Domestic Dreaming: 'Träumerei' and The Popular Reception of Schumann

During the 1890s, Robert Schumann's 'Träumerei' appeared in a greater number of editions than any other work by any composer in German-speaking lands. This article examines how and why 'Träumerei' gained its immense fin de siècle popularity and argues that biographical interpretative methods have supported the piece's commercial success. The popularity of 'Träumerei' is further contextualized within the late nineteenth-century German market for sheet music and the piece's relation, both in performance contexts and criticism, to the genre of Salonmusik. Interpreting 'Träumerei' through a biographical lens has also shaped the piece's performance practice, informing discussions of what constitutes 'sentimentalized' performances of the piece. Given the sustained popularity of 'Träumerei', biographical approaches to listening and performance inspired by the piece have helped disseminate public knowledge of Schumann's biography and perceptions of the particular inward quality of his music.