"The Memoirs of Eugenie Schumann"

[Tarantella]

This is one of the books I've been reading in my research about the Brahms/Schumann relationship, for an upcoming lecture.

I wanted to share with my CMG companions these entries from Eugenie about her mother's relationship with Brahms:

"I did not know at that time what Brahms's friendship had meant to my mother during the most tragic time of her life. It was not till several years after her death that I read the words which she had written in her diary and left to us as a last will and testament - words binding us to lifelong gratitude towards the friend who had sacrificed years of his young life to her. But I could and did understand what his existence meant to her, what he, and only he, could give her. It was Brahms to whom after our father's death she owed the supreme joy of still being able to follow step by step the creative musician's art. She had tasted this joy from childhood upwards; had developed with the creations of Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann. Her own beloved had led her deeply into the spirit of Bach's and Beethoven's works. Now it was Brahms whom she accompanied on this course, whose genius lent her wings to soar. She once asked me if I could at all realise what it meant to have had a friend from childhood upwards who stimulated all your noblest and most artistic qualities, who in daily and hourly intercourse lavished pearls and jewels upon you; if I did not think it natural that she felt she could not go on living deprived of such gifts, and that she clung to friends like Brahms (and Joachim) who could console her in some measure for what she had lost".(152)

The diary goes on to reveal the real extent and depth of the relationship, its trials and disappointments. And the gloomy, unpredictable and often hurtful Brahms emerges too. He was capable of cruelty and Clara bore it all. They remained close right up to the end of Clara's life.

I've been wrestling with the real nature of this relationship (she was 14 years Brahms's senior) and trying to come to grips with its meaning. We do not know if it was a physical relationship (and it's doubtful that Clara would have documented this, knowing her children would have access to her detailed diaries), but Eugenie certainly speaks about what is, to me, undoubtedly a great love of both their lives. I cannot imagine any woman speaking about a man and behaving in a certain way towards him - as expressed in these memoirs - without passion being involved. I'm about to tackle Clara's Diary and Letters (Vol. 2) to try and get a deeper understanding.

The whole experience, as related in the Schumann biography and the memoirs of Eugenie Schumann, has frequently moved me to tears.

[Tarantella]

In cross-referencing the Brahms/Clara Schumann relationship I've been reading a biography of Brahms by Ivor Keys (amazingly enough!!). Keys has the following comments to make:

"Walking together in the high places of art, and united in reverential love for Robert, Clara and Brahms present a puzzling picture. The following is an extract from correspondence between Brahms to Joachim and is part of a longer letter dated 19th June, 1854 (two years before Robert's death) but originally omitted from their published correspondence:

I believe that I do not have more concern and admiration for her than that I love her and am under her spell. I often must restrain myself forcibly from just quietly putting my arms around her and even...I do not know, it seems to me so natural that she could not misunderstand. I think I can no longer love an unmarried girl - at least, I have quite forgotten about them. They but promise heaven while Clara shows it revealed to us"(21)

The author suggests that 'the power of shared music to generate and somehow validate shared feelings is notorious'(21).