Clara Schumann: An Artist's Life Based on Material Found in Diaries and Letters - Vol I, Volume 1The reproach is commonly brought against musical biographies that they are monotonous: and indeed the life of the musician has not often afforded much scope for incident or variety. If he be a composer he treads the accustomed course of early struggles, hard-earned victories and posthumous fame: if he be a virtuoso his career is one triumphal progress which leaves little to record except the successive trophies that he has planted and the successive laurels that he has won. The concentration required by his art removes him in some degree from the stir and stress of public events: for the most part he dwells in an ideal city of his own and breathes the more freely when he has shut its gates upon the world. To this it may be added that the biographers of our great musicians have too often tended to merge the historian in the advocate. They are full of a generous enthusiasm for their subject; they are anxious above all things to present it in an attractive light; but they sometimes neglect Cromwell’s advice to Sir Peter Lely and spoil their portrait by giving it a classic regularity of feature. No doubt every biographer is something of a partisan:—it is no use writing a man’s life unless you think well of him:—but the worst of all ways to arouse interest in your hero is to represent him on a faultless paladin and to treat as a paynim and a miscreant everyone who ever offered him the least opposition. No man can build the monument of departed greatness if he is using up all the stones to pelt his adversaries. |
Contents
Hoarfrost 18341835 | |
Lost and Found 18361837 | |
Youthful Fame 18371838 | |
In Foreign Lands 18391840 | |
April Showers and Sunshine 18401844 | |
Silent Growth 18441850 | |
Common terms and phrases
already anxiety applause artist audience beautiful Beethoven Berlin birthday Bremen Chopin Clara played Clara Schumann CLARA TO ROBERT Clara Wieck Clara writes composer compositions concert daughter dear Robert delighted Dresden Emilie Ernestine everything father feeling Friedrich Wieck fugue gave Gewandhaus girl give Hamburg hand happy hear heard heart Henselt Herr honour hope husband Jenny Lind journey Kreischa later Leipsic letter Liszt look March means Mendelssohn Meyerbeer mind minor sonata mother never noone o’clock once one’s opera orchestra Paris performance pianist piano pieces pleasure realise received rehearsal Robert Schumann ROBERT TO CLARA says the diary seems Sept sing soirée songs soon speak spite St Petersburg symphony tell thaler things thought today tomorrow took trio understand Vienna weeks whole wife wish words writes Clara written wrote yesterday Zwickau