Carolyn Sampson (soprano, above), Joseph Middleton (piano, below)

Songs and piano music by Robert and Clara Schumann – full list at bottom of review

Wigmore Hall, London
Wednesday 14 February 2024

by Ben Hogwood Photos by Marco Borggreve (Carolyn Sampson) and Sussie Ahlberg (Joseph Middleton)

This was a Valentine’s Day concert with a difference. No orchestra, no Romeo & Juliet – but rather an intimate presentation of a musical marriage, that of composer / pianists Robert and Clara Schumann, whose relationship has been increasingly under the microscope in the past few years.

This is a good thing, for when Robert and Clara married on 12 September 1840 the concept of equality within marriage, let alone classical music, was very different indeed. Robert, in the outpouring of song that he experienced in that year, completed the song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben, to poetry by Adelbert von Chamisso attempting a depiction of marriage from a woman’s perspective. It is certainly not how we recognise the institution of marriage today, which soprano Carolyn Sampson acknowledged in a Guardian article around the release of her Album für die Frau, the title of this concert, in 2021. In that article she put forward a strong case for continuing to sing the cycle, identifying with a good deal of the verse and even more of the music – but with her musical partner, pianist Joseph Middleton, she has recast the cycle.

Now the Schumanns’ marriage is given in four parts – love, marriage, parenthood and death – viewed through the prism of Frauenliebe but balanced through songs by Clara and Robert, or one of the latter’s piano pieces. Each song from the cycle had two accomplices, the context achieved through what must have been a painstaking selection process that, in this concert, bore much fruit. The coherent end piece was bisected by well-chosen text from the couple’s diaries and more.

With sadness inevitably looming towards the end it was a difficult structure for the duo to pitch, but they made it work through selections that made emotional sense and which, crucially, were harmonically linked. Sampson’s clarity of line was the clincher, her ability to carry not just a melody but the words with great diction, while the same could be said of Middleton’s phrasing, which as Sampson said in the introduction ‘could express what words cannot’. The postlude from Frauenliebe was the keenest example, exquisitely played.

The song cycle itself contained a great deal of emotion, especially in Du Ring an meinem Finger (You ring on my finger), where Sampson’s powerful crescendo was all-consuming. Clara’s songs proved the ideal complement, a little more Schubertian in style perhaps but harmonically more daring, often ending in suspension.

The first half included five settings of Rückert and felt slightly giddy in the intoxication of falling in love and wedded bliss, almost too good to be true – and so it proved, with the settings of Heinrich Heine bringing with them furrowed brows and family responsibilities, the music increasingly worrisome. Robert and Clara had eight children in all, and this section gave a glimpse of the weight of responsibility that would surely have left.

The masterstroke of this program, however, was not to finish with the end of the song cycle but to offer Robert’s Requiem, from his 6 Gedichte von N Laneu und Requiem Op.90, as a much-needed consolation, then the piano piece Winterzeit I, from the Album für die Jugend. Finally, as an encore, Clara’s Abendstern, a beautiful postscript with her love taken up to the stars, turned our gaze upwards once more.

It capped an unexpectedly moving account of two lives intertwined, offering a timely reminder of Clara’s torment at her husband’s untimely demise. One of the power couples of 19^th century music they must have been, but this was a tender account of two lives entwined and enriched by beautiful song.

You can hear Album für die Frau, as released on BIS, below:

Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton performed the following music:

Robert Schumann Langsam und mit Ausdruck zu spielen from Album für die Jugend Op. 68 (piano, 1848)
Clara Schumann Liebst du um Schönheit Op. 12 No. 2 (1841)
Robert Schumann Seit ich ihn gesehen from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42 (1840)
Volksliedchen Op. 51 No. 2 (1840)
Clara Schumann Liebeszauber Op. 13 No. 3 (1840-3)
Robert Schumann Er, der Herrlichste von allen from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
Clara Schumann An einem lichten Morgen from 6 Lieder aus Jucunde Op. 23 (1853)
Warum willst du and’re fragen Op. 12 No. 3 (1841)
Robert Schumann Ich kann’s nicht fassen, nicht glauben from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
Clara Schumann Die stille Lotosblume Op. 13 No. 6 (1840-3)
Robert Schumann Du Ring an meinem Finger from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
From Myrthen Op. 25 (1840): Lied der Braut I • Lied der Braut II
Glückes genug from Kinderszenen Op. 15 (piano, 1838)
Interval
Robert Schumann
Helft mir, ihr Schwestern from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
Die Lotosblume from Myrthen Op. 25
Lust der Sturmnacht from Kerner Lieder Op. 35 (1840)
Süsser Freund, du blickest from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
Hochländisches Wiegenlied from Myrthen Op. 25
Der Sandmann from Lieder-Album für die Jugend Op. 79 (1849)
Kind im Einschlummern from Kinderszenen Op. 15 (piano)
An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
Ritter vom Steckenpferd from Kinderszenen Op. 15 (piano)
Dein Angesicht Op. 127 No. 2 (1840)
Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan from Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42
Requiem from 6 Gedichte von N Lenau und Requiem Op. 90 (1850)
Winterzeit I from Album für die Jugend Op. 68 (piano)
Clara Schumann
Abendstern

Published post no.2,088 – Thursday 15 February 2024