Three Mixed Choruses on poems by Emanuel Geibel

Abendfeier in Venedig

Vorwärts

Gondoliera

Robert Schumann was not the only composer in the family. His wife, who as Clara Wieck had won a reputaton as one of the greatest pianists of her day while still in her teens, had been writing music from the age of 11 and regularly performing her works at her concerts. After her marriage in 1840, with an unstable genius of a husband and, eventually, 8 children to care for, she had less time for composing. But she went on writing whenever she could, but only until her husband’s death in 1856 when she more or less gave up creative work in favour of playing and teaching.

The three choruses to words by Emanuel Geibel were written for Robert Schumann’s 38th birthday in June 1848 snd presented to him in the form of a morning serenade by the choral society he had recently formed in Dresden. Although they are the only works of their kind that she ever wrote they are highly accomplished in their scoring. Of the three – all of them for unaccompanied mixed chorus in four parts with minimal counterpoint – the first, Abendfeier in Venedig, with its atmosphere of religious devotion hovering in the air of the city of Venice, is perhaps the most beautifully written. The briskly paced Vorwärts, apparently reflecting the revolutionary fervour of Dresden in 1848, is well placed to offset both its predecessor and another poetic evocation of Venice, Gondoliera, in the then popular form of a gently lilting gondola song.