They are rightfully called the greatest composers of the 19th century. But more often the phrase Schumann's period is heard, this name is given to the era of romanticism in the world of music.
Childhood and youth
German composer and music critic Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 in Saxony (Germany) to a loving couple Friedrich August and Johann Christiana. Because of his love for Johanna, whose parents opposed the marriage with Friedrich because of poverty, the father of the future musician, for a year of work as an assistant in a bookstore, earned money for a wedding with a girl and for starting his own business.
Robert Schumann grew up in a family with five children. The boy grew up mischievous and cheerful, like his mother, and was very different from his father, a reserved and silent person.
Robert Schumann started school at the age of six and was noted for his leadership and creativity. A year later, the parents noticed the musical talent of the child and sent him to learn to play the piano. Soon he showed the ability to compose orchestral music.
The young man for a long time could not decide on the choice of his future profession - to go in for music or go into literature, as his father wanted and insisted. But the concert of the pianist and conductor Moscheles, which Robert Schumann attended, left no chance for literature. The composer's mother had plans to make a lawyer out of her son, but in 1830 he nevertheless received the blessing of his parents to devote his life to music.
Music
After moving to Leipzig, Robert Schumann began attending piano lessons by Friedrich Wieck, who promised him a career as a famous pianist. But life makes its own adjustments. Schumann developed paralysis of his right hand - the problem forced the young man to abandon his dream of becoming a pianist, and he joined the ranks of composers.
There are two very strange versions of the reasons why the composer began to develop the disease. One of them is a simulator made by the musician himself to warm up his fingers, the second story is even more mysterious. It was rumored that the composer tried to remove tendons from his hand in order to achieve virtuosity on the piano.
But none of the versions has been proven, they are refuted in the diaries of his wife Clara, whom Robert Schumann knew, so to speak, from childhood. Enlisting the support of a mentor, Robert Schumann founded the New Musical Gazette in 1834. Published in the newspaper, he criticized and ridiculed indifference to creativity and art under fictitious names.
The composer challenged the depressive and miserable Germany of that time, putting harmony, colors and romanticism into his works. For example, in one of the most famous piano cycles “Carnival”, there are simultaneously female images, colorful scenes, carnival masks. In parallel, the composer developed in vocal creativity, the genre of lyrical song.
The story about the creation and the work itself "Album for Youth" deserves special attention. On the day when the eldest daughter of Robert Schumann turned 7 years old, the girl received a notebook with the title "Album for Youth" as a gift. The notebook consisted of works by famous composers and 8 of them were written by Robert Schumann.
The composer attached importance to this work not because he loved his children and wanted to please, he was disgusted by the artistic level of musical education - songs and music that children studied at school. The album includes the plays "Spring Song", "Santa Claus", "Merry Peasant", "Winter", which, in the author's opinion, are easy and understandable for children's perception.
During the period of creative upsurge, the composer wrote 4 symphonies. The main part of the works for piano consists of cycles with a lyrical mood, which are connected by one storyline.
During his lifetime, the music written by Robert Schumann was not perceived by his contemporaries. Romantic, refined, harmonious, touching the delicate strings of the human soul. It would seem that Europe, shrouded in a series of changes and revolutions, was unable to appreciate the style of a composer who kept pace with the times, who fought all his life to face the new without fear.
Colleagues "in the shop" also did not perceive his contemporary - he refused to understand the music of a rebel and a rebel, Franz Liszt, being sensitive and romantic, included only the work "Carnival" in the concert program. The music of Robert Schumann accompanies modern cinema: "Doctor House", "Grandfather of Easy Virtue", "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".
Personal life
The composer met his future wife Clara Josephine Wieck at a young age in the house of a piano teacher - the girl turned out to be the daughter of Friedrich Wieck. In 1840, the marriage of the young took place. This year is considered the most fruitful for the musician - 140 songs were written, and the year is also notable for the award of a Ph.D. degree from the University of Leipzig.
Clara was famous for being a famous pianist, she traveled to concerts in which her husband accompanied her beloved. The couple had 8 children, the first years of their life together were like a fairy tale about love with a happy ending. After 4 years, Robert Schumann begins to show acute attacks of nervous breakdown. Critics suggest that the reason for this is the composer's wife.
Before the wedding, the musician fought for the right to become the husband of the famous pianist, mostly with the girl's father, who categorically disapproved of Schumann's intentions. Despite the obstacles created by the future father-in-law (it came to litigation), Robert Schumann married for love.
After the marriage, I had to deal with the popularity and recognition of my wife. And although Robert Schumann was a recognized and famous composer, the feeling that the musician was hiding in the shadow of Clara's fame did not leave. As a result of emotional experiences, Robert Schumann takes a two-year break in his work.
The love story about the romantic relationship of the creative couple Clara and Robert Schumann is embodied in the film Love Song, which was released in America in 1947.
Death
In 1853, the famous composer and pianist set off to travel around Holland, where the couple was received with honors, but after a while the symptoms of the disease worsened sharply. The composer attempted suicide by jumping into the Rhine River, but the musician was saved.
After this incident, he was placed in a psychiatric clinic near Bonn, meetings with his wife were rarely allowed. On July 29, 1856, at the age of 46, the great composer died. According to the results of the autopsy, the cause of illness and death at an early age is blood vessels overflowing with blood and damage to the brain.
Artworks
- 1831 - "Butterflies"
- 1834 - "Carnival"
- 1837 - "Fantastic Fragments"
- 1838 - "Children's scenes"
- 1840 - "The Love of a Poet"
- 1848 - "Album for youth"
Born June 8, 1810 in the German city of Zwickau in the family of a bookseller. From a very young age, young Robert showed a vivid talent for both music and literature. The boy learned to play the organ, improvised the piano, created his first work - a Psalm for the choir - at the age of thirteen, and in the gymnasium he made great strides in studying literature. Undoubtedly, if his line of life had gone in this direction, then we would have a bright and outstanding philologist and writer here too. But the music still won!
At the insistence of his mother, the young man studies law in Leipzig, then in Heidelberg, but this does not attract him at all. He dreamed of becoming a pianist, studied with Friedrich Wieck, but injured his fingers. Without thinking twice, he began to write music. Already his first published works - "Butterflies", "Variations on the theme of Abegg" - characterize him as a very original composer.
Schumann is a recognized and undoubted romanticist, thanks to whom we now fully know this direction - romanticism. The nature of the composer was completely permeated with subtlety and dreaminess, as if he always hovered above the ground and went into his fantasies. All the contradictions of the surrounding reality are aggravated to the limit in this nervous and receptive nature, which leads to withdrawal into one's inner world. Even the fantastic images in Schumann's work are not the fantasy of legends and legends, like many other romantics, but the fantasy of their own visions. Close attention to every movement of the soul determines the attraction to the piano miniature genre, and such pieces are combined into cycles (“Kreisleriana”, “Novelettes”, “Night Pieces”, “Forest Scenes”).
But at the same time, the world knows another Schumann - an energetic rebel. His literary talent also finds a "point of application" - he publishes the "New Musical Journal". His articles take on a variety of forms - dialogues, aphorisms, scenes - but they all sing of true art, which is not characterized by either blind imitation or virtuosity as an end in itself. Schumann sees such art in the works of the Viennese classics, Berlioz, Paganini. Often he writes his publications on behalf of fictional characters - Florestan and Eusebius. These are members of the "Davidsbund" ("David's Brotherhood") - a union of musicians who oppose themselves to a philistine attitude towards art. And even though this union existed only in the creator's imagination, musical portraits of its members are included in the piano cycles "Davidsbundlers" and "Carnival". Among the Davidsbundlers, Schumann includes Paganini, and, and - under the name of Chiarina - Clara Wieck, the daughter of his mentor, a pianist who began her performing career at the age of eleven.
Attachment to Clara Wick Robert felt already when she was a child. Over the years, his feeling grew with her - but Friedrich Wieck wanted a more wealthy husband for his daughter. The struggle of lovers for their happiness dragged on for years - in order to prevent their meetings, the father planned many tours for the girl, forbade her to correspond with Robert. The desperate Schumann was engaged for some time to another - Ernestine von Fricken, who also fell into the number of Davidsbundlers under the name Estrella, and the name of the city in which she lived - Ash (Asch) - is encrypted in the main theme of "Carnival" ... But he could not forget Clara , in 1839 Schumann and Clara Wieck go to court - and only in this way did they manage to get Wieck's consent to marriage.
The wedding took place in 1840. It is noteworthy that in that year Schumann wrote many songs to the verses of Heinrich Heine, Robert Burns, George Gordon Byron and other poets. It was a marriage not only happy, but also musically fruitful. The couple traveled all over the world and performed in a wonderful duet - he composed, and she played his music, becoming the first performer of many of Robert's works. Until now, the world has not known such couples and will not know, apparently, for a long time ...
The Schumanns had eight children. In 1848, for the birthday of his eldest daughter, the composer created several piano pieces. Later, other plays appeared, combined into a collection called "Album for Youth". The very idea of creating light piano pieces for children's music-making was not new, but Schumann was the first to fill such a collection with concrete images that were close and understandable to a child - "The Brave Rider", "Echoes of the Theatre", "The Merry Peasant".
From 1844 the Schumanns lived in Dresden. At the same time, the composer experienced an exacerbation of a nervous breakdown, the first signs of which appeared as early as 1833. He was able to return to composing music only in 1846.
In the 1850s Schumann creates quite a few works, among which are symphonies, chamber ensembles, program overtures, teaches at the Leipzig Conservatory, acts as a conductor, directs the choir in Dresden, and then in Düsseldorf.
Schuman treated young composers with great attention. His last publicistic work is the article "New Ways", where he predicts a great future.
In 1854, after an exacerbation of a mental disorder that led to a suicide attempt, Schumann ended up in a psychiatric hospital and died on July 29, 1856.
Music Seasons
Robert Schumann is a master of musical "portraits" and "stories".“Illuminate the depths of the human heart with light - this is the vocation of the artist!”
In Schumann's workunited toit would seem notjointAndmytendencies to the lyrical and descriptive, deeply personal and objective. Schumann - all of contrasts - both as a person and as an artist, he was avidly interested in life ("I care about everything that happens in the whole wide world: politics, literature, people"), and was closed, his violent activitygot alongwith rare silence. It is Schumann, who has written many brilliant music-critical articles, who owns the well-known paradox:
"The best way to talk about music is to be silent about it".
If you take the most intimate in his music - the lyrics, it strikes with contrasts of "storm and stress" and quiet,almost detached daydreaming.
Robert Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 intown of Zwickauone of the most beautiful corners of old Saxony. In his youth, during walks, and especially at moments of parting with his dear old Zwickau, Robert loved a long lookohm to look over your city from the height of the surrounding hills. There is an immense expanse around: the greenery of meadows, groves, cultivated fields, the soft undulating relief of the mountains and the whimsical bends of the river.
Robert's father, August Schumann, was passionately fond of literature. Together with his brother, he opened a book publishing house and bookstore "Brothers Schumann" in Zwickau. Fine books surrounded Robert since childhood.Schumann inherited literary talent from his father, and musical talent from his mother Johanna Christiana, whom friends called "a living collection of arias": in her youth she loved to sing.
« In terms of equipment, Robert Schumann was stately, even large. In his posture in good times there was something proud, majestic, full of peace and dignity, while his gait, on the contrary, was usually slow, silent, as if slightly and smoothly swaying, often in his room he walked on tiptoe and always in felt shoes. The eyes are most often lowered, half-closed, the gaze revived only in conversations with loved ones. The facial features as a whole made a pleasant impression. The most characteristic features of his full, round, blossoming face were his eyes and a finely shaped mouth, with lips usually slightly extended forward, as if ready to whistle. Above the blunt-shaped nose rises a large forehead, noticeably distributed to the temples. In general, his head with thick and rather long brown hair left the impression of some hefty, extraordinary strength. Some sharpness of features was usually smoothed out by the most gentle and good-natured facial expression.- this is how his friend and biographer Wilhelm Vasilevsky described Schumann.
At 18On the 28th, at the home of friends of the Schumann family, Robert met Friederik Wieck. Wieck is one of the best music teachers in Germany. He had his own method of learning to play the piano, combining the rigor of technical training with a depth of approach to the art. A brilliant confirmation of the merits of his method is the success of little Clara, Vic's daughter.
Vic's lessons, acquaintance with the work of Schubert,attending concertssummed upSchumanto a decisiondedicate yourself to music. Robert Schumann moved into Wieck's house and set to work with zeal.
In 1831 Fryderyk Wieck and his daughter Clara went on a big concert tour. Left alone, Robert began to study with redoubled energy. He wanted to develop piano technique as quickly as possible and came up with a device for developing the independence of each finger. One of the fingers was fixed with a loop in a stationary state for a certainheight, others were moving at the same time. The result of the experiment was stretched tendons. The hand began to hurt. Doctors promised to cure, followed by compresses, baths and patient waiting. And finally, the realization that the disease is incurable and will never be for Schumann "one of the greatest living pianists V", as Wieck had promised his mother in a letter to Zwickau.
In this psad situation, one after another, his best piano compositions appearRobert Schumann. Many pages of piano music are colored with autobiographical motifs.
One of Schumann's most original compositions is the piano cycle Carnival (1835). These colorful, fantastic pictures embodied much of the life, hobbies and thoughts of the young Schumann at the time of his creative heyday. Schumann had an amazing ability to create portraits of people in music, to express in one stroke the most characteristic in the appearance of a person or in his mood. Such is his “Carnival”, where characters under the masks of Pierrot and Harlequin, cheerful butterflies or dancing letters seem to whirl in a swift dance or slowly pass, immersed in their thoughts. Here are the composer's contemporaries: the famous violinist Paganini and the great piano poet Chopin. But Florestan and Eusebius. So Schumann called the heroes he invented, on whose behalf he wrote articles about music. Florestan is always in motion, in flight, in dance, he jokes sharply and caustically, his speech is hot, impulsive. Eusebius loves to dream in solitude, he says quietly, penetratingly.
Florestan and Eusebius, Chopin and Paganini, Chiarina (Clara acts under this mask) are members of the union invented by Schumann. At the end of the "Carnival" they oppose the inhabitants, who are alien to the new and bold in art - in the "March of the Davidic Brotherhood". These are the brightest and most joyful pages of Schumann's work.
The novelty and unusualness of Schumann's music was most clearly manifested in his piano pieces created in the 1830s in Leipzig. Three sonatas (1835, 1833-1838, 1836), "Symphonic studies" (1834), fantasy (1837), "Novelettes" (1838).
Schumann considered the piano an instrument for expressing feelings and moods inspired by both emotional experiences and natural phenomena or literary plots. Schumann's interest in the piano grew thanks to his happy marriage to Clara Wieck, who is known to be an excellent pianist. For her, the author created an extremely valuable piano concerto in A minor. The frequently performed cello concerto in A minor and Schumann's many chamber works are convincing evidence of the composer's progressive neo-romantic orientation.
So, in the 1830s, Schumann was already the author of many original plays, but the composer had to learn by experience "that fame is advanced by the steps of a dwarf, while fame flies on the wings of a storm." For most amateurs, his compositions were too difficult and incomprehensible, for specialist musicians they seemed too eccentric, too deviated from tradition.
Mendelssohn had a huge influence on Schumann's work. Schumann, in his own words, “looked at him like a high mountain”, he “expressed thoughts every day worthy of being set in gold.” Schumann owes a lot to Mendelssohn. Without it, he would be in danger of squandering his extraordinary talent on many witty original musical jokes.
Meanwhile, Clara had already become an adult girl, and Schumann could not help but notice this charming creature, gifted with an extraordinary musical talent. Clara became for Schumann a poetic ideal, and since she reciprocated his feelings and both desired a lasting union, Schumann had to take care of ensuring his existence.
In 1838 Robert Schumann decided to settle in Vienna and publish his journal there. In October 1838 the composer moved to Vienna. However, he too soon became convinced that ViennaIt was no longer the soil of German classical music. In early April 1839, Schumann returned to Leipzig.
1840 would l was a turning point in Schumann's life. The University of Leipzig awarded him the title of Doctor of Philosophy, and thus he received a title that meant quite a lot in Germany.
On September 12, 1840, the marriage of Robert and Clara took place in the church in Schoenfeld.
Robert Shuman, Friedrich Wieck, Ludwig Schunke and Julius Knorr, founded the New Musical Newspaper- magazine, which had a huge impact on the development of musical art in Germany. For many years, Schumann himself wrote articles for the magazine under various pseudonyms and fought against the so-called philistines, that is, those who, with their narrow-mindedness and backwardness, hampered the development of music. As a music critic he appreciated the importancecontemporaries:Chopin, Berlioz, Brahms, recognizing the huge contribution of predecessors: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.
Early 1844 Schumannwe made a concertwayprocession to Russia.Both in St. Petersburg and in MoscowTheyenthusiastically examined historical and architectural monuments. In the Moscow BolshoiatreRobert andClaralistened to Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin) and notewhether the "happily gifted musical nature" of the author. The Petersburg court singing chapel seemed to them "the most beautiful choir" that they had ever heard. oh also mvery painfully hurt Schumann's soul, already very tender and sensitive.positive, but he did not show his experiences due to the secrecy of his character.
The last ray of light was Schumann's trip to Holland in November 1853, where he and Clara were received in all cities "with joy and honor". He “I was surprised to see that his music in Holland had become almost more native than in the fatherland itself.” However, in the same year, painful symptoms began to appear again, and at the beginning of 1854 they suddenly showed up with even greater force. Death following July 29, 1856came alive conend this suffering.
classic-music.ru ›Robert Schumann
Biography of Schumann - the great German composer - like the life of any famous person, was filled with both curious, anecdotal cases, and tragic twists of fate. Why did Schumann not become a virtuoso pianist, as he dreamed of in his youth, and why did he have to choose the composer's path? How did this affect his mental health, and where did the famous author end up?
Composer Schumann (biography): childhood and youth
Schumann was born on June 8, 1810 in Germany. Zwickau became his hometown. The father of the future composer was a book publisher, a non-poor man, so he sought to give his son a decent education.
From childhood, the boy showed literary abilities - when Robert studied at the gymnasium, then, in addition to composing poems, dramas and comedies, he also organized a literary circle on his own. Under the influence of Jean Paul, the young man even composed a literary novel. Given all these facts, Schumann's biography could have turned out quite differently - the boy could well follow in the footsteps of his father. But the world of music worried Robert more than literary activity.
Schumann, whose biography and work throughout his life were firmly connected with the art of music, wrote his first at the age of ten. Perhaps this was the first sign that another great composer was born.
Robert Schumann (short biography): career as a pianist
Schumann began to show interest in playing the piano from an early age. He was very impressed by the play of the pianist Moscheles, as well as Paganini. The young man was inspired by the idea of becoming a virtuoso instrumentalist and spared no effort for this.
At first, the future composer took lessons from the organist Kunsht. Under the strict guidance of his first teacher, the boy began to create his own musical works - mostly sketches. After getting acquainted with the work of Schubert, Robert wrote several songs.
However, the parents insisted that their son had a serious education, so Robert went to Leipzig to study law. But Schumann, whose biography, it seemed, could not have turned out differently, is still drawn to music, so he continues to study piano under the guidance of a new teacher, Friedrich Wieck. The latter sincerely believed that his student could become the most virtuoso pianist in Germany.
But Robert pursued his goal too fanatically, so he overdid it with classes - he earned a sprained tendon and said goodbye to his pianist career.
Education
As mentioned above, Schumann studied law at and then at Heidelberg. But Robert never became a lawyer, preferring music.
The beginning of composing
Robert Schumann, whose biography, after being injured, was completely devoted to composing, most likely was very worried about the fact that he would never be able to fulfill his dream and become a famous pianist. The character of the young man changed after that - he became taciturn, too vulnerable, stopped joking and playing his friends as soon as he knew how to do it. Once, while still young, Schumann went into a musical instrument store and jokingly introduced himself as the chamberlain of an English lord, who instructed him to choose a piano for playing music. Robert played all the expensive instruments in the salon, thus amusing onlookers and customers. As a result, Schumann said that in two days he would give the owner of the salon an answer about the purchase, and he, as if nothing had happened, left for another city on his own business.
But in the 30s. he had to say goodbye to his career as a pianist, and the young man devoted himself entirely to creating musical works. It was during this period that he flourished as a composer.
Music Features
Schumann worked in the era of romanticism and, of course, this was reflected in his work.
Robert Schumann, whose biography was in a sense filled with personal experiences, wrote psychological music that was far from folklore motives. Schumann's works are something "personal". His music is very changeable, which reflects the fact that the composer gradually began to fall ill. Schumann himself did not hide the fact that duality is characteristic of his nature.
The harmonious language of his works is more complex than that of his contemporaries. The rhythm of Schumann's creations is quite whimsical and capricious. But this did not prevent the composer from gaining national fame during his lifetime.
Once, while walking in the park, the composer whistled under his breath a theme from Carnival. One of the passers-by made a remark to him: they say, if you have no hearing, then it’s better not to “spoil” the works of a respected composer.
Among the most famous works of the composer are the following:
- romance cycles "Love of the poet", "Circle of songs";
- piano cycles "Butterflies", "Carnival", "Kreislerian", etc.
Musical newspaper
Schumann, whose brief biography would not have been without literature, did not give up his hobby, and applied his literary talent in journalism. With the support of his many friends connected with the world of music, Schumann founded the New Musical Gazette in 1834. Over time, it has become a periodical and quite influential publication. The composer wrote many articles for publication with his own hand. He welcomed everything new in music, so he supported young composers. By the way, Schumann was one of the first to recognize Chopin's talent and wrote a separate article in his honor. Schumann also supported Liszt, Berlioz, Brahms and many other composers.
Often in his articles, the hero of our story had to rebuff many music critics who spoke unflatteringly about his work. Schumann also "created" not quite in the spirit of the times, so he had to defend his views on the art of music.
Personal life
In 1840, closer to the age of 30, Robert Schumann married. His chosen one was the daughter of his teacher, Friedrich Wick.
Clara Wieck was a fairly well-known and virtuoso pianist. She was also related to composing and supported her husband in all endeavors.
Schumann, whose brief biography was full of musical activity by the age of 30, was never married, and it seemed that his own personal life did not bother him much. But before the wedding, he honestly warned his future wife that his character was very difficult: he often acts contrary to close and dear people, for some reason it turns out that he hurts exactly those he loves.
But these shortcomings of the composer did not frighten the bride very much. The marriage took place, and Clara Wieck and Robert Schumann lived in marriage until the end of their days, left behind eight children and were buried in the same cemetery.
Health problems and death
Schumann's biography was full of various events; the composer left behind a rich musical and literary heritage. Such an obsession with his work and life could not pass without a trace. Around the age of 35, the composer began to show the first signs of a serious nervous breakdown. For two years he did not write anything.
And although the composer was given various honors, invited to serious positions, he could no longer return to his former life. His nerves were completely shattered.
At the age of 44, for the first time after a bout of prolonged depression, the composer tried to commit suicide by throwing himself from a bridge into the Rhine. He was saved, but there were no significant changes in his state of health. Schumann spent two years in a psychiatric hospital and died at the age of 46. During all this time, the composer did not create a single work.
Who knows how the composer's life would have turned out if he hadn't injured his fingers and nevertheless became a pianist... Perhaps Schumann, whose biography was cut off at 46, would have lived a longer life and would not have lost his mind.
By the way, there is a version that the composer injured his fingers by creating a home-made simulator for them, similar to the instruments of Henry Hertz and Tiziano Poli. The essence of the simulators is that the middle finger of the hand was tied to a string, which was attached to the ceiling. This tool was designed to train endurance and amplitude of finger opening. But with inept use, it is possible to tear the tendons in this way.
There is another version according to which Schumann had to be treated for syphilis in the then fashionable way - to inhale mercury vapor, which caused a side effect in the form of paralysis of the fingers. But Schumann's wife did not confirm any of these versions.
International Composer Competition
Schumann's biography and his work are so popular in the music world that personal competitions and awards are often organized in honor of the famous composer. Back in 1956, the first competition for performers of academic music was held in Berlin, which is called the Internationaler Robert-Schumann-Wettbewerb.
The first event was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the composer's death, and the first winners of the competition were the representative of the GDR Annerose Schmidt in the "Piano" nomination, as well as representatives of the USSR: Alexander Vedernikov, Kira Izotova in the "Vocal" nomination. Subsequently, contestants from the USSR won prizes almost every year until 1985. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, only in 1996 the competition was won by a representative from Russia - Mikhail Mordvinov in the "Piano" nomination.
Robert Schumann Award
R. Schuman, whose biography and creative heritage have become the pride of world art, presented his name and prizes, which have been awarded to performers of academic music since 1964. The award was established by the administration of the composer's hometown - Zwickau. It is awarded only to those figures who promote the composer's music and bring it to the masses. In 2003, the material component of the award was equal to 10,000 euros.
Until 1989, the names of Soviet artists were often included in the list of prize winners. The representative from Russia then appeared in the list of laureates only in 2000. Olga Loseva became the laureate of the award that year, since then the prize has not been awarded to immigrants from the CIS countries even once.
