Eva
Peng, Soprano
Anthony Olson, Piano
This lecture/recital explores Robert Schumann’s charming song cycle Frauenliebe und –leben (A Woman’s Love and Life). The cycle tells the story of a young maid from the time of her first meeting with her true love. It then takes her through marriage and motherhood until she becomes widowed at a young age. This program examines the personal, social and musical aspects of this work.
Frauenliebe und –leben was written a the year 1840, a year that is frequently called Schumann’s “year of the songs.” Song writing was very personal to Robert, for after 10 years of writing nothing but solo piano music, he wrote nothing but songs for an entire year. This was the year that he married his beloved Clara. (A “hard-earned” love, for the two had fought bitterly in the courts with Clara’s father in order to gain the right to marry, and were finally united on the eve of Clara’s 21st birthday.) This program places this work in the context of the composer’s life and shows how some historians view the cycle in relation to the Robert’s love for Clara.
The work will also be examined within the context of the social order of the time. The poetry used in the creation of this cycle portrays an idealized feminine subservience shared by many men in the early 1800s. Many critics believe that Adelbert Chamisso poetry (and, some would even argue, Schumann’s music) portrays women as inferior. Complaints such as this one are not unique to Chamisso. One need not look far to find this attitude in the works of other literary and artistic figures of the time – even such writers Charles Dickens have been accused of promoting these same attitudes.
Schumann’s “artistic license” will be evaluated in the course of the lecture/recital. The program makes a theoretical inspection of the music as it examines the manner in which the composer set Chamisso’s poetry to music. Schumann not only changed individual words of the poem, but even adapts the structure of some of the poems to fit them into the needs of his music. He goes as far as changing the “finale” of the story – by omitting the final poem of the poet’s set. Schumann also gives the piano a substantial role in the telling of the story – the piano part propels the drama forward at key moments and sums up the entire cycle at the end.
Hear a beautiful song cycle that is not often explored.
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