We know Robert Schumann in many ways: as a visionary composer, a
seasoned journalist, a cultured man of letters, and a genius who, having
passed his mantle on to the young Brahms, succumbed to mental illness in
1856. Drawing on recent pathbreaking research, this collection offers
new perspectives on this seminal nineteenth-century figure.
In Part I, Leon Botstein and Michael P. Steinberg assess Schumann's
efforts to place music at the center of German culture, in public and
private sectors. Bernhard R. Appel offers a probing source study of one
of Schumann's most personal works, the Album für die Jugend, Op. 68,
while John Daverio considers the generic identity of Das Paradies und
die Peri, and Jon W. Finson reexamines the first version of the
Eichendorff Liederkreis. Gerd Nauhaus investigates Schumann's approach
to the symphonic finale, and R. Larry Todd considers the intractable
issue of quotations and allusions in Schumann's music. Part II presents
letters and memoirs, including unpublished correspondence between Clara
Schumann and Felix and Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. In Part III,
conflicting critical views of Schumann are juxtaposed. Some of these
sources are translated into English for the first time.
Originally published in 1994.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from
the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions
preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting
them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the
Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich
scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by
Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
