![]() ![]() By cultivating specifically "German" traits of seriousness, simplicity, and Volkstümlichkeit, Hausmusik set itself apart from that large body of aristocratic French and Italian salon music which the press criticized as being frivolous, artificial, and corruptive of good taste. Fractured into a myriad of states, the Germany of Schumann's day sought and found in the arts an affirming force for unification. ![]() 4 The development of Hausmusik coincided with the growing debate in the 1840s concerning the social dimensions of music. The sacred intimacy of the Hausmusik setting, eloquently if sentimentally preserved in the etchings of the famous nineteenth-century illustrator Ludwig Richter, contrasted starkly with the sumptuous and contrived elegance of the aristocratic salon as well as with the grandeur of large public performance spaces. Hausmusik, 3 literally music designed for playing at home, was a repertory distinguished primarily by its place of performance and only secondarily by its style or genre. This article attempts a broad evaluation of the Album by providing documentation and discussion of the following: the historical and political contexts of Hausmusik as a signature concept of nineteenth-century bourgeois sensibility, the sources of Schumann's pedagogical philosophies, the developmental history and design of the Album, the reception history of the Album, and the influence of the Album on German and American piano pedagogy. While it can be argued that the Album was and is the most widely known of Schumann's works, its significance as a historical, musical, and pedagogical document has been largely overlooked. The spectacular and instantaneous success of the Album inspired Schumann to write many more pieces for children, spawned a host of copycat publications, and most importantly, popularized a forward-looking pedagogical philosophy whose ramifications extended into the twentieth century. 68, not only revolutionized attitudes concerning music education, but also inaugurated an entirely new genre of piano literature-programmatic music written explicitly for children. Schumann's initial essay in this genre, the Album for the Young ( Album für die Jugend), op. Therefore, in the final decade of his life, he began composing works aimed at satisfying the escalating middle-class demand for Hausmusik. 1 At the same time, Schumann was concerned about the poor quality of pedagogical piano music available for teaching his own young daughters. He regretfully conceded that the financial responsibilities of supporting a wife and family had forced him to consider not only "artistic fruits" of his labor but also the "prosaic" ones. For the last two years of his life, after an attempted suicide, Schumann was confined to a mental institution.In 1843, Robert Schumann noted that his highly original if slightly bizarre piano cycles of the 1830s had not endeared him to the public or to his publishers. Clara Wieck showcased many works by her husband as well. In 1840, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with his piano instructor Friedrich Wieck, Schumann married Wieck's daughter, pianist Clara Wieck, a considerable figure of the Romantic period in her own right. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik ("The New Journal for Music"), a Leipzig-based publication that he jointly founded. Schumann's published compositions were, until 1840, all for the piano he later composed works for piano and orchestra, many lieder (songs for voice and piano), four symphonies, an opera, and other orchestral, choral and chamber works. ![]() However, a hand injury prevented those hopes from being realized, and he decided to focus his musical energies on composition. He had hoped to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist, having been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe after only a few years of study with him. He is one of the most famous Romantic composers of the 19th century. Robert Schumann, sometimes given as Robert Alexander Schumann, (J– July 29, 1856) was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. ![]()
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