The best of Romantic miniatures

How much do pictures reflect reality? The image on the front of this CD is an anonymous copy of a photograph taken of Robert and Clara Schumann in 1850, the year after most of the pieces here were written. Robert, standing soberly by the piano, was actually addicted to wine, women and song. His drinking was referred to by Clara's father Friedrich Wieck in his attempts to prevent their marriage, and Robert's affairs were a problem for Clara. Not so the songs, of which he wrote more than 100 in 1840, the year he married Clara. He was 40 years old in this picture, by this time a thoroughly respected composer, though more successful in some genres than others. His earlier intention, to be a concert pianist, had been thwarted by a (possibly self-inflicted) injury to his right hand.

And what of Clara? She was 31 and an acclaimed pianist. She had already given birth to six of her eight children (of whom seven survived). At this period she was also performing, but her pregnancies (and Robert's encouragement) had led to a flowering of her compositional skills. Her face - in common with other photos of her - seems to express a kind of abstracted melancholy. But here the copyist has lied; in the original photograph she is almost smiling. Certainly the years from her marriage until Robert's physical and mental health began its final decline in 1852 contained much ecstatic happiness. As she wrote in her diary soon after their marriage: "I am supremely happy, and becoming more so all the time - if my Robert is as happy as I am, then I will wish for nothing further - because of my love I could sometimes hurt him with my kisses; instead of becoming quieter (as they say one gets to become in a marriage) I become more fiery! - my poor beloved husband!

Their relationship was one of mutual love and mutual support, though perhaps Clara was able to support Robert more than the other way round. She encouraged him constantly, and by performing his works at her concerts brought them into the public domain. Robert sometimes described her as his own "right hand". She was sociable and outgoing, he more private and reserved outside his own circle of friends. He needed her support, and indeed sometimes felt inadequate and depressed on her concert tours when she was the star soloist and and he could no longer play the piano properly.

Clara's encouragement of Robert was from a position of equality, and the anonymous illustrator has made a blatent distortion in the picture by moving the angle of her head from upright in the original photograph to a more submissive position - forward and down.

Copyright Jeremy Polmear 2002