Romances and ballads of ROBERT SCHUMANN are oriented towards professional ensembles due to their sufficiently complex harmony, line and expressiveness. The composer himself explained them ambiguously. In the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik he emphasized on their complexity: “Technically, performance is very difficult …”. And in his diary on March 28th , 1849, he commented that he had no difficulties at all with the performance of the choir society in Dresden. Thirdly, in a letter to the publisher, he stated: “We recently tried the ballads for choir and the club seemed to enjoy them. They sound strange and they’re very easy to sing. “
In a letter to Franz Brendel, editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Schumann emphasized:
“… talking through music about the pains and joys that make sense of time, I feel that this is given to me more than to the others. And I’m happy with how strongly my music is rooted in the present and looking for something completely different from the usual euphoria and pleasant entertainment. / …/ „The choir in the music expresses the feelings of the masses […] Because the mass, if it wants to establish itself, must set aside individual interests, it needs simpler, common means to be effective. ”
Schumann turned to the genre after holding the post of conductor of the Choral Society in Dresden from 1847 onwards, and he had to find a suitable repertoire. Romances and ballads, despite the high idea of the composer and the complex musical language, gave way to similar opuses by Mendelssohn and Brahms in the concert practice. Nevertheless, his mastery to capture the depth of the highly artistic text and to reflect it in the music as authentically as possible is visible in each of his vocal opuses.