The melody that feels like falling in love

The opening of Robert Schumann's Widmung (meaning "Dedication"), arranged by Franz Liszt. Widmung was written as the opening song of Myrthen, Op. 25, a collection Robert presented to Clara as a wedding gift. The lady in the thumbnail is Clara. Robert Schumann first met Clara Wieck when she was eight years old and he was seventeen, arriving at her father Friedrich's house as a piano student. By the time Clara was in her mid-teens, they were passionately in love. Her father did everything in his power to stop them. He threatened to shoot Robert and forbade their correspondence. When the young couple finally took him to court for permission to marry, he fought the case. They finally won, and married on September 12, 1840, the day before Clara's twenty-first birthday. The tragedy is that this music was written at the highest point of their happiness, before the darkness came. Robert's mental health deteriorated through the early 1850s: voices, sounds, an unceasing note ringing in his head for days on end. In February 1854, he walked out of their home in a dressing gown in the rain and threw himself off a bridge into the Rhine. He survived, was admitted to a medical facility and spent the final two and a half years of his life there. Doctors kept Clara away for almost the entire period, fearing the emotional impact might worsen his condition. She saw him just once, two days before he died. Clara lived for another forty years, performing Robert's music across Europe, raising their children, and becoming one of the most celebrated pianists of the nineteenth century. She never remarried. Performed by yours truly, Lisztopher