "her."

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