Perhaps as an early foreshadowing of the madness that would lead him to death, Robert Schumann decided at age 22 to disable the middle finger of his right hand to provide greater independence and agility to the remaining four. He kept it immobilized for long enough to prove, at the end, that the paralysis was irreversible and his bet on a career as a concert performer had broken down beyond repair, as a result of an unfortunate decision, to say the least.
Seeing severed his aspiration as a pianist, he will choose to compose.
This is one of its fruits, perhaps the most famous within his piano miniatures:
Träumerei (1838) - Piano: Valentina Lisitsa
Born in 1810 (Zwickau, Saxony), the same year as Chopin, a year before Mendelssohn and one after Liszt, at age eighteen Robert Schumann left to Leipzig to study law at the direction of his father, even though he had already shown some talent for musical composition, with a couple of pieces to his credit. For two years he would alternate his law studies with his love of music, but after attending a Paganini concert in 1830 decided to take the final step: his true passion is music and so he confesses in writing to his mother, being honest with her as a good teenage son:
"Choosing in life a direction diametrically opposed to the first education and destiny is not very easy and requires patience, confidence ... I am still in the middle of imaginative youth, which can still be cultivated and ennobled by art; also arrived at the certainty that with application and patience, and guided by a good teacher, in six years I will be able to compete with any pianist ... "So, Robert decided to appear before the famous music teacher, Friedrich Wieck, whom he already knew. He was taken to test for six months, and stayed at the Wieck house, as was the custom. There he rediscovered Clara, the teacher's daughter, who at age thirteen played the piano as God intended. Robert got dazzled, and only God knows if he did not decide right there to emulate her skills, no matter what.
The little piano girl grew older. Years later, turned into a celebrity, she will live, along with Robert, a love story full of turbulence in the purest romantic style.
The short piece we are listening, named "Träumerei" (Dreaming), takes the number 7 in a series of 15 grouped in Opus 81 with the title "Scenes from Childhood". His remarkable lyricism has led to try out numerous transcriptions for violin, viola, or cello, with accompanying piano. Regardless of the tutus and the roses in bloom, the video presents a very inspired version.
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