Clara Schumann: an Artist’s Life Based on Material Found in Diaries and Letters - Vol I (abridged ed. 1913)

CLARA SCHUMANN – AN ARTIST'S LIFE BASED ON MATERIAL FOUND IN DIARIES AND LETTERS by BERTHOLD LITZMANN. Originally published in 1913. < abridged ed. In 2 volumes >

 [check out the unabridged three-vol.-ed. available copyright-free @archive,org!]

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE: The task of translation can never be a light one, since every language has not only its own peculiar shades of meaning, but also its own peculiar charm a fragrance which evaporates as soon as the national frontier is crossed. This is especially true of the German of Robert Schumann. His delicate, poetic imagination found perfect expression in the language of his hero, Jean Paul, and the endeavour to render his love letters, and still more his poems, in another tongue is foredoomed to failure; the original words alone fitly express the poet's thought In the following pages an attempt has been made to give as far as possible the spirit of the German, but only a poet could hope for success in such an enterprise, and I am conscious of many shortcomings.

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It was unfortunately found necessary to turn the original three volumes into two in the English edition, and by so doing the balance of the whole had necessarily to be re adjusted. Prof. Litzmann in his prefaces explains the principle which underlies the whole work. I have endeavoured to interfere as little as possible with his method, though slight changes were necessary in order to avoid any abrupt break between the volumes, vol. 2 of the German edition being divided between the two volumes of the English edition. It is with sincere apologies and deep regret that I have ventured to make what omissions were called for by reason of space, and I have to tender my thanks to Prof. Litzmann for his courtesy in permitting such changes.

Cirencester 1912. Grace E. Hadow