Chopin, Frédéric, 1810-1849; Music; Music -- History and criticism; Schumann, Robert, 1810-1856
The collection of Schumann's letters so far under consideration met
with such a favorable reception that a second edition was soon called
for, and this circumstance no doubt promoted the publication of a
second series, extending to 1854, two years before Schumann's sad
death in the lunatic asylum near Bonn. This second volume includes a
considerable number of business letters to his several publishers. In
one of these he confides to Dr. Haertel his plan of collecting and
revising his musical criticisms, and publishing them in two volumes.
But as this letter was, a few months later, followed by a similar one
addressed to the publisher Wigand, who subsequently printed the
essays, it is to be inferred that Breitkopf & Haertel, though assured
of the future of Schumann's compositions, doubted the financial value
of his musical essays--an attitude pardonable at a time when there was
still a ludicrous popular prejudice against literary utterances by a
musician. In 1883, however, after Wigand had issued a third edition of
the "Collected Writings on Music and Musicians" (which have also been
translated into English by Mrs. Ritter), Breitkopf & Haertel atoned for
their error by purchasing the copyright.
Schumann's letters to his publishers show that he used to suggest his
own terms, which were commonly acceded to without protest. For his
famous quintet he asked twenty louis d'or, or about $100; for
"Paradise and the Peri," $500; the piano concerto, $125; Liederalbum,
op. 79, $200; "Manfred," $250. He frequently emphasizes his desire to
have his compositions printed in an attractive style, and in 1839
writes to Haertel that he cannot describe his pleasure on receiving the
"Scenes of Childhood." "It is the most charming specimen of musical
typography I have ever seen." The few misprints he discovers in it he
frankly attributes to his MS. In a letter to his friend Rosen he
writes that "it must be a deucedly comic pleasure to read my
Sanskrit." But his musical handwriting appears to have been nearer to
Sanskrit than his epistolary, if we may judge by the specimen
fac-similes printed in Naumann's "History of Music."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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