Robert Schumann: Dichterliebe

Show & Culture

Composing 130 songs in one year requires being madly in love! A Liederabend is a particularly intimate way to experience music: just a singer and a pianist alone on stage, turning poems into songs. In 1840, while fighting in court to finally marry Clara Wieck, Robert Schumann used Lieder composition as his emotional outlet. He composed more than 130 in a single year. "Dichterliebe" ("The Poet’s Loves") is the culmination: 16 settings of poems by Heinrich Heine, dealing with love, desire, and despair, with Clara's name discreetly woven into the music. Baritone André Schuen and pianist Julius Drake bring this extraordinary story to life.