PROGRAMME NOTES

CLARA SCHUMANN

(1819 – 1896)

Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17

I. Allegro moderato

II. Scherzo. Tempo di menuetto

III. Andante

IV. Allegretto

ROBERT SCHUMANN

(1810 – 1856)

Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44

I. Allegro brillante

II. In modo d’una marcia. Un poco largamente

III. Scherzo. Molto vivace

IV. Allegro ma non troppo

Friedrich Wieck was a respected and famous piano teacher, music theorist and critic, as well as the owner of a piano and music shop. He was probably the equivalent of a ‘tiger dad’ in today’s terms, with the aim of training his first daughter, Clara, into a musical prodigy and a concert pianist. She was born in the year Raffles set foot on Singapore, in 1819, and Wieck had planned strict schedules for her which included piano and musical theory, as well as hours of piano practice and physical exercise (walking) which she had to adhere to. He had trained her quite well, for she gave her public debut performance when she was nine, and her solo debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus at 11.

By her teens, Clara was an international superstar, playing concert tours internationally and extensively, even impressing the likes of Franz Liszt. She was also in love with one of her father’s students, a man much older than her.

In 1829, Robert Schumann made contact with Friedrich Wieck, requesting to study music under him. Schumann took lessons with Wieck and moved into the Wieck household in 1830 to continue his music education. After a brief fling with another of Wieck’s pupils, Schumann became enamoured with Clara, with whom he began a relationship with much to the disapproval and disappointment of her father.

Clara was caught in between her love for her father, to whom she owed her education, career and success, and her love for Robert. The year 1839 was probably the most difficult for the couple as Robert was involved in a public quarrel with his teacher over Clara. After a long, legal battle between her father and her love, Clara chose to break with her father; Robert and Clara were finally married in September 1840, a day before her 21st birthday. She constantly expressed her happiness in her diary, an entry in December reads: “We have been married a quarter of a year today, and it is the happiest quarter of a year of my life.” Music-making was a regular part of the Schumann household, and both often jointly published music together.

Clara was a busy woman: on top of her role as wife and mother, she juggled a career as a concert pianist, editor and even transcriber of Robert’s works, championing and promoting them by performing them in concerts. Since Robert earned little money from composing, she was the main bread-winner for the family, supporting Robert and their children with her income from playing concerts. As such, most of her own published works after marriage were short character pieces or lieder, with an exception being the Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17, a four-movement work that was written between 1845–1846.

The opening Allegro moderato is filled with a passionate warmth, with lyrical themes that convey an intense longing. The Scherzo, written ‘in the tempo of a minuet’, is a rustic dance with playful dotted rhythms, contrasted with a trio that makes use of melodies which are suspended across the barlines. The influence of Mendelssohn (a close family friend and godparent to the Schumanns’ first child) can be seen in the Andante, written in his trademark style of his Songs without Words but with a contrastingly jagged middle section. The Allegretto finale displays Clara’s mastery of counterpoint and sense of structure, where it brings back material from the earlier movements and develops into a fugue.

Well-received and highly regarded, Clara’s piano trio would later inspire Robert to try his hand at writing a piano trio the year after in 1847.

Robert Schumann’s inspiration seemingly came in phases, and the year 1842 was decidedly his year of concentrating on chamber music: inspired by Beethoven, he wrote three string quartets. Having a pianist for a wife, he then decided to add a piano part to the string quartet for Clara, writing the first piano quintet of its kind in a span of less than three weeks.

An exuberant stride opens the Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44, and is contrasted by a lyrical second theme, presented as a wistful dialogue between the viola and cello. The second movement is a funeral march set in C minor, with the march theme returning to separate two different episodes: one in a major key for musical relief, and the other, an agitated and dramatic scene. The third movement is a Scherzo ingeniously built upon a scale, with two trios: the first, a backward glance to the first theme of the first movement; and the second (after an ‘improvement’ suggested by Mendelssohn), a flurry of semiquavers with gypsy overtones that make it the most demanding passage in the work. The finale interlaces various earlier themes in different guises and leads to a dramatic climax, and concludes with a fugal coda.

An immediate success, this pioneer quintet would go on to be the model for numerous later composers such as Brahms, Franck, Dvořák, Fauré, Elgar, and Shostakovich.

Upcoming Concerts

CHAMBER

SCHUBERT’S PIANO SONATAS WITH PAUL LEWIS

Sat 18 Feb, 7:30pm

Paul Lewis piano

ORGAN

DANIEL MOULT –ORGAN RHYTHM

Sun 5 Mar, 4pm

Daniel Moult organ

INTIMATE MOMENTS

THE TALES OF YU JING

余菁的音乐童话

Wed 15 Mar, 7:30pm

Thu 16 Mar, 7:30pm

Yu Jing narrator

Jin Ta music arranger

Zhang Heyang presenter

Musicians of the SSO

Featuring conversations in Mandarin only

CONCERTO DE L’ADIEU

Sat 15 Apr, 7:30pm

Koh Jia Hwei organ re: mix ensemble

Foo Say Ming (Music Director)

CHAMBER

SCHUMANN QUARTET – DEBUSSY, JANÁČEK & BRAHMS

Wed 10 May, 7:30pm

Schumann Quartet

Musicians of the SSO

ORGAN CHAMBER

SCHUMANN QUARTET – BRAHMS & BEETHOVEN

Thu 11 May, 7:30pm

Schumann Quartet

Musicians of the SSO