Klavierstücke op32

Klavierstücke Op. 32 (1838-39)

Scherzo: Sehr markiert

Gigue: Sehr schnell

Romanze: Sehr rasch und mit Bravour

Fughette: Leise

It is difficult to understand why the four Klavierstücke Op.32, which were written at much the same time as some of the most popular of Schumann’s piano pieces, are so rarely performed. Perhaps it is because they were originally published under the not very catchy (though impeccably informative) title of Scherzo, Gigue, Romanze and Fughette. Or, more likely, it could be that the dotted rhythms which the four pieces have in common are felt to be overdone. That feature could, on the other hand, be regarded as a unifying virtue in a work which presents such a stylistic duality as two thoroughly modern items, a vigorous Scherzo and an excitable Romanze, alongside two baroque-influenced items, a fugal Gigue and a Fughette. Not that Schumann, whose melodic and harmonic personality is evident throughout the four movents, would have regarded textural allusions to J.S. Bach as anything but “modern.”