ROBERT SCHUMANN
(born 1810 in Zwickau; died 1856 in Bonn)

Sonata in A Minor, Op. 105 (1851)

1. Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck
2. Allegretto
3. Lebhaft

Schumann described Mendelssohn as "a God among men" and called Brahms "a genius." Schumann's love for great music was as profound as his respect for colleagues and for the great masters, both among his contemporaries and of the past. Schumann himself was no lesser a composer than the greatest masters in the history of Western music; he is, indeed, in a class of his own.

Tortured throughout his adult life by demons within, Schumann was in the last period of his creativity when he wrote his four substantial violin works: the two sonatas, Op.105 in A minor, and Op.121 in D minor, both written in 1851, and the Fantasie for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 131, and the without-opus Violin Concerto, both from 1853. By the following year Schumann had been institutionalized. He died in a mental asylum two years later.

The Sonata in A Minor, Op. 105 written in Dusseldorf, where Schumann had held the post of Director for Orchestra and Chorus from 1850, reaches the core of the true Romantic that was Schumann. His compositions were guided by subjective reflection and intense introspection; one constantly hears his severe self-examination and the resulting turmoil. To hear the music of Schumann is to experience all his experiences magnified twice over. His musical persona as a composer gave definition and long-standing credibility to the term 'Romanticist.'

By the time of his Op. 105, mental illness was beginning to control him, and he was exhibiting alarming mood swings which, of course, took their toll on him, his family and friends. He reported being given orders from Heaven to write down certain melodies, and, too, being threatened by devils. To the rest of the world these were defined as hallucinations; to him these disturbances led to a loss of dignity, and in a few years' time, a loss of life. One can hear his torments in Op. 105-at times tragic, at others restless and condemning-throughout. Occasional moments of relief and warmth are brief and in the distance.

The first movement, marked Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck (with passionate expression) opens with a rich melody in the home key of A minor played on the G-string of the violin, while the piano adds texture with accompanying figures of 16th-notes. By the sixth bar, when the violin line has not even completed its thought, the piano starts with the same tune but starting 6 pitches higher and for a brief moment in D minor, which in turn is taken back by the violin, this time in F Major. These frequent modulations from the very start, usually a trait of the middle (development) section, immediately create a disturbed, restless quality. As in the opening section, the transitions into new material, or returning to old, are seamless and this remains a characteristic throughout the movement. In the coda, the violin has 16th-notes, and the piano has a succession of chords interspersed with the melodic octave lines, leading to the relentless ending.

The second movement, Intermezzo, which is in F Major, starts off with two poignant but fragmentary tunes. They are both inconclusive, followed by two short folk-dance-like sequences, returning immediately to the fragmentary opening material. This format is repeated twice. The end of the movement is graced by soft chords on the piano and gentle pizzicatos on the violin.

The turbulent last movement is almost entirely in 16th notes for both instruments. However, the ambience is not that of brilliant virtuosity but of painful restlessness and agitation. The suppressed anxiety is relieved only at a few points through the 5 minute movement by the hint of a heavenly hymn-like theme. This tranquility is short-lived, however, as we are quickly returned to the discord of successive 16th-notes. Preceding the coda, a fragment of the opening melody of the entire work is heard, an eerie echo of the beginning. Then, with a sudden doubling of the 16th-note pace in the violin, the work comes quickly to a tragic end.