Why would any self-respecting woman perform Schumann's Frauenliebe und leben? | Classical music

Why would any self-respecting woman perform Schumann’s Frauenliebe und leben?
Schumann’s song cycle seems to have little to say about the realities of a woman’s life, but its emotional depths and the music’s sheer beauty still touch us. Carolyn Sampson explains how her new recording gives its passive heroine a little more life
New context: pianist Joseph Middleton and soprano Carolyn Sampson Photograph: Andy Staples
New context: pianist Joseph Middleton and soprano Carolyn Sampson Photograph: Andy Staples
CarolynSampson
Tue 13 Apr 2021 06.11 EDT
Last modified on Tue 13 Apr 2021 09.48 EDT
Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und -leben is a song cycle that depicts, in eight poems, a woman’s love and life. Its texts, poems by Adelbert von Chamisso, sum up a woman’s life roughly as: 1. I can’t think of anything but him; 2. He’s wonderful and I am not worthy; 3. OMG – he said he loved me; 4. I am his and have the ring to prove it; 5. Girlfriends: today I leave you for him; 6. I am pregnant with mini-you; 7. I feed my baby and am fulfilled; 8. Your death is the first time you have truly hurt me.

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