Books, Arts & Manners: Composers and Critics

A CONTEMPORARY of Robert Schumann’s remarked that he was “the greatest of music critics among composers, and the greatest composer among music critics.” Today we can ponder over the ambiguities of the statement, but in Schumann’s time it was meant as the ultimate accolade to one whose influence on the course of nineteenth-century music was far more significant than what he produced as a composer.

It is well to remember that not all of musical Europe considered him the successor to Beethoven. Vincent d’lndy, with roots in a more sophisticated Paris, grunted at the “clumsiness” of Schumann’s orchestration, which of course is nonsense. Schumann, whose compositions were set down almost ad libitum, orchestrated his works to the full extent of his needs, his concepts, and his inspiration. He was basically an improviser— as he tacitly admitted and as his symphonies inform us—and his greatest strength was in what he wrote for the keyboard. Symphony No. 1 in B flat and Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, tastefully recorded by Ricardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (London 425 608-2), are faithful to Schumann’s expression—rhythmic, romantic without sentimentality, brimming over with attractive themes, and showing us what the music of the time was, before Wagner sat on it. There are hints in No. 4 of the depression which led to his suicide attempt and his subsequent tragic mental breakdown, but both are full of a Germanic musical spring.

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Ralph de Toledano

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A CONTEMPORARY of Robert Schumann’s remarked that he was “the greatest of music critics among composers, and the greatest composer among music critics.” Today we can ponder over the ambiguities of the statement, but in Schumann’s time it was meant as the ultimate accolade to one whose influence on the course of nineteenth-century music was far more significant than what he produced as a composer.

It is well to remember that not all of musical Europe considered him the successor to Beethoven. Vincent d’lndy, with roots in a more sophisticated Paris, grunted at the “clumsiness” of Schumann’s orchestration, which of course is nonsense. Schumann, whose compositions were set down almost ad libitum, orchestrated his works to the full extent of his needs, his concepts, and his inspiration. He was basically an improviser— as he tacitly admitted and as his symphonies inform us—and his greatest strength was in what he wrote for the keyboard. Symphony No. 1 in B flat and Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, tastefully recorded by Ricardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (London 425 608-2), are faithful to Schumann’s expression—rhythmic, romantic without sentimentality, brimming over with attractive themes, and showing us what the music of the time was, before Wagner sat on it. There are hints in No. 4 of the depression which led to his suicide attempt and his subsequent tragic mental breakdown, but both are full of a Germanic musical spring.