Sonata No. 1, Piano and Violin, A minor, op. 105 (1851)
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Born 8 June 1810, Zwickau, Germany.
Died 29 July 1856, Endenich (Bonn), Germany.
It was Robert Schumann's practice when composing to concentrate intensively on a particular genre. His most important works for piano were written before 1840; a large part of his lied oeuvre stems from the year of his marriage to Clara Wieck. In the year 1842, sometimes called his "chamber music year," Schumann wrote, among other works, three string quartets op. 41, the piano quintet op. 44, and the piano quartet op. 47. During the period 1849-1851, on the other hand, he composed mostly lyrical character pieces, which he usually bundled in cycles. In each of these works, a then-neglected instrument shines in a duet with piano (horn, oboe, clarinet, viola, cello).
The violin-piano combination received Schumann’s attention in 1851. The origin of Schumann's first violin sonata can be followed in Clara Schumann's diary. “Robert is working away on something new. I can't get him to tell me what, but I have the feeling that it's a piece for piano and violin. Am I right?” (September 15). “I have finally seen Robert's new sonata and am thoroughly delighted by it. I am extraordinarily enchanted by the entire character of the sonata, and can hardly wait for Wasielewski (the concertmaster of the Düsseldorf orchestra and Schumann's first biographer) to come so that I can play it through with him.” (September 25).
After the first rehearsal on October 16, she wrote, “I simply could find no peace and had to try out Robert's new sonata today. We played it and felt especially moved by the most elegiac first movement as well as by the lovely second one. Only the third movement, which is somewhat less charming and more headstrong, we just did not seem to get right.”In his autobiography, Wasielewski remembers that at the rehearsal, “only the Finale I couldn't play to his (Schumann's) satisfaction. We went through it three more times, but Schumann said that he had expected a different effect from the violin. I was unable to convey sufficiently the headstrong, gruff tone of the piece...”
Schumann allegedly said to Wasielewski about his first violin sonata, “I wrote it right after I had gotten upset with a couple of people.” This was a reference to the mounting tension between the Schumanns and the Düsseldorfer Musikverein, which wanted to fire Schumann as a conductor.
Neither the performance by Clara Schumann and the violinist Ferdinand David in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, nor the publication of the first edition, both in March 1852, was a success. This setback was made even worse because it became the specific reason why the Leipzig publisher Hofmeister declined to publish Schumann's cello concerto. Only in May 1853 did the young violinist Joseph Joachim leave an unforgettable impression with his brilliant interpretation of this work.
With his two violin sonatas, Schumann, more than Beethoven or Schubert, supplied the model for the great violin sonatas of the second half of the nineteenth century.
Robert Schumann's violin sonata, op. 105 is, for its time, unusually terse. Themes from the three movements are related through similar intervals, or “germ cells.” Indeed, the first theme of movement one returns as a fleeting memory in movement three. This cyclic idea, later systematically cultivated by French composer César Franck, was not new in Schumann’s music: he had already applied the cyclic principle in his Piano Sonata, op. 14 (Concert sans orchestre), and it can also be traced in masterpieces such as his Piano Concerto and the Fourth Symphony.
The second movement serves as an enchanting intermezzo that incorporates elements of a missing Scherzo. It is a precursor of the second movement, Andante tranquillo, of Brahms’s A Major Violin Sonata, op. 100.
The Finale, often played much too fast, is a demonic perpetuum mobile that, in its use of canonic style, reflects Schumann's intensive study of Bach's work. Schumann was, together with Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, one of the first great German artists to be fully aware of the “incommensurable” (to quote from Schumann) geniality of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. In compositions such as Kreisleriana and the Toccata, the influence of Bach cannot be overestimated. Contrapuntal techniques, such as the canon, are central to understanding Schumann’s world of “inner voices,” and are never used pedantically, but as the most natural and romantic expression. In later years, when the violin sonatas were written, Schumann was overwhelmed by young Joseph Joachim’s violin playing. The influence of a piece such as J.S. Bach’s D-Minor Ciaccona for solo violin on his own music cannot be overemphasized. Note also the Bachian influence in the opening movement of his second violin sonata, the violin concerto, and the Concertstück for piano and orchestra, op. 134.
Both the first printing, the old Schumann-Gesamtausgabe, and later editions of Schumann's violin sonatas contain many errors. The first reliable practical edition of op. 105 was published in 1994, by Breitkopf & Härtel under the supervision of Dr. Joachim Draheim. In 2001, a definitive edition of the Schumann violin sonatas was published in the Schumann Complete Works (Schumann-Gesamtausgabe) by Schott-Mainz. A performing edition based on the new Complete Works is forthcoming from Schott.
Jozef De Beenhouwer
