Novelletten, Op.21

1 Markirt und kräftig

(Marked and strong}

2 Äusserst rasch und mit Bravour - Intermezzo: etwas langsamer, durchaus zart - Tempo I

(Extremely quick and with bravura - Intermezzo: somewhat slower, tender throughout - Tempo I)

3 Leicht und mit Humor - Intermezzo: rasch und wild - Tempo I

(Light and with humour - Intermezzo: fast and wild - Tempo I)

4 Ballmässig. Sehr munter - noch schneller - Tempo I

(As at a ball. Very cheerful - still quicker - Tempo I)

5 Rauschend und festlich - etwas langsamer - sehr lebhaft - Tempo I

(Noisy and festive - somewhat slower - very lively - Tempo I)

6 Sehr lebhaft, mit vielem Humor - immer schneller und schneller- Tempo I

(Very lively, with much humour - ever faster - Tempo I)

7 Äusserst rasch - etwas langsamer - Tempo I

(Extremely quick - somewhat slower - Tempo I)

8 Sehr lebhaft - Trio I: noch lebhafter - wie früher - Trio II: hell und lustig - Tempo I - Fortsetzung und Schluss: munter, nicht zu rasch - nach und nach lebhafter - Tempo I

(Very lively - Trio I: still livelier - as before - Trio II: bright and happy - Tempo I - Continuation and ending: cheerful, not too quick - gradually quicker - Tempo I)

In spite of its F major ending, the Piano Sonata in F minor represents the lowest point to which Schumann’s morale would sink in the years preceding his marriage to Clara Wieck in 1840. After their engagement in 1837, although they would suffer many cruel setbacks through the virulent opposition of her father, and although the wedding would be delayed for longer than they thought, they were confident that nothing could stop them in the end. During that time of tormented but often happy anticipation anything or anybody that reminded Schumann of Clara aroused his interest - like the Clärchen (a diminutive of Clara) in Goethe’s Egmont or like Clara Novello, the “beautiful singer” who visited Leipzig in 1837 and who, curiously, lent her name to the Novelletten he wrote in 1839. “Wiecketten doesn’t sound good enough,” he explained to his own Clara.

So the Novelletten are to be understood as “Clara Novelettes,” short stories in which Clara figures in some way - or, as the composer put it, “…jests, Egmont stories, family scenes with fathers, a wedding…” It would be interesting to know exactly which Novelletten fall into which of the categories the composer mentions but, in the absence of further information, we can only guess. It is tempting, since it is the only march in the set, to associate Novellette No.1 in F major with Egmont, the strutting main sections corresponding to Egmont himself perhaps and the two tenderly lyrical trio sections to his beloved Clärchen. It is perhaps more to the point that the first Novellette sets the structural pattern for its successors, most of which alternate the material of the opening section with one or more contrasting episodes.

If the second Novellette is one of the “family scenes with fathers” - and the impetuous and unrelentingly active outer sections in D major are vociferous enough to sustain that notion - the lovers are evidently left to themselves in the central Intermezzo in A major. The third Novellette, which like most of the remaining pieces retains the key of D major, could be one of the “jests.” Certainly, it is to be played “with humour” and the mainly light staccato articulation of the outer sections has something of the Mendelssohn scherzo about it. What we know for certain is that in one edition of the Novelletten the Intermezzo is headed with the words “When shall we three meet again?” That could well explain the rhythmically grotesque and weirdly developed episode that follows.

The fourth and fifth Novelletten - one a Viennese waltz, the other a polonaise, both of them in D major - revert to the ballroom setting of Papillons. They are, however, more extended and very much more sophisticated than the dances of Op.2: the amorous duet that forms the A major middle section of the waltz is one of the most beautiful of Schumann’s inspirations of this kind; the polonaise is a full-scale sonata-rondo with two contrasting episodes, a development and a recapitulation.

The jesting Novellette No.6 in A major, on the other hand, is like nothing else. It is a brilliantly conceived mosaic of no fewer than eight themes, of tiny interlocking and cross-referring ternary structures which touch on as many as twelve different tonalities at an ever quicker pace until the return to the opening tempo (but not to the opening theme) at the end. After that and before the equally unconventional finale, the seventh Novellette, with its exquisitely lyrical middle section in A major between clearly defined and vigorously articulated outer sections in E major, is most strategically placed.

Donald Francis Tovey, in his eight-page essay on the twelve minutes of the eighth Novelette, was probably the first to define its construction as two scherzos each with two trios. He also understood the significance of what he describes as “a wonderful passage” at the end of the second trio of the first scherzo: “Over the dying hunting rhythm of the bass steals a slow, soft melody…a glimpse of some ideal.” If he did not know that this “Stimme aus der Ferne” or “voice from afar,” as the composer describes it in the score, is the descending melody frequently shared by Robert and Clara (it occurs in much the same form in the Notturno of her Soirées musicales, Op.6) he was aware of its function as the emotional turning point at the very centre of the piece. He does not explain why the tonality changes from F sharp minor at the beginning to D major at the end but if he had treated the eighth Novellette not as a work in itself but as the last in a series of such pieces, in which D major has long been established as the tonic, he surely would have done.

As for the novelette element, could the stormy opening section of the first (F sharp minor) scherzo be one of the “family scenes with fathers” and could the second (D major) scherzo, with its poetic references back to the “voice from afar,” be the long anticipated wedding?