Carnaval (Schumann)

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Costume sketch by Léon Bakst

Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834–1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes (Little Scenes on Four Notes). It consists of 21 short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent. Schumann gives musical expression to himself, his friends and colleagues, and characters from improvised Italian comedy (commedia dell'arte). He dedicated the work to the violinist Karol Lipiński.

Background

Carnaval had its origin in a set of variations on a Sehnsuchtswalzer by Franz Schubert, whose music Schumann had only discovered in 1827. The catalyst for writing the variations may have been a work for piano and orchestra by Schumann's close friend Ludwig Schuncke, a set of variations on the same Schubert theme. Schumann felt that Schuncke's heroic treatment was an inappropriate reflection of the tender nature of the Schubert piece, so he set out to approach his Variations in a more intimate way, and worked on them in 1833 and 1834. The work was never completed, however, and Schuncke died in December 1834, but Schumann did re-use the opening 24 measures for the opening of Carnaval. Pianist Andreas Boyde has since reconstructed the original set of Variations from Schumann's manuscript (published by Hofmeister Musikverlag), premiered this reconstruction in New York and recorded it for Athene Records.[1] Romanian pianist Herbert Schuch has also recorded this reconstruction, with his own editorial emendations, for the Oehms Classics label.[2]

The 21 pieces are connected by a recurring motif. The four notes are encoded puzzles, and Schumann predicted that "deciphering my masked ball will be a real game for you."[3] In each section of Carnaval there appears one or both of two series of musical notes. These are musical cryptograms, as follows:

  • A, E-flat, C, B – signified in German as A-Es-C-H
  • A-flat, C, B – signified in German as As-C-H
  • E-flat, C, B, A – signified in German as Es-C-H-A.

The first two spell the German name for the town of Asch (now Aš in the Czech Republic), in which Schumann's then fiancée, Ernestine von Fricken, was born.[4] The sequence of letters also appears in the German word Fasching, meaning carnival. In addition, Asch is German for "Ash," as in Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Lastly, it encodes a version of the composer's name, Robert Alexander Schumann. The third series, S-C-H-A, encodes the composer's name again with the musical letters appearing in Schumann, in their correct order.

Heinz Dill has mentioned Schumann's use of musical quotes and codes in this work.[5] Eric Sams has discussed literary allusions in the work, such as to novels of Jean Paul.[6]

In Carnaval, Schumann goes further musically than in Papillons, Op. 2, for he himself conceives the story for which it serves as a musical illustration. Each piece has a title, and the work as a whole is a musical representation of an elaborate and imaginative masked ball during carnival season.[7] Carnaval remains famous for its resplendent chordal passages and its use of rhythmic displacement, and has long been a staple of the pianist's repertoire.

Both Schumann and his wife Clara considered his solo piano works too difficult for the general public. (Frédéric Chopin is reported to have said that Carnaval was not music at all.[8] Chopin did not warm to Schumann on the two occasions they met briefly, and had a generally low opinion of his music.) Consequently, the works for solo piano were rarely performed in public during Schumann's lifetime, although Franz Liszt performed selections from Carnaval in Leipzig in March 1840, omitting certain movements with Schumann's consent; six months after Schumann's death, Liszt would write to Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski, Schumann's future biographer, that Carnaval was a work "that will assume its natural place in the public eye alongside Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, which in my opinion it even surpasses in melodic invention and conciseness".[9] Today, despite its immense technical and emotional difficulty, Carnaval is one of Schumann's most often performed works.[10]

Movements

The work has 22 sections, 20 of which are numbered. Schumann did not number Sphinxes (which comes between the 8th and 9th numbered sections) or Intermezzo: Paganini (between the 16th and 17th).

1. Préambule (A-flat; Quasi maestoso)

The Préambule is one of the few pieces in the set not explicitly organized around the A-S-C-H idea. It was taken from the incomplete Variations on a Theme of Schubert (reconstructed in 2000 by Andreas Boyde).[11] The theme was Schubert's Sehnsuchtswalzer, Op. 9/2, D. 365.[12]

2. Pierrot (E-flat; Moderato)

This is a depiction of Pierrot, a character from the Commedia dell'arte, commonly represented in costume at a ball.

3. Arlequin (B-flat; Vivo)

This is a depiction of Harlequin, another character from the Commedia dell'arte.

4. Valse noble (B-flat; Un poco maestoso)

5. Eusebius (E-flat; Adagio)

Depicting the composer's calm, deliberate side.

6. Florestan (G minor; Passionato)

Depicting the composer's fiery, impetuous side. Schumann quotes the main waltz theme from his earlier work Papillons, Op. 2, in this movement.

7. Coquette (B-flat; Vivo)

Depicting a flirtatious girl.

8. Réplique (B-flat-G minor; L'istesso tempo)

A 'reply' to the coquette

--. Sphinxes

This consists of three sections of one bar each, with no key, tempo or dynamic indications. The notes are in the configurations S-C-H-A, As-C-H and A-S-C-H. This section was not intended to be played[13] and is generally omitted in performance and recording. However, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Horowitz, Alfred Cortot, Walter Gieseking, and Mitsuko Uchida included it in their recordings, as does Herbert Schuch, who plays it as String piano music in the same recording referenced above.

9. Papillons (B-flat: Prestissimo)

This piece is unrelated to his earlier work of the same name.

10. A.S.C.H. – S.C.H.A: Lettres Dansantes (E-flat; Presto)

Despite the title, the pattern used is As-C-H.

11. Chiarina (C minor; Passionato)

A depiction of Clara Schumann.

12. Chopin (A-flat; Agitato)

An evocation of his colleague Frédéric Chopin

13. Estrella (F minor; Con affetto)

Depicting Ernestine von Fricken.

14. Reconnaissance (A-flat; Animato)

Likely depicting Schumann and Ernestine recognizing each other at the ball.

15. Pantalon et Colombine (F minor; Presto)

The characters Pantalone and Columbina from the Commedia dell'arte.

16. Valse allemande (A-flat; Molto vivace)

--. Intermezzo: Paganini (F minor; Presto)

An evocation of Niccolò Paganini; it leads into a reprise of the Valse allemande

17. Aveu (F minor-A flat; Passionato)

Depicting a confession of love.

18. Promenade (D-flat; Con moto)

19. Pause (A-flat; Vivo)

An almost identical reprise of a passage from the opening Préambule, leading without pause into the final section.

20. Marche des "Davidsbündler" contre les Philistins (A-flat; Non allegro)[14]

Quotations from a number of the previous sections fleetingly reappear; the Grossvater Tanz, identified by Schumann in the score as a "Theme from the 17th Century" and intended to represent those holding to old-fashioned, outdated and inartistic ideals[15] (i.e., Philistines) is quoted from his earlier work Papillons, Op. 2. The piece ends Prestissimo.

Orchestrations

In 1910,[16] Michel Fokine choreographed Carnaval for a production by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with orchestration written collaboratively by Alexander Glazunov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Tcherepnin.

Among others who have orchestrated Carnaval are Maurice Ravel (1914)[17] and Giampaolo Testoni (1995).[18]

References

  1. ^ Andreas Boyde
  2. ^ Program notes booklet to Oehms Classics CD OC 754.
  3. ^ Perrey, Beate Julia, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 72.
  4. ^ "Nur einige Worte über die Composition, die ihre Entstehung einem Zufall verdankt. Der Name eines Städtchens, wo mir eine musikalische Bekanntschaft lebte, enthielt lauter Buchstaben der Tonleiter..." ["Allow me a few words on the composition, which owes its existence to a coincidence. The name of a little town, where a musical acquaintance of mine once lived, consists entirely of letters from a scale..."] Robert Schumann, NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR MUSIK, writing a review of Franz Liszt's 30 March 1840 performance of Carnaval at the Leipzig Gewandhaus (which omitted movements 2-4, 9-12, 14, 17-19, and 20). Quoted by Ernst Herttrich in his preface to Robert Schumann, Carnaval, Opus 9 (Urtext), G. Henle Verlag, 2004.
  5. ^ Dill, Heinz J. (1989). "Romantic Irony in the Works of Robert Schumann". The Musical Quarterly. 73 (2): 172–195. doi:10.1093/mq/73.2.172. Retrieved 2008-03-01.
  6. ^ Sams, Eric (1969–1970). "The Tonal Analogue in Schumann's Music". Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association. 96 (1): 103–117. doi:10.1093/jrma/96.1.103. JSTOR 765977.
  7. ^ Jensen, Eric Frederick, Schumann, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 150.
  8. ^ Niecks, Frederick, Frédéric Chopin as Man and Musician, Volume 2, BiblioLife, 2008, p. 147.
  9. ^ "...in der allgemeinen Anerkennung seinen natürlichen Platz zur Seite der 33 Variationen über einen Diabelli'schen Walzer von Beethoven (denen es meiner Meinung nach sogar an melodischer Erfindung und Prägnanz voransteht) behaupten wird." Franz Liszt, letter of 9 January 1857 to Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski, quoted in Robert Schumann, Carnaval, Opus 9 (Urtext), G. Henle Verlag, edited by Ernst Herttrich, 2004.
  10. ^ [1]
  11. ^ Music Web International
  12. ^ Classical Archives
  13. ^ Charles Rosen. 1995. The romantic generation. HarperCollins.
  14. ^ The Davidsbündler ("League of David") was "never anything more than a fictitious group, even if several real persons belonged to it in his imagination", although Clara Schumann and her father Friedrich Wieck are generally identified as Chiara and Master Raro, respectively; Felix Mendelssohn as Felix Meritis; and Schumann himself in the dual form of the "fiery and unbridled" Florestan and the "meek and sensitive" Eusebius. Schumann further elaborated upon the Davidsbündler in NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR MUSIK, the periodical founded by the composer in 1834. "This idea of an antiphilistine artists' society left its mark on the Davidsbündlertanze, Opus 6 (1837), which is closely related to Opus 9, and of which Schumann said to Clara, in a letter of 18 March 1838, that it bore the same relation to Carnaval as do "faces to masks" ["Gesichter zu Masken"]. Ernst Herttrich, ed., G. Henle Verlag, Op. Cit.
  15. ^ Jensen, Eric Frederick, Schumann, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 151.
  16. ^ Answers.com
  17. ^ Maurice Ravel: Arrangements et transcriptions (French) Archived May 2, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ Casa Musicale Sonzogno: Giampaolo Testoni

External links

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