from Part V - Reception and Legacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 December 2025
This chapter surveys contemporary responses to the Schumanns across a variety of artistic media: music, dance, theatre, visual arts, and literature. It argues that while these can be opportunities for reflecting historical affinities and differences, artists typically reflect the myths surrounding these musicians, rather than engaging with current research. While Robert Schumann has become a cipher for mental illness, his relationship with Clara Schumann née Wieck, and the couple’s relationship with Johannes Brahms, have also attracted a great deal of attention. Responses to the Schumanns have also reflected broader trends in artistic practice, including the theatricalization of concert music, the mash-up, and ‘composed reception’ (musical responses to stylistic aspects of their works). The Schumanns both represent the past but also provide artists with opportunities for imaginative time travel, to reassess and in some ways reinvent their present.
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