Music Drama

When Robert Schumann abandoned his legal studies, the world may have lost a lawyer, but it gained one of the freshest, most distinctive musical voices of the 19th - or any other - century. In this 70th anniversary week of the programme, Donald Macleod explores the work and life of this prototypically Romantic composer, who drew his inspiration as much from literature and the dramas of his own life as from the music of the composers he revered - above all, Bach, Beethoven and Schubert.

Largely self-taught, Schumann immersed himself in one musical medium until he felt ready to move on and tackle another. So this week's programmes look in turn at his five major fields of compositional activity: solo piano; song; chamber music; music drama; and music for orchestra.

Today's programme is largely devoted to Schumann's one and only opera, Genoveva, a tale of conjugal suspicion - and devotion - set in the time of the Crusades. It's been widely criticised for its lack of real drama, but contains some wonderful music and deserves to be better known. Schumann's other major dramatic project started off as an opera but metamorphosed into an oratorio; Scenes from Goethe's Faust kept its composer occupied, on and off, for nearly ten years. Like Genoveva, it's had a mixed reception critically, and is equally deserving of performance.