Experiencing Schumann

Download or read book Experiencing Schumann written by Donald Sanders and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-09-02 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During his lifetime and for at least a century after his death, Robert Schumann and his music were commonly misunderstood. His long struggle with mental illness was well known, and as a result some of the most original and innovative features of his work were often dismissed as bizarre and irrational. In recent years, however, the rhythmic complexities and unorthodox harmonic practices that lovers of his piano music and lieder have found so appealing are now being received with more objective treatment in critical and scholarly circles. His influence on the music of Brahms and other later composers now seems obvious. The refinement of Schumann’s literary taste is evident not only in his songs, but also in the marvelous fantasy world of his piano pieces. Experiencing Schumann: A Listener’s Companion combines a concise biography of Robert Schumann with an analysis of works from the most important genres in which he worked. The music is discussed in the frame of Schumann’s eventful and ultimately tragic life, and the important influence of his brilliant and adoring—but strong-willed—wife, Clara Wieck Schumann, is also examined. A selected listening discography lists outstanding recorded performances of the featured compositions. Delving into Schumann’s most famous pieces in engaging and accessible style, Donald Sanders provides insightful analysis for dedicated lovers of Schumann as well as newcomers to his musical innovations.

Download or read book When Thoughts and Prayers Aren't Enough written by Taylor S. Schumann and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taylor Schumann survived a school shooting, yet she was left with permanent wounds, both visible and invisible. Weaving her own incredible story into a larger conversation about gun violence in America, Taylor shares another painful truth: Christians have largely been silent on this issue. With compassion and honesty, she encourages readers to join her in taking action for a safer future.

Download or read book Schumann written by Judith Chernaik and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on previously unpublished sources, this groundbreaking biography of Robert Schumann sheds new light on the great composer’s life and work. With the rigorous research of a scholar and the eloquent prose of a novelist, Judith Chernaik takes us into Schumann’s nineteenth-century Romantic milieu, where he wore many “masks” that gave voice to each corner of his soul. The son of a book publisher, he infused his pieces with literary ideas. He was passionately original but worshipped the past: Bach and Beethoven, Shake­speare and Byron. He believed in artistic freedom but struggled with constraints of form. His courtship and marriage to the brilliant pianist Clara Wieck—against her father’s wishes—is one of the great musical love stories of all time. Chernaik freshly explores his troubled relations with fellow composers Mendelssohn and Chopin, and the full medi­cal diary—long withheld—from the Endenich asylum where he spent his final years enables her to look anew at the mystery of his early death. By turns tragic and transcendent, Schumann shows how this extraordinary artist turned his tumultuous life into music that speaks directly—and timelessly—to the heart.

Download or read book Experiencing Chopin written by Christine Lee Gengaro and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-12-20 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fryderyk Chopin’s career is intricately entwined with the piano. Although he made forays into orchestral and chamber work, the vast majority of Chopin’s pieces feature the piano. While his relatively brief life shortened his potential contribution as a composer, the originality, richness, and quality of his work is undeniable. His harmonies were often surprising, the rhythms flexible, and the music dramatic. In Experiencing Chopin: A Listener’s Companion,Christine Lee Gengaro surveys Chopin’s position as a composer at a time when the piano stood at the center of musical and social life. Throughout, she shines a spotlight on Chopin and his music, which illuminated the Romantic period in which he lived, the social and artistic climate that surrounded him, and the importance of the individual artist at a time of political foment. Gengaro considers the different genres among Chopin’s works, linking each to the historical, social, and biographical issues that shaped them.

Download or read book Robert Schumann written by Martin Geck and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Schumann (1810-56) is one of the most important and representative composers of the Romantic era. Here acclaimed biographer martin Geck tells the story of this multifaceted genius, set in the context of the political and social revolutions of his time.

Download or read book Schumann's Virtuosity written by Alexander Stefaniak and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A valuable resource for musicologists, theorists, pianists, and aestheticians interested in reading about Schumann’s views on virtuosity.” —Notes Considered one of the greatest composers—and music critics—of the Romantic era, Robert Schumann (1810–1856) played an important role in shaping nineteenth-century German ideas about virtuosity. Forging his career in the decades that saw abundant public fascination with the feats and creations of virtuosos (Liszt, Paganini, and Chopin among others), Schumann engaged with instrumental virtuosity through not only his compositions and performances but also his music reviews and writings about his contemporaries. Ultimately, the discourse of virtuosity influenced the culture of Western “art music” well beyond the nineteenth century and into the present day. By examining previously unexplored archival sources, Alexander Stefaniak looks at the diverse approaches to virtuosity Schumann developed over the course of his career, revealing several distinct currents in nineteenth-century German virtuosity and the enduring flexibility of virtuosity discourse.

Download or read book Schumann written by Peter F. Ostwald and published by UPNE. This book was released on 1985 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After obtaining access to long-sought-after archival material about the final years of Robert Schumann, Lise Deschamps Ostwald, the author's widow, is finally able to detail the composer's last years at the mental institution in Endenich, fulfilling her husband's original intent "Schumann is a remarkable piece of work...Soberly and objectively, it unearths information that no previous Schumann researcher--in English at least--has come near duplicating."--Harold C. Schonberg, The New York Times Book Review "Peter Ostwald, a San Francisco psychiatrist who is also a trained musician, has dug deeply...and applied his professional knowledge to the fashioning of a fascinating, perceptive psychobiography of the nineteenth-century Romantic master."--Arthur Hepner, Boston Globe "Ostwald...offers new insights into one about whom the musical world has never ceased wondering."--Robert Commanday, San Francisco Chronicle --Book Jacket.