Schumann’s piano music is very well known. Although he had to give up his career as a pianist his wife Clara played his pieces and helped them to become famous. Many of his piano works are collections of short pieces, each with a title e.g. "Papillons" ("Butterflies"), "Davidsbündlertänze", "Carnaval". Schumann was thinking of carnival celebrations when he wrote these pieces. The Davidsbündler was a group of people Schumann belonged to who did not like the “Philistines” (people who did not enjoy good music, named after the Philistines in the Bible) In "Carnaval" the two sides of Schumann’s personality are represented by Florestan and Eusebius. Schumann's manic depression (the happy and the tragic moods that he had) are heard side by side in his music. Other piano works include, "Kreisleriana","Album for the Young" which has some quite easy pieces like "Soldier’s March" and the popular "Scenes from Childhood" with its famous "Träumerei" ("Dreaming"). There are also longer works for piano: 3 sonatas, a Toccata and a Phantasie.
His chamber music includes string quartets and a famous piano quintet.
Schumann was one of the great composers of Lieder (German songs). He chose poetry by famous German poets and set them to music in very imaginative ways. The piano has very interesting accompaniments which help to bring out the meaning of the words. He wrote a song-cycle called "Dichterliebe" ("Poet’s Love") which is a setting of some poems by Heinrich Heine. Another song-cycle is called "Frauenliebe und -leben" ("Woman’s Love and Life") to words by Adalbert von Chamisso.
Although the young Schumann seemed to prefer writing short pieces, he became more interested in long works after meeting Mendelssohn. He was also inspired to write symphonies after he discovered Schubert’s Symphony no 9 which no one knew that Schubert had written. He found it in a box in Vienna at the house of Schubert’s brother. Schumann wrote four symphonies. One of his best is the Third which is often called the "Rhenish" Symphony (after the river Rhine). The Fourth in d minor is also a great work. Using only a few musical ideas he develops them in many ways and writes a long, four-movement work. His piano concerto is a great favourite. Clara Schumann played it with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at its first performance on New Year’s Day 1846.
After Schumann’s death Clara devoted herself to playing her husband’s music and helping it to become well known. She visited England regularly where she played at concerts. She also edited a lot of Schumann’s works for the publisher Breitkopf und Härtel.
Lecture
A lecture is when someone talks to a group of people about something interesting. It is like a lesson. At college or university students go to lectures to learn things. The person who is teaching (talking to the group) is called the lecturer. The lecturer may accept questions from the audience.
Sometimes we say that someone was "given a lecture". This means that he was told off for doing something wrong.
Mosel
Mosel may mean the following:
Moselle (department)
Moselle is a department in the Grand Est region of France, named after the Moselle river. The prefecture (capital) of Moselle is Metz.
Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was divided in nine districts: Metz, Bitche, Boulay, Briey, Longwy, Morhange, Sarreguemines, Sarrelouis and Thionville, with Metz as is capital.
In 1800, with the creation of the "arrondissements" in France, the nine districts were changed into four "arrondissements": Metz, Briey, Sarreguemines and Thionville.
The Moselle department was eliminated in 1871 when part of the territory became part of Germany; the remaining parts were combined with the Meurthe department to form Meurthe-et-Moselle.
In 1919, a new department of Moselle was formed.
In 2015, several "arrondissements" were eliminated and their territories passed to the remaining "arrondissements", and only 5 were kept: Forbach-Boulay-Moselle, Metz, Sarrebourg-Château-Salins, Sarreguemines and Thionville.
The Moselle department is in the Grand Est region and borders only 2 departments: Meurthe-et-Moselle to the south and west, and Bas-Rhin to the east. To the north, the department borders Germany and to the northwest with Luxembourg.
Moselle has an area of . Its highest point is Grossman () in the western part of the department on the border with the Bas-Rhin department; it is high.
The main rivers in the department are the Moselle, the Saar and the Seille.
The area around Metz, at an altitude of about , is characterized by climates with few extremes of temperature. The Köppen climate classification type for the climate at Metz is a "Marine West Coast Climate" and of the subtype "Cfb".
The average amount of precipitation for the year in Metz is . The month with the most precipitation on average is December with of precipitation. The month with the least precipitation on average is April with an average of .
The average temperature for the year in Metz is . The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of . The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of
Moselle is managed by the "Departmental Council of Moselle" in Metz. The department is part of the Grand Est region.
There are 5 "arrondissements" (districts), 27 "cantons" and 727 "communes" (municipalities) in Moselle.
The following is a list of the 27 cantons of the Moselle department (with their INSEE codes), following the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015:
The inhabitants of the Moselle department are known, in French, as "Mosellans" or (women: "Mosellanes"),
Moselle had a population, in 2014, of 1,045,154, for a population density of inhabitants/km. The "arrondissement" of Metz, with 341,821 inhabitants, is the "arrondissement" with more inhabitants.
Evolution of the population in Moselle
The 10 "communes" with more inhabitants in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department are:
In the 19th century, the economy of was characterized by heavy industry, especially steel and iron factories. After the weakening of these industries at the end of the 20th century, the department has tried to promote new economic activities based on industry and technology.
Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann (born Leipzig 13 September, 1819; died Frankfurt am Main 20 May, 1896), was the wife of composer Robert Schumann. She was a famous pianist and composer.
Clara was born Clara Wieck. Her father taught her the piano. She was a prodigy and by the time she was thirteen her father was taking her on concert tours.
She was only nine years old when Robert Schumann came to Leipzig to study law at the university. Robert Schumann’s family had told him that he had to study law, but he wanted to be a musician. He took piano lessons from Clara’s father, Friedrich Wieck.
Clara not only learned the piano, she also studied singing, the violin, instrumentation, score reading, counterpoint and composition. By 1835 she was famous in the whole of Europe and was admired by Goethe, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Paganini and, of course, Robert Schumann.
Clara’s father did not want them to marry. He did everything he could to stop the marriage. For several years life was very difficult for them, but in the end, by 1840, they were married.they married by court permission
They had a happy marriage and had eight children. Clara played her husband’s piano works (Schumann had a hand injury and had to stop playing the piano). She ran the household and earned money by teaching and performing. Life was not always easy. When they went on tours together Clara was more famous than her husband, and this was difficult for him. Robert often had depression. They both taught at the Leipzig Conservatorium and Clara also taught privately in Dresden and Düsseldorf.