Clara Schumann’s lover: Theodor Kirchner

Music and reading

Letters from Clara Schumann to Theodor Kirchner

Songs by Clara and Robert Schumann and Theodor Kirchner

Duration approx. 75 min

a concept of the Schumann Network

An evening for speaker, soprano and piano

Idea / concept / dramaturgy: Dr Ingrid Bodsch

Speaker: Tina Engel / Elisabeth Trissenaar

Soprano: Judith Hoffmann

Piano: Nare Karoyan

2023 Zwickau – Schumann-Haus-Zwickau

2024 Baden-Baden – Brahmsgesellschaft

Baden-Baden, Kurpark-Residence Bellevue

2024 Leipzig – Schumann House-Leipzig

Theodor Fürchtegott Kirchner (1823-1903) was a conductor, pianist, organist and composer. He was one of the few friends with whom Clara Schumann maintained an intimate relationship. Her letters to Theodor Kirchner reflect her longings and hopes. In 1863, she invited him to her little house in Lichtental. However, she soon realised that Kirchner was gambling away his money in the casino. When she realised that she could not stop him from his gambling addiction, her trust was shaken. In July 1864, she therefore wrote him one last letter, restoring the distance and returning to the ‘you’. She does not seem to have seen him again after that.

Women poets

A song recital

Sappho to Kaléko, Beethoven to Weill

Duration: approx. 1 3/4 hours including 20 min. intermission

(Duration of the short version: 60 min. without intermission)

Soprano: Judith Hoffmann

Piano: Nare Karoyan

Idea: Nare Karoyan

Concept/Dramaturgy: Nare Karoyan, Judith Hoffmann

2023 Berlin – Johanneskirche Zehlendorf

2023 Düren – Burgau Castle

2023 Königswinter – Haus Bachem

2020 Bergisch Gladbach (Refrath) – Sinngewimmel

2020 Essen – Church of the Resurrection

2020 Cologne – Riverside Studios (extracts)

Press:

Judith Hoffmann’s interpretation of Wagner’s setting of Mathilde Wesendonck’s ‘Stehe still’ is a lasting memory – every word of the ‘urewige Schöpfung’ finely formulated and intoned. Nare Karoyan is a congenial partner on the piano. She accompanies in a restrained, but also supportive manner and rounds off the performance to create a listening experience (…). ‘Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (ksta) 15.07.2020

With this song programme, we give ourselves and the audience the opportunity to experience some of the most beautiful and impressive poems by great poets and women writers such as Sappho, Riccarda Huch, Else Lasker-Schüler, Bettine von Arnim, Maria Stuart, Johanna Ambrosius, Mascha Kaléko and Nora Bossong, which achieve a special radiance in their settings.

Great composers from Beethoven to the present day have approached the texts of these exciting women in a variety of ways through their musical interpretations.

They did not always realise that the poems were by women, because for centuries women were often forced to be published under a male pseudonym or under the name of a male colleague. Schubert, for example, set his well-known songs Suleika I and II to music in the belief that he was setting a text by Goethe. Only later did it become known that Goethe had published poems by Marianne von Willemer under his own name in his West-Eastern Divan with the poems of Suleika.

Other composers, such as Victor Ullmann, deliberately chose poems by women to dedicate entire song cycles to them.

This song recital is our personal homage to the interesting, writing women who have not been deterred over the centuries and whose poems have found their way onto our concert stages as songs to this day.

By the hand of ghosts

a song and shadow play

Songs and texts by Robert Schumann, Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendessohn-Bartholdy,

click here for Youtube link with excerpts

For: Soprano, narrator and piano

Soprano: Judith Hoffmann

Piano: Nare Karoyan

Speaker: NN

Idea / conception: Judith Hoffmann

Dramaturgy: Judith Hoffmann, Martin Günther

Stage design: Anne Hein, Judith Hoffmann

Silhouettes: Judith Hoffmann

Direction: Judith Hoffmann, Anne Hein

Stage/technology: Anne Hein

2021 Essen – Borbeck Castle

‘Liedfestival Ruhr 2021, Inner Worlds’

This concert can also be performed without stage elements.

The romantic exploration of the human soul also opened the doors to its darker side: it led to parallel worlds populated by elemental spirits and magical beings, whose mysterious powers also intervene in real life. The art of shadow puppetry, which actually originated in Asia, was appreciated in European Romanticism precisely because of its blurriness and fleeting nature – because the silhouettes leave room for the imagination. Inspired by this impulse, Judith Hoffmann, Nare Karoyan, a narrator and Anne Hein create their very own, contemporary perspective on the romantic interplay of music, language and image: a collage of sung, narrated and acted stories is created from popular and unknown literary texts that revolve around the unbroken fascination with the uncanny.

Schumann: an unusual family

a literary song recital

Scenic

Songs and texts by Robert and Clara Schumann and their children, Johannes Brahms, Anno Schreier (commissioned composition: setting of 3 early poems by Robert Schumann).

click here for Youtube link (trailer)

For: soprano / recitation and piano

Soprano / Recitation: Judith Hoffmann

Piano / Recitation: Nare Karoyan

Idea: Nare Karoyan

Concept / dramaturgy / stage design: Nare Karoyan/ Judith Hoffmann 

Text: Schumann family

Director: Malin Nagel

Stage/technology: Sven Vollmer

2921 Cologne – Old Pawnshop

(première of 3 songs by Anno Schreier)

2021 Berlin – Johanneskirche

This concert can also be performed without stage elements.

Our youthful enthusiasm for the musical world of Robert and Clara Schumann has become one of the most important parts of our musical repertoire, which we expand with every year and whose fruits this programme also bears.

Through our common desire and our inner need to look beyond the generally known Schumann family, we will take you on a musical and literary journey to this family.

The late compositions of Robert Schumann and the settings of his youthful poetry by Anno Schreier (commissioned composition), the literary works of Felix and Eugenie Schumann, as well as the compositions of Clara Schumann are on the programme.

‘A great insight into the world of the Schumann family, virtuosically accompanied by Nare Karoyan and excellently sung by Judith Hoffmann.’ Michael Zerban, O-Ton Düsseldorf

Words and sound magic

A song recital

This conceptual song recital will exclusively feature texts by Nikolaus Lenau

Songs by Robert Schumann, among others,

Franz Liszt, Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss.

3 songs by Gordon Kampe (commissioned composition)

For: Soprano and piano

Soprano: Judith Hoffmann

Piano: Nare Karoyan

Idea: Nare Karoyan      

Concept/ Dramaturgy: Nare Karoyan / Judith Hoffmann

2022 Cologne – Hinterhofsalon (UA 3 Lieder Gordon Kampe) Commissioned composition

2022 Hornbach – Monastery Church

2023 Hürth – Yellow Salon

2023 Wesseling – Rheinforum

Press:

‘Judith Hoffmann and pianist Nare Karoyan brought out the vividly vibrating restlessness of the lovers in a rousing way.

Judith Hoffmann’s warm, lyrical soprano convinced the audience with her multi-faceted interpretation of the text and gripping expression.

(…)

Eerie romanticism and spookiness were expressed (…) in the powerful touch of Nare Karoyan (…).’

2022 DIE RHEINLANDPFALZ – Konstanze Führlbeck

Just as Robert Schumann was writing his ‘6 Lieder’ based on texts by Nikolaus Lenau in 1850, a rumour spread that the poet had died. As a result, Schumann wrote a requiem to conclude this song cycle and created a memorial to ‘the unfortunate but so marvellous poet’ with this work. However, it soon emerged that Lenau was not yet dead, but dying.

This song cycle by Schumann, which embraces the basic mood of Lenau’s poetry with sheer endless musical beauty, is at the centre of this recital.

The fact that other great composers such as the Mendelssohn siblings, F. Liszt, H. Wolf, M. Reger, R. Strauss and Alban Berg also set his poems to music testifies to the importance of Lenau’s poetry.

3 songs by the composer Gordon Kampe (commissioned for this programme) on texts by N. Lenau round off this multi-faceted song recital and build a bridge to the present day.

Lord Byron’s imaginary journeys, a literary and musical expedition

Texts by Lord George Gordon Byron

Song settings by Schumann, Wolf, Mendelssohn, Gounod, Bruch, Ives and others

For: soprano, piano and narrator

Soprano: Judith Hoffmann

Piano: Nare Karoyan

Speaker: Andreas Durban

Idea: Nare Karoyan

Conception / dramaturgy:

Nare Karoyan / Judith Hoffmann / Andreas Durban

Byron is restlessly travelling the world. As an enthusiastic Bonapartist, the Englishman explores Europe, imagines himself in biblical Judea and Babylon, sings the praises of women in all the master countries, learns Armenian on the Venetian island of San Lazzaro, fights and falls on the side of the Greek independence movement against the Ottomans. With his work, he made an important contribution to the preservation of Greek and Armenian culture.

The figure of Byron is the embodiment of Romanticism: mysterious, misunderstood, morally dubious on the one hand, free, heroic and brilliant on the other.

His poetry inspired great composers of the 19th and 20th centuries: R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, H. Wolf, Ch. Gounod, M. Bruch, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, Ch. Ives, M. Castelnuovo-Tedesco wrote songs, while F. Liszt, G. Verdi and Hector Berlioz composed large-scale compositions based on his poems.