Florestan and Eusebius
Florestan and Eusebius are two fantasy figures of the composer Robert Schumann , who he created during his work as a music critic and made them his mouthpiece for different perspectives on the works discussed. Schumann counted them, although they were fictional, to the Davidsbündler and titled smaller pieces in musical cycles with their names ( Carnaval ) or passed them off as their composers ( Davidsbündlertänze ). The Piano Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 11 , appeared under both names. Florestan and Eusebius are at the same time a mental image of Robert Schumann, as is clear from his self-testimony.
background
Florestan and Eusebius, the “picaresque couple” (Robert Schumann), accompanied Schumann's literary activities as music critics throughout his life. Writing was in his blood: his father August Schumann was a publisher and regarded himself as “homme de lettres”; so it is not surprising that his son was literary and also gifted as a writer. Schumann was deeply touched
by Jean Paul's novel Flegeljahre , published in 1804 . Schumann was able to identify with the unequal twin pair Vult and Walt described in the book . The correspondence between the characters of the non-conformist Vult and the calm and down-to-earth Walt with the characters of the extroverted, stormy Florestan and the elegiac, contemplative Eusebius indicate that the characters from Jean Paul's novel served as models.
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Florestan the savage,
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Eusebius the mild,
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Tears and flames
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Put them together
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In both of me
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The pain and the joy.
- (Schumann in love with Clara )
Florestan and Eusebius in Schumann's music reviews
Florestan and Eusebius appeared for the first time publicly in a review of the piano work composed by Frédéric Chopin on the duet Là ci darem la mano ("Give me your hand, my life") from the opera Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . The review was published in 1831 under the pseudonym Julius in the Leipziger Allgemeine Musikischen Zeitung , the organ that Schumann made competition for with his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik from 1834 onwards. The criticism was presented in novelistic form, which was a common stylistic device at the time. The writer ETA Hoffmann and his literary figure, the "Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler", wrote poetic music reviews for the Leipzig musical newspaper . Decades later, the composer Claude Debussy also invented a fictional interlocutor for his music reviews, " Monsieur Croche " - who was by no means poetic, but rather humorless and dry.
The difference in character between Florestan and Eusebius follows an intended dramaturgy: Schumann used it to portray different perspectives on the plays he was discussing. In some reviews, however, the antithetical approach reflects less a different view of art than the different temperament of the characters serving as mouthpieces. Florestan and Eusebius are often supported by Master Raro (originally Friedrich Wieck was the godfather of this). He takes on the function of an objective observer and softens polarizations.
- "Florestan and Euseb are my dual nature, which I like Raro would like to merge into a man."
- (Schumann in a letter to Heinrich Dorn on September 14, 1836)
Even where Florestan and Eusebius are not mentioned in reviews or identified as their "authors", their characteristics and sometimes their naughtiness shape many of Schumann's texts. Schumann was a person with often contradicting feelings and in the design of his reviews as well as in composing, not only formally but also very versatile in style. From gentle mockery to sharp mockery, from silent approval to high-flying enthusiasm, nothing was alien to him and his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik was an ideal field for experimentation. In this context, his criticism of Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Der Prophet ( Le Prophete ) is often mentioned , which has found its way into music history as the shortest criticism, as Schumann had given it a † after visiting the performance, not as a review put in his newspaper as an obituary.
Schumann's last critical newspaper report was entitled Neue Bahnen Johannes Brahms , whom he announced in an almost hymn-like tone as the great future composer.
At the beginning of the 19th century, writing music reviews was a challenge in some respects: At the time, there were nowhere near as many musical performances of instrumental or orchestral works as people take for granted today. Nor did you find very many outstanding artists or orchestral ensembles. Schumann was lucky - living in Leipzig - because the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra was one of the best of its time, but nevertheless: music reviews were often made less after performances than on the basis of studying the sheet music or scores . Schumann also sat down at the piano and played through the new releases in order to evaluate them qualitatively later.
Eusebius
Review of the Sonata in C minor by Delphine Hill Handley (1835, abridged):
- Just step closer, tender artist, and don't be afraid of the grim word above you (“Critique” was the heading) . Heaven knows that I am in no way a Menzel, but more like Alexander when he says after Quintus Curtius: "I don't fight with women, only where there are weapons I attack." I want the critical staff like a lily stem weigh over your head, or do you think I do not know the time when you want to talk and can not do with bliss, where you want to push everything to itself without even one to have found, and where it is the music that makes us shows what we'll lose again - You are wrong. Truly, a whole eighteenth year lies in the sonata; devoted, amiable, thoughtless - ah! (...) If only I could have been there as she wrote the sonata! I would have looked after her for everything, false fifths, inharmonious cross positions, in short everything, because it is music in her essence, the most feminine one can imagine. Yes, she will develop into a romantic, and so with Clara Wieck two Amazons would stand in the sparkling rows. There is only one thing that she cannot bring together yet: the composer with the virtuoso whom I think of when I hear her previous name. She wanted to show that she also had pearls to adorn herself. But that is not necessary in the twilight hour, when in order to be happy you ask for nothing but loneliness, and in order to make you happy, a second soul. And so I put the sonata down with all sorts of thoughts.
- Eusebius
Florestan
Review of the Grand Sonate élégique for piano in F minor, op. 33 [recte: op. 32] by Carl Loewe (1835, excerpt):
- Now to the lion! - Young critics like to go to high places like church towers and oak trees. As heavenly as I am convinced that my lovable Eusebius found some things in the Delphine Sonata that are not in it, so much the opposite is the case now. I saw it clearly at a point right at the beginning, about which I raged passably. Heaven I thought while playing, to say four times to a person that one says little, seems too much to me - and then these philistine ornaments! And then the clarity in general! (...) In the Scherzo I began to be secretly annoyed about my anger and believed I was calm in front of the (musical) figure. The finale begins, I continue to play harmlessly, then pianissimo legatissimo sounds the dreadfully familiar (melody quote ) , peeps out everywhere in round and angular shapes and now at the very end, in order to make me completely beside myself, tap it and tap it (. ..) For two hours the figure echoed in my ears and the lion was certainly the right one, because I internally praised him for a lot about the sonata (...)
- Florestan
Florestan and Eusebius as images of Schumann's "I"
The fact that Schumann saw Florestan and Eusebius as images of his own personal mental sensitivities is particularly clear in his self-deprecating poems for Clara Wieck (Schumann writes Clara ) from 1838:
To a certain bride who doesn't want a twentieth husband
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Florestan is angry, cling
to Eusebius!
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Florestan is jealous,
But full of faith Eusebius -
Whom do you like to kiss the wedding best?
Who is most loyal to you and yourself.
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And if you want to swing your slipper, do you have
to wrestle with two -
who will then win,
who will be defeated?
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Then we magnanimously lead you to the throne, place
us on the left and on the right -
and do you want to outlaw one,
do you also tell the other ?
Florestan and Eusebius in Schumann's compositions
Schumann not only presented Florestan and Eusebius as character pieces in Carnaval op. 9, but even passed them off as composers. Both the Davidsbündlertänze op. 6 and the piano sonata in F sharp minor op. 11 were referred to in the first editions as works by Florestan and Eusebius. Schumann himself saw these two piano works as an expression of the deep love between himself and Clara Wieck.
The Davidsbündlertänze begin with a quote from a mazurka by Clara Wieck ("Motto of C. W."). Their starting motif determines most of the Davidsbündlertänze , which, however, according to Schumann's own statement, are less dances than stag parties and wedding ideas. An "old saying" as the motto indicates the emotional strain and the hopes associated with the love that Clara's father fought:
In all and every time
, pleasure and suffering are linked.
Remain pious in lust and be ready for
suffering with courage
The first movement of the Piano Sonata op. 11 combines themes from Clara Wieck (from her op. 5) and Robert Schumann's. The cover of the first edition says:
| PIANOFORTE SONATA CLARA approved |
literature
- Robert Schumann: Writings on music and musicians , Reclam, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-15-002472-2