SCHUMANN PIANOFORTE MUSIC
Played by FRANK MANNHEIMER
Six Intermezzi , Op. 4
SCHUMANN began his musical career at a very early age: when he made his first appearance in public as a pianist he was such a little fellow that he had to stand up at the keyboard instead of sitting down. But it was intended that he should become a lawyer and he had reached the age of twenty before deciding to take up music as his profession. Along with poetrv. it had been his chief interest in life, and his studies in law, although nominally carried on for three years, were sadly neglected in consequence. Having taken the plunge, he set himself with tremendous zeal to become a front rank artist, and, as a short cut to .mastery of the instrument, invented a device for strengthening the weak fingers. There are no short cats, as Schumann discovered to his cost; the invention completely crippled one of his fingers, so that all thought of a pianist's career had to be abandoned. He was able to play all his life, but with only nine fingers instead of ten, a handicap which he rightly regarded as insuperable. He turned his attention instead to composition and literature, combining the two with a success which has very seldom been achieved by any one man.
In spite of his misfortune, he knew the pianoforte extremely well, and his music for it exploits its resources in a way which no former composer had thought of doing. He obtains effects of richness and fulness which had not before been dreamed of ; many of his pianoforte pieces have almost the bigness of orchestral effect.
FRANK MANNHEIMER 'S first visit to
Europe was in the ranks of the American
Army during the War. It was at the very outset of his career that music had thus to be laid aside, but he was fortunately able to return to it, and when ho next came from the United States he had already a firmly established place of his own as 0 concert pianist. In the lust few years ho has often played in London, as well as in Berlin and many other European cities, and, both in old and new music, has shown himself to be an artist o'f power and subtlety. He was chosen as the representative American pianist to join the Brosa Quartet in Bloch's Quintet at the International Festival at Siena, in 1928.