"The symphony has given me so many hours of bliss," Schumann wrote in his diary. "I thank my guardian angel for letting me finish this large work with such ease."
Photo: 123rf
Other entries in his diary of 1841 give an indication of Schumann's speed-writing:
January 23rd: The 'Spring' Symphony begun.
January 24th: The Adagio and Scherzo of the symphony completed.
January 25th: Symphonic fire – sleepless nights – [work] on the last movement.
January 26th: Hooray! The symphony complete!
This was in fact the piano sketch for the work, but it was fully orchestrated and premiered by 31 March with none other than the musical force of nature Mendelssohn conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Schumann's phenomenal creative pace was the blooming of a decade or more of ambition to write symphonically.
Back in 1829 he’d told his teacher and future (resentful) father-in-law, Friedrich Wieck: "If you only knew how I feel driven and spurred on, how my symphonies could already have reached opus 100 if only I had written them down, and how comfortable I feel with the orchestra…"
After a decade of piano music and lieder with just two movements of a symphony left hanging, the Spring Symphony was finally sparked into creation following inspiration from Beethoven scores and a chance viewing of the manuscript of Schubert’s 'Great' C Major Symphony.
Schumann wrote that the Schubert “opened up to me all the ideals of my life. It is the greatest instrumental work to have been written since Beethoven…. It spurred me on again to attempt a symphony…"
Early 1841 saw Schumann in the first few months of his marriage to Clara Wieck. He'd had to resort to the courts to overcome her father's resistance to their match, and though it was winter, thoughts of joyful spring were propelling him.
These were crystallised in a verse by the poet Adolf Böttger – and the symphony’s opening theme is a wordless setting of the last stanza of the poem, which translates as: "Oh turn, Oh turn and change your course, Now in the valley blooms the spring!"
Mendelssohn diarised that the symphony "was received with such enthusiasm as I don’t think has been accorded any symphony since Beethoven."
Initially each movement bore a peppy 'Spring' title: Spring’s Awakening, followed by Evening, then Happy Playmates and finally Spring’s Farewell. But he removed these before publication, maybe wanting to keep his work in the realm of the 'pure' symphony.
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Auckland Town Hall, 21 July 2016
Producer: Tim Dodd; Engineer: Adrian Hollay
