Compared with those immediately preceding, the year 1843 was not especially fruitful for Robert Schumann; the only major work he produced was his oratorio, Paradise and the Peri. However, the compositional lessons that he took from his prolific explorations of lieder, chamber music, and symphonies seem to have coelesced in this large work for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. While he was drafting his manuscript, he used such terms as "recitative," "recitative-song," "lied," and "aria"—perhaps connecting the work with an opera he was contemplating at the time—though the dropped these appellations before publishing his final version. Many of the solos, such as the alto solo in Number 14, or the simple melodic line when the penitent man sings his "S' war eine Zeit," are strongly reminiscent of his lieder, and the orchestration of the Peri's solo in No. 4, with its searching themes in the violas and winds, and the resolution in the trumpets, hints at his symphonic writing. The song of the Houris that opens the third section, with its lilting, dance-like movements, has the intimacy and grace of his chamber music. (In addition, what he might have accomplished as an opera composer had he moved beyond Genoveva is displayed in the final solo writing for the Peri in No. 26, Freud', ew'ge Freude.")

While it has been described as the first Romantic-era oratorio, and Schumann himself saw it as a new genre, it is firmly rooted in both Baroque and Classical traditions. The solo writing, while not as clearly divided as in the oratorios of Bach and Handel, still shows signs of the recitative-aria division, as in the first alto solo, No. 1, (in fact, in some respects it hearkens back to the early Baroque solo voice cantata, though of course it is fully orchestrated) and in the choral section describing Ganza's bloody invasion of India, the writing is reminiscent of passages in Handel's Judas Maccabeus. In the same section, in "Doch seine Strome," the chorus hailing the blood of the dead hero clearly owes much to the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, in its heroic tones, orchestration, interaction of soloist and choir, and massive choral writing.

The libretto is based upon Thomas Moore's poem Lallah Rookh, and adapted by Emil Fleschig from the Theodor Oelckers translation. Schumann might have seen the figure of a Peri, the descendant of a fallen angel and a human, not allowed into Paradise until she finds what Paradise most treasures, a particularly suitable subject for what he hoped would be a new genre. He didn't, however, believe that he was creating it out of thin air; he had applauded Hans Marschner's Klange aus Osten for its innovative blending of the different sections into one whole, rather than clear differentiations, for example, and wished to incorporate that approach into his new work.

It was enthusiastically received by the Leipzig audiences, and over the next five years made its way through much of Europe, and even to New York, in 1848, Schumann's first international success. While today it is rarely performed compared to his lieder or symphonies, one can see why Schumann referred to this oratorio as "my most important composition in every sense of the word." Interestingly, the chorus "Schlaf nun und ruhe," in which the chorus and the Peri hymn the fidelity of the lovers and wish them peace and happiness, seems to have been a direct inspiration for the often-omitted chorus in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, in which the Muse and the chorus tell Hoffmann that his suffering will make his art great, with its gently rising harmonies and semi-spiritual effect.



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