Schumann: The Songs

The Rückert Songs

At this dramatic turning point the curtain is about to fall on Schumann's first and finest year of mature songwriting and to rise without intermission on his first and finest year of mature orchestral music. As usual there is a linking theme. The first symphony, known as the “Spring”, was of one birth with the song-cycle, op. 37, from Liebesfrühling (Love’s Springtime) by Rückert. Their constant harping on seasonal renewal seeks to unite love and nature in a cosmic flowering. After opp. 39 and 48 this should have inspired another masterpiece. But as in the Reinick songs the sweet sentiment of the verse cloys the music. Union with Clara is being overdeliberately expressed by her collaboration in Schumann's work as in his life. A letter to a publisher says that the lovesongs and duets of op. 37 were written together (sic) with his wife; [38] and this may have been meant literally. Certainly three of them (Er ist gekommen, Liebst du um Schönheit, Warum waist du And're fragen) were acknowledged as Clara’s and published as her op. 12; but they have an occasional master-touch which is not hers. Conversely some of the other songs have an atypical woodenness, for example in the open­ing bars of O Sonn', O Meer and So wahr die Sonne.