Schumann, Robert
Schumann, Robert (1810–56),regarded as one of the great German romantic composers, known for his piano music, chamber music, songs, and symphonies. Although Schumann wrote some operas, the only one he finished, Genoveva (1850), was never as successful as his other works that often had strong fairy‐tale elements.
Influenced by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Schumann wrote two important fairy‐tale piano compositions during the 1830s: Phantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces), a collection of poetic mood pieces based on Hoffmann's tales, and Kreisleriana, fantasy pieces that recall the mad musician Kreisler, who appears in several of Hoffmann's stories.
In his choral work Das Paradis und die Peri (Paradise and the Peris, c.1850), Op. 50, Schumann set to music one of the poems from Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh (1817). The Peris are descendants of fallen angels,...
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