New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1913-03-15

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ROBERT SCHUMANN.
yFrom a portrait in clara Schumann." y
ITO the non German reader the love
story IN q great artists life Is ordl-
narily no more than an episode, 10 De
kept in the middle distance rather tnan
in the foreground, yet where Clara
Schumann Is concerned the love story
! is legitimately enough given greater
prominence. AS the author of this
work aptly notes, IL grew quite natu-
rally into q dual biography. and this
meant that he had to portray in a very
peculiar sense not only a union Of lives
hut a union of hearts. These two were
oil heart. a pair Of lovers for whom
1.-THE musical career was nothing II not
IAN expression Of inner emotion. Hence
our ultimate satisfaction in Professor
,L!tzmanns amiable fervors. At the
outset we fear that we are going 10 be
1cloyed with romance, but presently we
realize how very much worth while was
the lyrical atmosphere enveloping the
composer and his wife. II was, after
all very human, springing from a SIM
plicity Of soul even more characteristic
Of the wife than Of the husband. II
Clara Schumann was great artist she
was also a great woman.
Her virtuosity never for a moment
r1a b. 20
steal types who live detached from or
binary circumstances, yer for a mo-
ment deprived her Of her profoundly
feminine traits. There is something
symbolicel in the little story Of her re-
turn with her father from Paris, after
one Of her earliest girlish tours. They
reached Leipsic at 1880 o'clock one
May morning, and, according to the
diary which father and daughter were
wont TO keep together, "a quarter Of
an hour later Clara was cleaning knives
in the kitchen" From her fifth year,
when his separation from her mother
left the redoubtable Friedrich Week in
sole charge Of their child's upbringing,
he kept her thus close 10 the practical
issues Of hard working existence. 1t
was not that he forever employed her
In the kitchen, by any means, or that
he unduly taxed her physique in de-
veloping her musical education. Il do
not wish her to Kill herself (musically)
by overpractce." is another passage
from the diary aforesaid. and Professor
Litxmann easily explodes the fable that
this Spartan parent was a really mon
strous taskmaster. But ii is writ large
across this biography that Week was
q little more than exacting, and es-
pecially that he trained his daughter
10 think of bread and butter long before
she thought of cakes and ale. 1t must
have been in part due 10 his methods
that she remained. as we have said. an
intensely feminine creature. for they
brought her to close grips with nfe
kent her from moving with her head In
the clouds. Only an artist so con-
stantly saturated in the everyday hu-
man emotions could have turned as
spontaneously and as happily as clara
Schumann turned to a love Ike tha'
which TRANSPORTED her career.
Traversing Professor Litzmann's in
terminable narrative from end to end
one fs struck by the comparative In
frequency with which his heroine
pauses upon purely musical matters
Precocious in her art as she was. think
ing and feeling music all day long and
ready enough TO talk or write about 1t,
she is even reader to muse upon her
beloved. The keynote of her story is
perfectly disclosed in this passage from
one OF the first OF the letters she re-
ceived from Schumann:
Many pretty thoughts come into my
head on morning like this. for example
that this warm life Will last throusn
whole June and July, or that the ola lei
low is a butterfly and the world Is MS
dover on which he Sways (this thought
seems TO me too fantastic). or thdt the
same sun which shines IN my room
shines also in Becker's room in Schnee-
burg. or that 7 am always pleased when
a sunbeam hops on the piano as ii u
wanted 60 play with the sound, wnich
after all is nothing more than Hght mace
audible. To speak the truth, cannot
give a reason for all OF them. But In all
This do you not recognize certain
Robert Schumann.
Yes. and in all this-which is to say
in a wonderful blend of love. music
Jean Paul, and then again more love
we also recognize a certain Clara
wieck. immeasurably wretched until
she becomes Clara Schumann. 1t takes
Professor Litzmann full three hundred
pages to bring her to that blissful mo-
ment, but 1t is not his prolixity alone
that accounts for the delay. Old Week
was the cruellest Of curmudgeons about
The marriage and wickedly fertile In
placing obstacles before II. Once the