Humoreske, Op.20

Einfach

Sehr rasch und leicht

Einfach und zart - Intermezxzo

Innig - Sehr lebhaft - Mit einigem Pomp - Zum Beschluss

Of all Schumann’s piano works, Humoreske is one of the most attractive and at the same time, because it is so spontaneously written, one of the most difficult to understand. A letter addressed to his fiancée Clara Wieck as he was working on it in Vienna in March 1839, says it all: “I have been at the piano all week, composing, writing, laughing and crying all at once. You will find this state of things nicely described in my Op.20, the Grosse Humoreske … twelve sheets composed in a week.” At the heart of the work, no matter what laughing or crying goes on around it, is the lovingly tender song-like duet for the two hands in the Einfach opening movement. Though presented in all innocence, its influence is lasting.

Beginning in laughter with a cheerfully dancing theme in B flat major, the Sehr rasch und leicht second movement goes through a frantic development, repeats its main theme and then slows down to recall a section of the Einfach duet in its original tempo. Immediately after that is the much-discussed passage where Schumann writes on three staves: the middle one is occupied by an “inner voice” which is not to be played but which is “echoed” a quarter of a beat behind in the right hand. This creates such excitement that the two hands get rhythmically out of phase with each other and distort the main theme almost beyond recognition. And so the improvisation rushes ever faster on, but only to slow down again, this time for a quietly sustained chordal version of the “inner voice” and a closing recall of the context in which it was first presented.

The Einfach und zart third movement is a comparatively simple structure with plaintive outer sections in G minor and an Intermezzo in B flat major which, far from lightening the atmosphere, takes the form of an alarmingly obsessive toccata. Though slightly less eccentric than the second movement, the fourth is no more predictable. It begins in B flat major, breaks off with a brief but violent reminder of an idea from Schumann’s earlier Kreisleriana, and returns to its own first theme which then merges into a poetic half-reminder of the tender duet from the Einfach first movement. The hectic development is stopped in its tracks by an extravagantly colourful fanfare - marked Mit einigem Pomp and anticipating in detail a famous Rachmaninov Prelude - modulating from a surprising E flat to an inconclusive F major.

It cannot end there, of course - which is why the final Zum Beschluss is not a separate movement (though it is often counted as such) but an epilogue connected by a pause to the pianissimo ending of the fanfare. An extended meditation avoiding the tonal issue for much of the time in a searching contrapuntal development, it is brought to a B flat major end by a dramatic and suddenly decisive Allegro coda.

Einfach (Simple)

Sehr rasch und leicht (Very quick and light)

Einfach und zart - Intermezxzo (Simple and tender - Intermezzo)

Innig - Sehr lebhaft - Mit einigem Pomp - Zum Beschluss

(Inward - Very lively - With some pomp - To end with)

Of all Schumann’s piano works, Humoreske is one of the most attractive and at the same time one of the most difficult to understand. Papillons, an extraordinarily daring work written as long as eight years earlier, is structurally elusive but its twelve dances are all very short. Kreisleriana, written seven years after that, might be bewildering in its mood changes but each movement is clearly shaped. Humoreske has a short first movement and a clearly shaped third movement; the others could present problems - but only if they are observed analytically rather than absorbed with the same kind of faith in spontaneity that inspired Schumann as he wrote them.

A letter to Clara, written as he was working on Humoreske in Vienna in March 1839, says it all: “I have been at the piano all week, composing, writing, laughing and crying all at once. You will find this state of things nicely described in my Op.20, the Grosse Humoreske … twelve sheets composed in a week.” At the heart of the work, however, no matter what laughing or crying goes on around it, is the lovingly tender song-like duet for the two hands - wavering uncertainly between G minor and B flat major but touching on G flat major - in the Einfach opening movement. Though presented in all innocence and with no attempt to emphasise its significance, its influence is lasting, not least by way of its leaning towards G flat major.

It reappears at an early stage. Beginning in laughter with a cheerfully dancing theme in B flat major, the Sehr rasch und leicht second movement goes through a frantic development, repeats its main theme and then slows down to recall a section of the Einfach duet in its original tempo. Immediately after that is the much-discussed passage where Schumann writes on three staves, the middle one occupied by an “inner voice” which is not to be played but which, although the left-hand melody is the stronger, is echoed a quarter of a beat behind in the right hand (or would be echoed if it were audible in the first place). This creates such excitement that the two hands get rhythmically out of phase with each other and distort the main theme almost beyond recognition. And so the improvisation rushes ever faster on, but only to slow down again, this time for a quietly sustained chordal version of the “inner voice” and a closing recall of the context in which it was first heard (or actually not heard).

The Einfach und zart third movement is a comparatively simple structure with plaintive outer sections in G minor and an Intermezzo in B flat major which, far from lightening the atmosphere, takes the form of an alarmingly obsessive toccata.

Though slightly less eccentric than the second movement, the fourth is no more predictable. It begins in B flat major, breaks off with a brief but violent reminder of an idea from Kreisleriana, and returns to its own first theme which then merges into a poetic half-reminder (the top line off the beat, the original bass line missing) of the tender duet from the Einfach first movement. Kreisler returns and, as in the second movement, the development hastens ever more hectically onward. In this case it is stopped in its tracks by an extravagantly colourful fanfare - marked Mit einigem Pomp and anticipating in detail a famous Rachmaninov Prelude - modulating from a surprising E flat to an inconclusive F major.

It cannot end there, of course - which is why the final Zum Beschluss is not a separate movement (though it is often counted as such) but an epilogue connected by a pause to the pianissimo ending of the fanfare. An extended Kreislerian meditation avoiding the tonal issue for much of the time in a searching contrapuntal development, it is brought to a B flat major end by a dramatic and suddenly decisive Allegro coda.

The Humoreske is “perhaps my most melancholy composition,” said Schumann to Henriette Voigt shortly after it was published.