Robert Schumann

Works for mixed choir a cappella

Repertoire of romantic choral music worth discovering: In his unaccompanied choral songs the expressive melodies of the song composer Schumann combine with a harmonically rich, sometimes even experimental composition. Though in current concert repertoire they are far less often performed than, for example, comparable works by Mendelssohn or Brahms, they are unjustly underestimated. Schumann himself wrote that he had composed the choral songs 'with true passion', in the belief 'that things like this did not yet exist'. Schumann composed most of the choral songs, which are mainly homophonic, in 1849 for the 'Verein für Chorgesang' founded by him and the Leipzig Liederkranz. The volume brings together choral settings which where previously only available by Carus in separate editions, plus the choral song 'Glockentürmers Töchterlein' which only exists in manuscript.