Schumann by Judith Chernaik

Author:Judith Chernaik
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2018-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

THE RUSSIAN TOUR

The triumph of Peri softened the prospect of a concert tour of Russia, to which Schumann had reluctantly agreed. Long cherished by Clara, the plan had been discussed for months. Traveling would have to start in January in order to arrange concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow in early spring. There were no rail links beyond Berlin. Stagecoaches would have to be arranged along the way, going farther northeast each time, into the brutal northern winter. From Berlin they would travel forty-eight hours by coach to Königsberg, in eastern Prussia, stopping in Lithuania (Tilsit and Tauroggen) en route to the North Sea port of Riga, capital of Latvia. Clara would arrange concerts in Mitau and Dorpat in neighboring Estonia, returning to Riga for the forty-eight-hour coach trip to St. Petersburg, arriving there in mid-February. After a month in St. Petersburg, they would proceed to Moscow, again by coach. Even after rail links had been established, it would have been a daunting prospect.

Clara knew that her competitors Thalberg and Liszt had toured the Russian cities to rapturous enthusiasm. She was twenty-four years old, ready for any challenge, determined to take advantage of her youth, her stamina, and her remarkable gifts. She hoped to earn enough money to enable Schumann to devote himself exclusively to composition, and she dreamed of establishing his reputation in Russia. Her party piece was to be his popular Piano Quintet, and his Spring Symphony would be offered to Russian impresarios. Clara prepared a program of favorite virtuoso showpieces, with short works by Chopin and Mendelssohn, certain to delight audiences. She had triumphed in Vienna and again in Copenhagen. If she had had another six months, she would have made her name in Paris. In Russia she and Schumann would triumph together, a unique artistic pair. They had friends or acquaintances in each city who would smooth their way.

The only obstacle she faced was the reluctance of her beloved Robert. But he too was young—only thirty-three—and despite occasional spells of ill health he was at the height of his powers. In his imagination, he could, like the Peri, soar to the farthest reaches of the known world. In real life he clung to the security of his own pleasant lodgings on Inselstrasse, his two little girls, afternoon walks with Clara to the Rosenthal gardens or longer excursions to a country inn at Connewitz, returning for his usual evening beer at Poppe’s tavern. His attempt to establish the New Journal in Vienna had been a disaster. He was comfortable only in his native Saxony: the familiar triangle of Leipzig; the artistic court city of Dresden to the east, and his quiet family home of Zwickau to the south, with Schneeberg, where his brother Carl maintained the family publishing business, just twelve miles away. Gone were his and Clara’s dreams of starting married life in a grand capital city—Vienna, Paris, or London. Home was busy, bourgeois Leipzig, where Schumann was known and respected, and Clara could entertain fellow musicians at domestic soirees and perform in the Gewandhaus at any time she chose.

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