6 Pieces from Carnaval Op.9:

Préambule, Pierrot, Arlequin, Valse noble, Eusebius, Florestan, Coquette, Replique, Papillons, ASCH SCHA (lettres dansantes), Chiarina, Chopin, Estrella, Reconnaissance, Pantalon et Columbine, Valse allemande - Paganini (Intermezzo), Aveu, Promenade, Pause - Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins

In 1834 Schumann got engaged to Ernestine von Fricken. She was not the most promising of Friedrich Wieck’s piano pupils but, when she was eighteen and Clara Wieck only fifteen, she was probably the most attractive. She also had the advantage of coming from a town called Asch, the musical spelling of which - A, E flat, C, B or, alternatively, A flat, C, B - includes the same four notes as the musical letters in Schumann’s name - E flat, C, B, A. There are better reasons for getting engaged, as Schumann soon realised, but for someone with his cryptic sort of mind the coincidence had interesting musical possibilities.

The obvious way to exploit the possibilities was in a set of variations. But Carnaval is variations of a very informal sort, respecting no conventions, not even the preliminary presentation of the theme. The grandioso beginning of Préambule is actually taken from an unfinished set of variations on a waltz by Schubert. There are two further Schubert waltz inspirations, in Valse noble and Valse allemande, and the triple-time dance idea persists in most of the pieces.

According to the composer, both the collective title, Carnaval, and the individual titles were attached to these pieces only after the composition was complete. This is easy to believe of such movements as those named after characters from the commedia dell’arte (Pierrot, Arlequin, Pantalon et Colombine) or Aveu, a “confession of love” as he called it, or Promenade, or the heavily ironic Pause. But it is difficult to believe that the Chopin and Paganini impersonations were not deliberate. Eusebius and Florestan are both self-portraits. And no one would want to think that Estrella and the rather more passionate Chiriana were ever anything else but portraits of, respectively, Ernestine von Fricken (whom he eventually did not marry) and Clara Wieck (whom he did marry).

Certainly, the final Marche des Dabidsbündler contre les Philistins could have been conceived only for a carnival display of Schumann’s artistic mission at this particular time. Beginning with a march in 3/4 time - a metrical paradox which has the practical advantage that the Schubert waltz variation from the Préambule can be recalled without a change of metre - it incorporates the traditional last dance, the Grossvatertanz, which is presented here as symbolic of the old guard to be swept away by Schumann and fellow young romantics.

Gerald Larner©

Préambule, Pierrot, Arlequin, Valse noble, Eusebius, Florestan, Coquette, Replique, Papillons, ASCH SCHA (lettres dansantes), Chiarina, Chopin, Estrella, Reconnaissance, Pantalon et Columbine, Valse allemande - Paganini (Intermezzo), Aveu, Promenade, Pause - Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins

In 1834 Schumann got engaged to Ernestine von Fricken. She was not the most promising of Friedrich Wieck’s piano pupils but, when she was eighteen and Clara Wieck only fifteen, she was probably the most attractive. She also had the advantage of coming from a town called Asch, the musical spelling of which - A, E flat, C, B or, alternatively, A flat, C, B - includes the same four notes as the musical letters in Schumann’s name - E flat, C, B, A. There are better reasons for getting engaged, as Schumann soon realised, but for someone with his cryptic sort of mind the coincidence had interesting musical possibilities.

The obvious way to exploit the possibilities was in a set of variations. But Carnaval is variations of a very informal sort, respecting no conventions, not even the preliminary presentation of the theme. The grandioso beginning of Préambule is actually taken from an unfinished set of variations on a waltz by Schubert. There are two further Schubert waltz inspirations, in Valse noble and Valse allemande, and the triple-time dance idea persists in most of the pieces. The lovely Chopin tribute is an exception, as is the brilliant Paganini caprice interpolated as a middle section in Valse allemande.

According to the composer, both the collective title, Carnaval, and the individual titles were attached to these pieces only after the composition was complete. This is easy to believe of such movements as those named after characters from the commedia dell’arte (Pierrot, Arlequin, Pantalon et Colombine) or Aveu, a “confession of love” as he called it, or Promenade, or the heavily ironic Pause. But it is difficult to believe that the Chopin and Paganini impersonations were not deliberate. Eusebius and Florestan are both self-portraits, identifying respectively the reflective and passionately active sides of the composer’s personality. And no one would want to think that Estrella and the rather more passionate Chiriana were ever anything else but portraits of, respectively, Ernestine von Fricken (whom he eventually did not marry) and Clara Wieck (whom he did marry).

Certainly, the final Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins could have been conceived only for a carnival display of Schumann’s artistic mission at this particular time. Beginning with a march in 3/4 time - a metrical paradox which has the practical advantage that the Schubert waltz variation from the Préambule can be recalled without a change of metre - it incorporates the traditional last dance, the Grossvatertanz, which is presented here as symbolic of the old guard to be swept away by Schumann and fellow young romantics.

Gerald Larner©

Préambule, Pierrot, Arlequin, Valse noble, Eusebius, Florestan, Coquette, Replique, Papillons, ASCH SCHA (lettres dansantes), Chiarina, Chopin, Estrella, Reconnaissance, Pantalon et Columbine, Valse allemande - Paganini (Intermezzo), Aveu, Promenade, Pause - Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins

In 1834 Schumann got engaged to Ernestine von Fricken. She was not the most promising of Friedrich Wieck’s piano pupils but, when she was eighteen and Clara Wieck only fifteen, she was probably the most attractive. She also had the advantage of coming from a town called Asch, the musical spelling of which - A, E flat, C, B or, alternatively A flat, C, B - includes the same four notes as the musical letters in Schumann’s name - E flat, C, B, A. There are better reasons for getting engaged, as Schumann soon realised, but for someone with his cryptic sort of mind the literal coincidence had considerable significance as well as several interesting musical possibilities.

The obvious way to exploit the possibilities was in a set of variations. But Carnaval is variations of a very informal sort, respecting no conventions, not even the preliminary presentation of the theme. The grandioso beginning of Préambule is actually taken from an unfinished set of variations on a quite different theme, Schubert’s Sehnsuchtswalzer, which is a secondary source of continuity in this work. There are two further Schubert inspirations, in Valse noble and Valse allemande, and the triple-time dance idea persists in most of the pieces. The lovely Chopin tribute is an exception, as is the brilliant Paganini caprice interpolated as a middle section in Valse allemande. Eusebius, the reflective side of Schumann’s dual alter ego, also stands apart from the dance, absorbed in a subtle rhythmic study; his passionate counterpart, Florestan, remembering his participation in the last masked ball (Papillons, Op.2) plunges energetically in until confronted by Coquette and her unashamed Replique. There is a comic counterpart to this Eusebius-Florestan duality in the first pair of pieces, Pierrot and Arlequin. Similarly, in Pantalon et Columbine two other carnival characters offer a commedia dell’arte version of the ecstatic recognition scene enacted just before in Reconnaissance.

According to two separate statement made by the composer, both the collective title, Carnaval, and the individual titles were attached to these pieces only after the work was complete. This is easy to believe of such movements as Aveu, a “confession of love” as he called it, Promenade, “a walk such as one does at German dances arm in arm with one’s lady friend,” the incognito Papillons, the Lettres dansantes, and the heavily ironic Pause. But it is difficult to believe that Chopin and Paganini impersonations were not deliberate. And no one would want to think that Estrella and the rather more passionate Chiarina were ever anything else but portraits of, respectively, Ernestine von Fricken and Clara Wieck.

Certainly, the Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins could have been conceived only for a carnival display of Schumann’s artistic mission at this particular time. Beginning with a march in 3/4 time - a rhythmic paradox which has the practical advantage that the Schubert waltz variation from the Préambule can be recalled without a change of metre - it incorporates the traditional last dance, the Grossvatertanz, which is presented here as symbol of the old guard to be swept away by Schumann and fellow young romantics.

Préambule, Pierrot, Arlequin, Valse noble, Eusebius, Florestan, Coquette, Replique, Papillons, ASCH SCHA (lettres dansantes), Chiarina, Chopin, Estrella, Reconnaissance, Pantalon et Columbine, Valse allemande - Paganini (Intermezzo), Aveu, Promenade, Pause - Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins

In 1834 Schumann got engaged to Ernestine von Fricken. She was not the most promising of Friedrich Wieck’s piano pupils but, when she was eighteen and Clara Wieck only fifteen, she was probably the most attractive. She also had the advantage of coming from a town called Asch, the musical spelling of which - A, E flat, C, B or, alternatively A flat, C, B - includes the same four notes as the musical letters in Schumann’s name - E flat, C, B, A. There are better reasons for getting engaged, as Schumann soon realised, but for someone with his cryptic sort of mind the literal coincidence had considerable significance as well as several interesting musical possibilities.

The obvious way to exploit the possibilities was in a set of variations. But Carnaval is variations of a very informal sort, respecting no conventions, not even the preliminary presentation of the theme. The three motifs are actually written out in the score, under the title Sphinxes, between Replique and Papillons, but they are not to be played. The grandioso beginning of Préambule is actually taken from an unfinished set of variations on a quite different theme, Schubert’s Sehnsuchtswalzer, which is a secondary source of continuity in this work. There are two further Schubert inspirations, in Valse noble and Valse allemande, and the triple-time dance idea persists in most of the pieces. The lovely Chopin tribute is an exception, as is the brilliant Paganini caprice interpolated as a middle section in Valse allemande. Eusebius, the reflective side of Schumann’s dual alter ego, also stands apart from the dance, absorbed in a subtle rhythmic study; his passionate counterpart, Florestan, remembering his participation in the last masked ball (Papillons, Op.2) plunges energetically in until confronted by Coquette and her unashamed Replique. There is a comic counterpart to this Eusebius-Florestan duality in the first pair of pieces, Pierrot and Arlequin, the former failing to achieve a waltz rhythm in 2/4 time, the latter showing him exactly how to do it in 3/4. Similarly, in Pantalon et Columbine two other carnival characters offer a commedia dell’arte version of the ecstatic recognition scene enacted just before in Reconnaissance.

According to two separate statement made by the composer, both the collective title, Carnaval, and the individual titles were attached to these pieces only after the work was complete. This is easy to believe of such movements as Aveu, a “confession of love” as he called it, Promenade, “a walk such as one does at German dances arm in arm with one’s lady friend,” the incognito Papillons, the Lettres dansantes, and the heavily ironic Pause. But it is difficult to believe that Chopin and Paganini impersonations were not deliberate. And no one would want to think that Estrella and the rather more passionate Chiriana were ever anything else but portraits of, respectively, Ernestine von Fricken (whom he eventually did not marry) and Clara Wieck (whom he did marry).

Certainly, the Marche des Dabidsbündler contre les Philistins could have been conceived only for a carnival display of Schumann’s artistic mission at this particular time. Beginning with a march in 3/4 time - a rhythmic paradox which has the practical advantage that the Schubert waltz variation from the Préambule can be recalled without a change of metre - it incorporates the traditional last dance, the Grossvatertanz, which is presented here as symbolic of the old guard to be swept away by Schumann and fellow young romantics.

Part I

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

6 Pieces from Carnaval Op.9:

1 Préambule

2 Pierrot

3 Arlequin

4 Valse noble

5 and 6 Eusebius - Florestan

Des Abends from Phantasiestücke Op.12

Although Schumann knew Clara Wieck in 1835 when he was working on Carnaval - he had first met her and her father seven years earlier when she was just nine - she was not, except in a small way, the inspiration behind it. In fact, he was engaged at the time to another of Friedrich Wieck’s piano pupils, Ernestine von Fricken, who came from a town called Asch on the Bavarian-Bohemian border.

Schumann, who was fascinated by musical cryptograms, found compelling significance in the fact that the four letters of Asch not only spell out (in German nomenclature) a promising melodic motif (A, E flat, C, B) but are also the same as the musical letters in his own name (E flat, C, B and A). There are better reasons for getting engaged, as Schumann was soon to realise, but Ernestine and that literal coincidence meant so much to him at the time that Carnaval, which he described as “scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes,” derives most of its material from those four notes. They link together an otherwise heterogeneous and erratic assembly of guests at a masked ball featuring - to look no further than the first 6 of 21 pieces - Schubert (in Préambule and Valse noble), commedia dell’arte characters (in Pierrot and Arlequin) and the composer himself (Schumann the dreamer in Eusebius, Schumann the man of spontaneous impulse in Florestan). Clara and Ernestine both make appearances in pieces not included here.

Between 1835, when he completed Carnaval and 1837, when he wrote his first set of Phantasiestücke, Schumann broke off his engagement to Ernestine, declared his love for Clara, found that she reciprocated, and fell into despair when her father ruthlessly enforced their separation. It seems, however, that he was not beyond finding consolation with others. Although the precise nature of his relationship with Anna Robena Laidlaw, a young and attractive British pianist to whom he dedicated the Phantasiestücke, is uncertain, it seems from the first piece in the collection, Des Abends, that Clara was still very much on the composer’s mind. The stepwise descending line delicately traced by the right hand in the opening bars is one of many variants of a melodic message Robert and Clara both understood.

Part II

Robert Schumann

Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op.26

Aveu from Carnaval Op.9

2 songs from Myrthen Op.25:

No.1 Widmung

No.7 Die Lotosblume

Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck from Violin Sonata in A minor Op.105

a song from Myrthen Op.25:

No.15 Aus den hebräischen Gesängen

In the last few months of 1838 and the first few months of 1839 Schumann was in Vienna in the hope of establishing himself there as a composer and editor. The plan did not work out but he found inspiration for several important piano pieces, including Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival Jest from Vienna). Driven from beginning to end by a rhythmic ostinato in the right hand, the passionately expressive third movement of the work, modestly entitled Intermezzo, is clearly no jest. The pleading little Aveu from Carnaval is more the kind of emotional confession you are likely to hear in a carnival context.

Although Schumann had written several promising songs in his youth, in the turbulent years before his marriage to Clara he had concentrated almost exclusively on piano music. It was only in February 1840, when it was clear that her father’s opposition to their marriage would be defeated in the courts, that he turned back to song. Within a year he had completed more than 125 Lieder, most of them addressed to Clara in one way or another. In Widmung, the opening item of the Myrthen collection he arranged to have published on their wedding day, he dedicates not only his music to Clara but also himself. From the same collection Die Lotosblume turns on one of Schumann’s magical modulations where, as the drooping bass line disappears, the moon makes its lover’s entry at the beginning of the erotically inspired second stanza.

Both of the violin sonatas were written for (though not dedicated to) Josef von Wasielewski, the leader of the orchestra in Düsseldorf, where Schumann had taken up the post of muncipal music director in 1850, ten years into his marriage to Clara. Aware of the problems Schumann was experiencing with the local authority, Wasielewski was probably not surprised by the sombre tone and worried attitude of the first movement of the Sonata in A minor.

Aus den hebräischen Gesängen (also known as Mein Herz ist schwer) - a setting of Körner’s translation of one of Byron’s Hebrew Melodies - is the impressive centre piece of Myrthen and, in the end, a tribute to the healing powers of music.

Part III

Robert Schumann

4 Lieder:

Intermezzo Op.39 No.2

Du bist wie eine Blume (Myrthen No.24)

Frühlingsnacht Op.39 No.12

Mondnacht Op.39 No.5

Apart from the ineffably tender Du bist wie eine Blume from Myrthen, the songs in this group are all from the slightly later Eichendorff Liederkreis, which Schumann declared his “most profoundly romantic work to date.” The inspiration is again Clara - as he told her, although, since she had chosen many of the texts herself, she was well aware of that. She could scarcely have doubted whose picture he carried deep in his heart in Intermezzo and, after so many hardships, she could share the joyful anticipation of their impending union expressed so ecstatically in Frühlingsnacht. Mondnacht is one of the most beautiful not only of Schumann’s songs but of songs by any composer, its vocal line sensitively poised on an ostinato of exquisite dissonances in the piano part and brief but regular reflections of the vocal line low in the left hand (tracing another cryptogram, in this case the notes E, B, E, the equivalent of E, H, E in German, spelling out “Ehe” or “marriage”).

Part IV

Robert Schumann

Study in A flat from Six Studies for Pedal-PianoOp.56

Lust der Sturmnacht Op.35 No.1

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Andante con moto tranquillo from Piano Trio in D minor Op. 49

Clara Schumann (1819-1896):

Liebst du um Schönheit Op.12 No.4

Robert Schumann:

Träumerei Op.15 No.7

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897):

Scherzo in C minor (FAE) for violin and piano

Meine Liebe ist grün Op.63 No.5

Just as 1840 was the year of song, 1841 the year of the symphony, 1842 the year of chamber music and 1843 the year of oratorio, 1845 was the year of counterpoint. It was to facilitate their studies in counterpoint that Robert and Clara hired a pedal-piano - a piano with a pedalboard like that of the organ which allowed the pianist to add another voice to the contrapuntal texture. The six canonic Studies he wrote for that instrument can also be played as piano duets which, on the rare occasions when that happens, reveals them as no less poetic than they are intellectually accomplished. Counterpoint was always an important element in Schumann’s art, of course, as the interweaving of vocal and piano melody in the quiet middle section of Lust der Sturmnacht (written five years earlier) so eloquently demonstrates.

Another long-term source of inspiration to Schumann was the music of Felix Mendelssohn. “This,” he wrote of his great friend’s Piano Trio in D minor , “is the master trio of our time.” The slow movement, which anticipates something of the intimately confiding nature of some of his own chamber music, must have had a particular appeal for him.

Unlike Mahler, Schumann did not suppress his wife’s creativity but positively encouraged it. The Rückert songs, Gedichte aus “Liebesfrühling,” on which they collaborated in the first year of their marriage include three of her compositions - not least Liebst du um Schönheit which is unassailable in its modesty even when threatened by Mahler’s setting of the same words. Though written before their marriage, Kinderszenen, of which Träumerei is much the most famous number, is a clear indication of Robert’s affinity with children - a quality which, in his fruitful marriage with Clara, was a more than desirable asset.

Another signficant figure for the Schumanns was Johannes Brahms, whose genius Robert recognised as early as 1853 when the young composer visited them with an introduction from the violinist Joseph Joachim. The Scherzo in C minor is Brahms’s contribution to a Violin Sonata written jointly with Schumann and one of his pupils Albert Dietrich to welcome Joachim to Düsseldorf later in the year. Brahms retained his devotion to both Robert and Clara to the end of their lives. Meine Liebe ist grün is a generously energetic setting of words by their 19-year-old son Felix Schumann, who was shortly to die of tuberculosis.

Part V

Robert Schumann

Albumblatt No.4 from Bunte Blätter Op.99

Meine Rose Op.90 No.2

Sehr rasch from Kreisleriana Op.16

Requiem Op.90 No.7

When Schumann began to round up his stray piano pieces - he assembled thirty-four of them in all, issuing them in two collections in 1851 and 1854 respectively - he must have sensed that he did not have very long to put his affairs in order. The first collection Bunte Blätter contains among other things five Albumblätter (or Album Leaves) from his youth, including a seriously thoughtful study in three-part counterpoint which conceals its E flat minor tonality almost to the end.

Meine Rose is one of six Lenau settings completed, in a surge of creative energy comparable to that of 1840, in a few days in August 1850. A melodiously lyrical inspiration, it was written, to judge by the stepwise descending vocal line, with Clara in mind. “Sometimes your music actually frightens me,” she had said of Kreisleriana 12 years earlier even though Robert had told her that “you and one of your ideas are the principal subject.” She must have had something like the Sehr rasch (very quick) seventh piece in mind, a nightmare of a piece with an unrelenting fugato middle section and yet, at the end, a conciliatory epilogue.

Requiem, a setting of a German translation of a Latin version of Héloise’s lament for Peter Abelard, was added to the set of Lenau songs Op.90 under the mistaken impression that the poet had died. When he discovered that Lenau was not dead but was in fact dying the composer had the eerie feeling that he was “tolling a passing bell all unawares.”

Gerald Larner ©2006