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A Poet's Love

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Robert Schumann's piano pieces are filled with passionate melodies, imaginative changes within the harmony, and forceful rhythms. He often attached literary meanings to his music, which shows how important his literature background became within his music. He enjoyed composing short pieces that were connected by a literary theme.

His piano music included three sonatas and many miniatures and collections. His titles followed not only his music, but also painted a picture or portrayed an image. For example, Papillons (Butterflies), Carnaval, Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), and Fantasy Pieces are typical of his romantic style.

He ranks second to only Schubert in his lieder, and he wrote more than 300 songs during his productive years. The most common theme of his songs is love, from a woman's point of view. His favorite poet was Heinrich Heine, and his song cycle, A Poet's Love was based on poems by Heine. His other best known song cycle, A Woman's Love and Life, was based on poems by Chamisso.

Other piano music which he composed includes Symphonic Etudes and Fantasy in C.

He also wrote four symphonies and one piano concerto. His symphonies are Romantic in emotions, and in his Spring Symphony, he asked the conductor, "Could you infuse into the orchestra a kind of longing for spring?"

His chamber music consisted of three string quartets, one piano quintet, one piano quartet, piano trios, and sonatas.

Additional music included one opera, incidental music and choral music.

A Poet's Love was written very quickly in 1840, his "year of song." Sixteen poems, from the Lyriches Intermezzo by Heine were used for the text. In contrast to Schubert's Erlking, this song cycle doesn't tell a real story. Instead, they show the progression from the freshness of love to disappointment, and finally complete despair.

The eighth song in the cycle, "And if the flowers knew," is written in a modified strophic form. The first three verses offer comfort for the loss of love with the use of the flowers, nightingales, and stars. The final verse shows the hopelessness of lost love, and the tone is ironic and bitter.

The melody is quick-paced, declamatory style, and breathless in character for the first three verses. The piano provides rhythmic energy, a dramatic quality, and sets the mood of rushed, uneven rhythms. Schumann then reshapes the final verse by changing the melody and character so that both the solo voice and the piano accompaniment reach an emotional climax. The piano postlude adds to the angry frustration heard in the last lines of the poem.