Klavierstücke in Fughettenform

7 Klavierstücke in Fughettenform Op 126 (1848-49)

Nicht schnell

Mässig

Ziemlich bewegt

Lebhaft

Ziemlich langsam

Sehr schnell

Langsam, ausdrucksvoll

Schumann first studied Bach counterpoint with his composition teacher Heinrich Dorn in the early 1830s. He and Clara played piano-duet versions of the fugues when they were both pupils of Friedrich Wieck and made a systematic study of them after they were married. Among the direct results of that was the four great Fugen Op.72 of 1845 and, his last study in fugal textures, the Stücke in Fughettenform Op.126. Far from representing a decline in his powers, the latter work is an apt reflection of his conviction that “most of Bach’s fugues are character pieces of the higher sort, at times genuinely poetic creations.” His own seven fughettas are nothing less than poetic creations, scarcely ever given to pastiche (there are echoes of Bach in G minor in the second in D minor) and entirely personal in the way the mood gradually declines from the pastoral tranquillity of the first to the near despair of the last. Five slow meditations are effectively offset by the unremitting pressure of the fourth and the macabre gigue of the sixth.