Overview

The first in-depth study in almost half a century of Robert Schumann's multi-movement Leipzig chamber works, this book offers novel and diverse encounters with the three Op. 41 String Quartets, the Op. 44 Piano Quintet, and the Op. 47 Piano Quartet. The volume adopts a two-pronged approach, exploring the reception of this music from both composer- and listener-oriented perspectives. On the one hand, it shows how this repertory illuminates Schumann's response to certain past and contemporary composers; to his own youthful, experimental past; and to various literary and cultural influences. At the same time, the book explores how different people have heard this music: listeners in Schumann's own day and beyond, in both Germanic and non-Germanic regions, and comprising the voices of critics, performers, audiences, even figures in disciplines outside of music. Such reception stories yield new insights into whether these works represent a more conservative or progressive mindset for the composer. The book thus offers a more nuanced understanding of Schumann's stylistic development. Balancing new critical and contextual frameworks with close analyses of selected movements in a wide range of forms, author Julie Hedges Brown offers new pathways for rehearing the Leipzig chamber repertory.

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9780197749463

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Reviews

Julie Hedges Brown offers a virtuosically multifaceted perspective on Robert Schumann's chamber music, integrating revelatory musical analyses with explorations of performance, reception, and multimedia. Her work invites us to hear new meanings in several works central to the chamber-music canon, pushing us beyond received wisdom about Schumann's biography and aesthetic. She vividly reveals the intricacy, creativity, and significance both of Schumann's engagement with the chamber music tradition and of later musicians', writers', and choreographers' engagement with his music. * Alexander Stefania, Washington University in Saint Louis * Hedges Brown's masterful study inscribes Schumann's Leipzig chamber works 'in the great stream of time' by weaving together musical, literary, theatrical, and personal resonances, past, present, and future. Combining finely chiseled analyses with a dynamic view of Schumann's creative development, Hedges Brown offers penetrating insights into the chamber works' stylistic and structural reimaginations and on their performance and reception from the nineteenth century to this day. Like the music it illuminates, the volume links different moments in time and so offers new ways to hear and understand these pivotal compositions. * Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, University of Ottawa *

Author Information

Julie Hedges Brown studies the lives and music of Robert and Clara Schumann from critical, contextual, and analytical perspectives. She has presented her work at numerous national and international conferences and published in a variety of journals and book collections. After receiving her PhD from Yale University, she taught at Tufts University, Case Western Reserve University, and Oberlin Conservatory. Currently she is Professor of Musicology at Northern Arizona University, where she has won awards for her teaching.

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