Christiane Schumann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christiane Schumann in 1810. Oil painting by Gotthelf Leberecht Glaeser

Christiane Schumann , b. Schnabel (born November 28, 1767 in Karsdorf , † February 4, 1836 in Zwickau ), was the wife of August Schumann (1773-1826) and mother of the composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856). The entire surviving correspondence between Christiane Schumann and her son was scientifically processed and published in 2020.

Live and act

Johanna Christiana (later name form: Johanne Christiane) Schnabel was the eldest daughter of Abraham Gottlob Schnabel (1737–1809) and Johanna Sophia geb. Lessing (1745–1818) and a great niece of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . She had ten siblings, but only four of them reached adulthood. Her father served in the Electoral Saxon army as a field clerk in Karsdorf and settled in Zeitz as a city and council surgeon in 1768 .

On October 25, 1795, she married August Schumann (1773–1826) in Geussnitz near Zeitz , who had come to Zeitz in 1793 as a bookseller's assistant and was sublet in Abraham Schnabel's house at 3 Altmarkt. In the following years, the couple lived in Ronneburg , where August Schumann opened a bookstore, in which Christiane Schumann also took on activities and dealt with customers personally, such as B. Johann Gottlieb Fichte had. In 1808 the family moved to Zwickau. August Schumann continued the bookstore there under the name "Gebrüder Schumann". The marriage had five children: Emilie, born in 1796, who is said to have shown traits of “quiet madness” in her youth and who committed suicide in 1826, Eduard (1799–1839), Carl (1801–1849), Julius (1804 -1833) and Robert (1810-1856).

Due to a disease called "nerve fever" by Christiane Schumann, Robert was looked after as a toddler, presumably from 1814 to 1816 by his godmother Eleonora Carolina Elisabeth Ruppius, the wife of Zwickau's friend Carl Heinrich Ruppius.

Christiane Schumann was described by the Robert Schumann biographer Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski as an engaging figure who had a "certain talent for representation" and who in later years was "enthusiastic, sentimental exuberance, combined with momentarily quick-tempered vehemence". According to her own statement, she liked to sing a lot and was called "the living aria book". She initially encouraged Robert Schumann's musical talent and enabled him to take piano lessons with the Zwickau organist Johann Gottfried Kuntsch at the age of seven. After the death of her husband in 1826, who left her with a considerable fortune, she and Robert's guardian, the merchant Johann Gottlob Rudel, chose a legal career for her son. She was opposed to his wish for a musical education, she wanted to spare him the “starvation” of an artist.

However, Robert Schumann dropped out of law school, which he had begun in 1828, and in 1830 finally decided on music. In his important letter to his mother dated July 30, 1830, he wrote: “Now I am at the crossroads and I am shocked when asked: Where to? - If I follow my genius, it will point me to art, and I believe, to the right path. ”Despite worries and reservations, Christiane Schumann wrote a letter to Friedrich Wieck , who had given Robert Schumann piano lessons from August 1828 to February 1829 with interruptions and asked for his assessment of her son's future artistic career. Wieck finally accepted Robert Schumann as a student in Leipzig.

Christiane Schumann around 1830, detail from an anonymous miniature

Christiane Schumann followed her son's career with interest, but also with some worries. With the departure of Robert Schumann from Zwickau in 1828 and subsequent studies in Leipzig and Heidelberg, an extensive correspondence between mother and son began. Altogether, including two letters from 1817 and 1818, 65 letters from Robert Schumann to his mother and 37 letters from his mother to him have been handed down and published in 2020 within the Schumann letter edition. The correspondence gives u. a. Information about Robert Schumann's travels to southern Germany in 1828, to Italy in 1829, his study visits to Leipzig and Heidelberg and his living conditions there. Robert Schumann also told his mother about the injury to his right hand, which made him give up his virtuoso career as a pianist and devoted himself more to composing. While as a student and budding composer he often featured in his letters and did not always differentiate between pretense and reality, Christiane Schumann always showed herself to be undisguised in her correspondence. Overall, the correspondence documents an intimate relationship between the mother and her youngest son.

Memorial plaque for Johanna Christiana Schnabel

In a letter to Christiane Schumann dated December 31, 1831, Robert Schumann wrote: "Your name, dear mother, should not bear a concert or a rondo like that, but a cheerful, pious, rich song - are you satisfied?" he kept his promise halfway. He sent her a printed copy of his Six Concert Etudes based on Caprices by Paganini, Op. 10, which appeared in December 1835 , with the handwritten dedication “My beloved mother. Robert Schumann."

In her last letter to Robert Schumann on December 13, 1835, Christiane Schumann described in detail her physical and mental suffering as well as her "long experiences and hard tests" in this regard. In her will of January 27, 1836, she put her “dear children and grandchildren” Eduard, Carl, Robert, Emilie, Richard and Mathilde Schumann as heirs with many detailed regulations “according to legal succession”.

Christiane Schumann died on February 4, 1836 in Zwickau. In 2012, the Zwickau Schumann Society had a plaque installed in her honor at the Protestant Church of St. Laurentius in Karsdorf, where she was baptized as Johanna Christiana Schnabel on November 30, 1767.

Web links

literature

  • Robert Schumann in correspondence with Christiane and August Schumann 1817 to 1836. In: Schumann-Briefedition, Series I, Bd. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (correspondence with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann , Verlag Dohr , Cologne 2020, ISBN 978-3-86846-007-0 , introduction: pp. 41–47, correspondence: pp. 48–390
  • Ute Scholz: "Mother's love is unlimited and eternal." From Robert Schumann's correspondence with his mother , in: Correspondenz : Mitteilungen Der Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft eV Düsseldorf, No. 35: February 2013, pp. 9–30. ( pdf )
  • Irmgard Knechtges-Obrecht: "In the footsteps of Robert Schumann's mother.", In: Correspondenz: Mitteilungen Der Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft eV Düsseldorf , No. 35 (2013), pp. 31–34.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, p. 41.
  2. ↑ Gerd Nauhaus: “Robert's mother - a Zeitzerin? Lengthy search for clues and final clarification ”, in: Zeitz and his environment. Past-Present-Future, No. 9 1/2012, pp. 3–4. pdf .
  3. ↑ Gerd Nauhaus: “Robert's mother - a Zeitzerin? Lengthy search for clues and final clarification ”, in: Zeitz and his environment. Past-Present-Future, No. 9 1/2012, p. 3.
  4. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, pp. 41–42.
  5. ↑ Udo Rauchfleisch: Robert Schumann. A psychoanalytical approach , Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-525-01627-5 , pp. 19-20.
  6. ↑ More details - Robert Schumann mentions a period of 2 1/2 years - in Robert Schumann's autobiography, first published in Ernst Burger: Robert Schumann. A life history in pictures and documents. With the cooperation of Gerd Nauhaus and with the support of the Robert Schumann House in Zwickau . Mainz u. a. 1999, p. 32.
  7. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition, Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, p. 42f.
  8. ^ Baptism certificate in: Ernst Burger: Robert Schumann. A life history in pictures and documents. With the cooperation of Gerd Nauhaus and with the support of the Robert Schumann House in Zwickau . Mainz u. a. 1999, p. 16.
  9. ↑ Woldemar von Wasielewski (ed.): Robert Schumann. A biography of Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski. Leipzig, 4th edition 1906, pp. 6-7.
  10. ↑ Udo Rauchfleisch: Robert Schumann. A psychoanalytical approach , Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-525-01627-5 , p. 66.
  11. ↑ Barbara Meier: Robert Schumann , Hamburg 2010, p. 11.
  12. ↑ Udo Rauchfleisch: Robert Schumann. A psychoanalytic approach , Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 978-3-525-01627-5 , p. 32.
  13. ↑ Ernst Burger: Robert Schumann. A life history in pictures and documents. With the cooperation of Gerd Nauhaus and with the support of the Robert Schumann House in Zwickau . Mainz u. a. 1999, p. 54.
  14. ↑ Woldemar von Wasielewski (ed.): Robert Schumann. A biography of Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski. Leipzig, 4th edition 1906, p. 43.
  15. ↑ letter of Robert Schumann from 30.07.1830 to his mother and Christiane Schumann's letter to Friedrich Wieck from 07.08.1830 and its response, reprinted in Ernst Burger: Robert Schumann. A life history in pictures and documents . With the cooperation of Gerd Nauhaus and with the support of the Robert Schumann House Zwickau, Mainz a. a. 1999, pp. 86-87.
  16. ^ Letter database of the Schumann letter edition: Christiane to Robert Schumann ; Robert to Christiane Schumann . Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  17. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020.
  18. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, p. 44.
  19. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, p. 286.
  20. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, p. 384 f.
  21. ↑ Schumann-Briefedition , Series I, Vol. 1: Familienbriefwechsel (exchange of letters with relatives in Zwickau and Schneeberg), ed. by Thomas Synofzik and Michael Heinemann, Cologne 2020, pp. 385–388.
  22. ↑ Excursion of the Robert Schumann Society Zwickau to Karsdorf to present the plaque on the baptistery of Robert Schumann's mother Johanna Christiana Schnabel , Schumann-Portal.de .
personal data
SURNAME Schumann, Christiane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schumann, Johanne Christiane (full name); Schnabel, Johanna Christiana (baptismal name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wife of August Schumann and mother of Robert Schumann
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1767
PLACE OF BIRTH Karsdorf
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1836
Place of death Zwickau