Nineteenth-century artist letters can be chatty and egocentric like those of Richard Wagner. They can themselves be works of art, for example when Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy inserts numerous drawings, portraits and poetry into his literary travel letters. And they can be pretty boring when Johannes Brahms is planning his finances or ordering drinks. But they can also be better than any history book, more intense than any biography, more attentive than any newspaper and as lively as if they had just been written yesterday and still had that “scent” captured by Rainer Maria Rilke so aptly for the letter Turning the page wakes up ”.
One such correspondence is now open to the public again: the correspondence between the composer and nature conservationist Ernst Rudorff with Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Via Sotheby's, the autograph correspondence from private ownership, known to only a few researchers, came into the possession of the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) in February 2021 with the support of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media, the Cultural Foundation of the States and the Mariann Steegmann Foundation ). At the end of December 2020, it was entered in the register of nationally valuable cultural assets. While the early published correspondence with Brahms in each of the sixteen letters remains factual, business-like and concise, the as yet unpublished, around six hundred and fifty pages,which Rudorff changed with Clara Schumann until her death in 1896, a reading pleasure of the first order.
Born in 1840, Rudorff fell under the spell of the famous family as a ten-year-old piano student of Clara Schumann's brother Woldemar Bargiel, in his "magic land", as he later wrote. In 1854 he met Clara Schumann for the first time. The woman "in a black dress with an expression of unspeakable sadness on her face" made a deep impression on him. At the age of eighteen he became her pupil for a short time and owed her the advice to his parents to let him become a musician. But the pianist career does not succeed, Rudorff will be too nervous all his life to perform. Only Clara Schumann succeeds in persuading Rudorff to give public concerts occasionally, despite his great stage fright. Conducting is easier for him, he loves composing, teaching ultimately becomes his livelihood, only at the Cologne,then at the invitation of Joseph Joachim at the Berlin University of Music. There he also teaches the grand pianist's daughters to play the piano, that's saying something. It is hardly surprising that of his sixty compositions, including three symphonies for large orchestra, opus one is dedicated to Clara Schumann: Variations for two pianos. Rudorff also endeavored throughout his life to keep Robert Schumann's works alive in concert life. In 1866 he organized a performance of the demanding incidental music "Manfred" in Cologne, Brahms was in the audience and was enthusiastic.Opus one is dedicated to Clara Schumann, hardly surprising: Variations for two pianos. Rudorff also endeavored throughout his life to keep Robert Schumann's works alive in concert life. In 1866 he organized a performance of the demanding incidental music "Manfred" in Cologne, Brahms was in the audience and was enthusiastic.Opus one is dedicated to Clara Schumann, hardly surprising: Variations for two pianos. Rudorff also endeavored throughout his life to keep Robert Schumann's works alive in concert life. In 1866 he organized a performance of the demanding incidental music "Manfred" in Cologne, Brahms was in the audience and was enthusiastic.