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Beate Perrey, ed. 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Schumann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xx, 302 pp. ISBN 978-0-521-78341-5 (cloth) and ISBN 978-0-521-78950-9 (paper).
Anthologies of writings in English on Schumann are, of course, not new, and Gerald Abraham's Schumann: A Symposium (1952) and Alan Walker's Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music (1972) set a high standard for such studies. The present book follows the standardized format of the Cambridge Companion Series, which now features more than twenty volumes devoted to individual composers and ten volumes each devoted to genres and instruments. The books on composers include a chronology of developments in music, literature, and philosophy cross-referenced with the composer's life and selected works, and essays by renowned international scholars are divided into three sections: "Contexts," "Works," and "Reception." As in Abraham's and Walker's books, a different writer is assigned to each group of works. We have Kathleen Dale (1952), Yonty Solomon and Bálint Vázsonyi (1972), and John Daverio and Laura Tunbridge (2007) writing about the piano works; Martin Cooper (1952), Eric Sams (1972), and Jonathan Dunsby (2007) considering the songs; Mosco Carner (1952), Brian Schlotel (1972), and Scott Burnham (2007) writing about the orchestral works, and so forth. A comparison of these chapters across the decades would provide a fascinating vignette of Schumann reception, but this is unfortunately beyond the scope of the present review. Suffice it to say that there have been few composers whose late works in particular, but also dramatic and stage works, and concertos, have been re-evaluated with as much gusto and with such new and surprising results as Schumann's.
The target audience of Beate Perrey's book is just about everyone. The preface mentions the general listener, the specialist, university students, the connoisseur, music-lover, and "all who are interested in the thought, aesthetics and affective power of the most intriguing figure of a culturally rich and formative period" (ix). This is a tall order indeed, and, in trying to be all things to all people, it would not be surprising if the book satisfied no one. This is not the case, however, and the varied writing styles, critical styles, and levels of specificity from chapter to chapter ensure that readers will find essays to suit their predilections, interests, and...