“Unrequited” is a musical retelling of the love story between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, whose famed letters reveal how deeply they cared for one another despite being separated. In our retelling, Clara and Johannes speak to one another through music across a chasm, vividly portrayed by Kaija Saariaho and brought to life by soprano Katharine Dain.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
SELECTED LIEDER, ARR. RAFAEL POPPER-KEIZER

Friedrich Wieck was determined to prove the effectiveness of his pedagogical theories through the brilliant musical success of one of his children. Clara was chosen, and remarkably she demonstrated both the tenacity and talent to carry out her father’s ambitions, far beyond what he even perhaps imagined. At the height of her career she was one of the most famous musicians in Europe. And, as was expected of instrumentalists during the time, she composed many works to be programmed on concerts as proof of mastery in a variety of musical disciplines. Lieder, one of the musical forms to become a focus of the romantic era, a time period particularly inspired by the connection between music and poetry, began to appear on Clara’s concerts as early as the 1830s. The genre soon increased in personal significance when it became an outlet to express the passion and affection she shared with her husband, Robert Schumann. 

In fact, it was Robert who encouraged, to the point of insistence, that Clara compose more often. On one occasion he wrote to her, “Clärchen…Do you perhaps think that just because I am composing so much you can be idle? Just compose a song! Once you begin, you cannot leave it. It is far too seductive.” She obliged by writing songs as gifts to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and other cherished occasions. Within the first few months of their life together as a married couple, she presented three songs with the inscription, “in deepest modesty dedicated to her most fervently beloved Robert at Christmas 1840 from his Clara.” Robert promptly printed one of them in his journal, the New Magazine for Music (the same publication in which over a decade later he would author his laudatory essay about Johannes Brahms). Another, Ich stand in dunklen Träumen (I Stood Darkly Dreaming) was later included along with Liebeszauber (Love’s Magic) and other songs as Op. 13. The collection Op. 12 of songs from Rückert’s Liebesfrühling (Love’s Spring) were originally given to Robert for his birthday in 1841. Having been inspired to have their works published together as one, Robert took a few of her songs and had them printed alongside nine of his own Rückert settings. Beim Abschied (Parting) took its text from a poem by Friederike Serre, the wife of a retired Major. Clara had known Friederike for many years and the composition of the work commemorated a holiday that she and Robert spent with the Serre’s in the summer of 1846.

Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952)
CHANGING LIGHT AND TERRA MEMORIA

The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho studied at the Sibelius Academy, the Freiburg Musikhochschule and the Darmstadt Summer Course. She later moved to Paris where she worked at IRCAM, the eminent center for the study of music and sound. Amongst her many awards and honors, she was a recipient of the Polar Music Prize in 2013. Her works are performed by the most respected orchestras and ensembles in the world and are notable for their profound handling of harmony. 

In 1993, Yehudi Menuhin (renowned violinist and conductor) and violinist Edna Michell found themselves immersed in a conversation lamenting the atrocities humans inflict upon each other. To counteract the spirit, Michell came up with the idea for the Compassion Project. With enthusiastic support from Menuhin, Michell commissioned 25 compositions based on the theme of compassion from various composers as (in Menuhin’s words) “…an antidote to the chaotic times we live in…” Saariaho’s contribution to the project was Changing Light. About the work she said, “In the composition I follow the idea of a dialogue, suggested by the text I have chosen [a poem by Rabbi Jules Harlow]. The intimate nature and fragile sound world of the duo mirror the fragility of our uncertain existence.” 

The composer’s note for Terra Memoria follows:

Terra Memoria is my second piece for string quartet, the first being Nymphea which was written in 1987.

Twenty years have passed since Nymphea and my musical thinking has evolved much in that time, but my initial interest in string instruments has remained as vivid as ever. I love the richness and sensitivity of the string sound, and in spite of my spare contribution to the genre, I feel when writing for a string quartet that I’m entering into the intimate core of musical communication.

The piece is dedicated “for those departed.” Some thoughts about this: we continue remembering the people who are no longer with us; the material – their life – is “complete,” nothing will be added to it. Those of us who are left behind are constantly reminded of our experiences together: our feelings continue to change about different aspects of their personality, certain memories keep on haunting us in our dreams. Even after many years, some of these memories change, some remain clear flashes which we can relive.

These thoughts brought me to treat the musical material in a certain manner; some aspects of it go through several distinctive transformations, whereas some remain nearly unchanged, clearly recognizable. 

The title Terra Memoria refers to two words which are full of rich associations: to earth and memory. Here earth refers to my material, and memory to the way I’m working on it. 

– Kaija Saariaho

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
SEXTET NO. 2 IN G MAJOR, OP. 36, transc. Sarah Darling

For many people, their 20s are a formative decade. For Brahms, those years proved to be defining, shaping the person and composer he would become in the world for the rest of his life. Fresh out of his teenage years, the 20-year-old composer met and became life-long friends with the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim, who in turn introduced Brahms to Robert and Clara Schumann. Meeting the couple after showing up on their doorstep with a few of his compositions irrevocably changed the trajectory of Brahms’ life within weeks. Soon after, Robert wrote what would become one of his last articles, New Paths, in which he declared he had finally met the “one man who would bring us mastery…His name is Johannes Brahms.” The young composer was already prone to exacting perfectionist standards, and now—feeling the eyes of the music world were on him—that characteristic would impact his life in a multiplicity of ways. 

In music, Brahms’ perfectionism played out in the form of severe writer’s block. Famously, it took him nearly 20 years to complete his first symphony because he felt such a mass of pressure to contribute something he felt was worthy of following Ludwig van Beethoven, who at the time was the definitive creator of the genre in the opinion of many. “You can’t have any idea what it’s like always to hear such a final marching behind you,” Brahms bemoaned. In his private life it played out in the form of deliberate relational distancing, reminiscent of a medieval chivalric ideal, where to fully exist in a relationship would mean Brahms would be confronted with reality, which inevitably contains challenges and imperfections. By keeping himself away, he was able to preserve the standard that lived in his mind. 

For Brahms, the ideal woman became Clara Schumann. Her renowned talent as a performer (one of the most famous pianists of her era), her compositions, and her dedication to her husband and family, all contributed to the nearly idolized image he held of her. When he knew he couldn’t have her, he turned toward a young woman named Agathe von Siebold, for whom he wrote several works. One hypothesis of why he left Agathe revolves around his concern that any criticism he may receive for his music would have to be shared by her in a kind of mutual public humiliation that he dreaded. Again, he sought perfection.

The Sextet No. 2, written several years after his relationship with Siebold ended, contains a cipher theme built on the notes A-G-A-B-E (in German musical nomenclature B-natural is represented as “H”), which is as close to A-G-A-T-H-E as Brahms could get in musical letters. It has been suggested he was inspired to include her in the theme after hearing an update on her life through a friend. As always, Clara played a role. Brahms sent an early manuscript of three of the Sextet’s movements to her for input.

Kathryn J. Allwine Bacasmot is a pianist/harpsichordist, musicologist, music and cultural critic, and freelance writer. A graduate of New England Conservatory, she writes program annotations for ensembles nationwide.