II
Meanwhile Robert Schumann was composing sets of pieces which have been and long will be regarded as one of the most precious contributions of the Romantic movement to pianoforte literature. Schumann was an enthusiast and an innovator. He was a poet and a warm-hearted critic. He was the champion of the new and the fresh, of self-expression and noble sentiment. In his early manhood a strained finger resulted from over-enthusiastic and unwise efforts to make his hand limber, and cut short his career as a concert pianist, for which he had given up his study of the law, not without some opposition. He turned, therefore, with all fervor to composing music for the pianoforte, and before his long-delayed marriage with Clara Wieck, daughter of his teacher, had published the sets of pieces on which a great part of his fame now rests.
Schumann was steeped in romantic literature, particularly in the works of Jean Paul Richter and E. T. A. Hoffmann; and most of his works show the influence of these favorite writers upon him. One finds symbolical sequences of notes, acrostics in music, expressions of double and even triple personalities; but these things are of minor importance in his music. The music itself is remarkably warm and poetic, remarkably sincere and vigorous whatever the inspiration may have been. It is happily sufficiently beautiful in itself without explanation of the cryptograms which oftener than not lie underneath it.
He was, as we have said, an explorer and an innovator by nature; and his music is full of signs of it. Though his treatment of the piano lacks the unfailing and unique instinct of Chopin, nevertheless his compositions opened up a new field of effects. Not all of these are successful. Experiments with overtones such as one finds, for instance, at the end of the Paganini piece in the Carnaval can hardly be said to be worth while. The result is too palpably an isolated effect and nothing more. It is too self-conscious. But he was of great significance in expanding the sonority of the instrument, in the use of the pedal, in the blending of harmonies, in several finer touches of technique. The combination of two distinct themes in the last movement of the Papillons, the fluent and sonorous use of double notes in the Toccata, the wide skips in the ‛Arlequin’ and the ‛Paganini’ numbers of the Carnaval, the latter with its cross-accents; the Reconnaissance in the same series, with its repeated notes; the rolling figures in the first movement of the Kreisleriana; these, among other signs of his originality, are new in pianoforte music.
His compositions demand from the pianist an unlimited and a powerful technique, yet it cannot be said of any that it is virtuoso music. He employed his skill not so much to display as to express his ideas. Nowhere does the pianoforte seem more the instrument of intimate and highly romantic sentiment. Of figure work and ornamentation there is very little. His music is not at all dazzling. Much of it is veiled. At the most he is boisterous, as in parts of the Faschingsschwank and the last movements of the Études Symphoniques. He rather avoids the high, brilliant registers of the keyboard, stays nearly constantly in the middle of things, deals in solid stuff, not tracery.
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of his style is his frequent use of syncopated rhythms. This becomes at times an obsession with him; and there are many passages in his music so continuously off the beat, that the original measure is quite lost, and the syncopation is to all practical purpose without effect. In such passages it seems hardly possible that Schumann intended the original beat to be kept in mind by the accentuation of notes that are of secondary importance; unless, of course, the interest of the music is chiefly rhythmical. Yet in some passages of purely melodic significance this may be done without awkwardness, producing an effect of dissociation of melody and harmony which may be what Schumann heard in his mind.
These are problems for the pianist, but a few of them may be suggested here. The last movement of the very beautiful concerto is in 3/4 time. There is no change of time signature for the second theme. This, as first announced by the orchestra in E major and later taken up by the piano solo in B major, is none the less in 3/2 time. Such must be the effect of it, because the passage is long and distinct enough to force the 3/4 beat out of the mind, since no note falls in such a way as to accent it. But when the orchestra takes up this theme, again in E major, the piano contributes a steadily flowing stream of counterpoint. In this it is possible to bring out the original measure beat, throwing the whole piano part into a rhythm counter to the rhythm of the orchestra. Such an accentuation is likewise out of line with the natural flow of the counterpoint; yet it may be what Schumann desired here, as well as in the following section, where, though the orchestra is playing in 3/2 time, the pianist may go against the natural line of his own part and bring out a measure of three-quarter notes.
The middle section of the second movement of the great Fantasy in C major presents the same problem. Here we have a melody in long phrases. The notes of it are off the beat, the chords which furnish its harmony are on the beat. Every eight measures the natural rhythm asserts itself; yet even these periodic reminiscences of the measure cannot serve to throw the whole melody into syncopation. The melody is too strong and its phrases too long. More than the occasional measures, it must, if allowed fully to sing, determine the rhythm of the passage. So it is usually played; so, without special effort to the contrary, it will impress the ear. Now is it possible that Schumann intended the accompanying chords to be distinctly accented? Such an accent, delicately applied, with the skillful use of the pedal, will create a wholly new effect, which can be drawn from all the succeeding passages as well.
Other passages offer no alternative. There is no way to suggest the original beat except by movement of the body, or by grunting; both of which are properly discountenanced. Examples may be found in the first movement of the Faschingsschwank and elsewhere.
Most of Schumann’s pianoforte music is made up of short pieces. Such are the Papillons, the Carnaval, the Davidsbündler Dances, the Faschingsschwank, the ‘Symphonic Studies,’ and the Kreisleriana. Each of these is a cycle of pieces, and is at best only loosely held together by one device or another. The Papillons are scenes at a fancy dress ball. The return of the first piece at the end gives a definite boundary, as it were, to the whole. The Faschingsschwank are pictures of a fête in Vienna. There is no structural unity to the work as a whole. The fanciful idea upon which it rests alone holds the pieces loosely together.
The Carnaval, likewise a scene at a fair, representations in music of various people, sights, and sounds, is built on three series of notes which Schumann called ‘Sphinxes’ and which he had published with the music. It is very doubtful whether the employment of these sequences in one form or another gives to the whole series an organic interdependence. Only with care can the student himself trace them, in such varied guises do they appear; and to be left in entire ignorance of them would hardly interfere in the least with an emotional appreciation of the music. The return at the end of some of the movements and passages heard at the beginning, however, rounds off the work and makes an impression of proportions. Moreover, within the work many of the pieces lead without pause into the next, or are without an end at all, like the Florestan, which is left fulminating in the air.
In the Davidsbündler there is again the return at the end of familiar phrases, but the Kreisleriana is like the Faschingsschwank without structural unity. Yet perhaps none of the Schumann cycles is less friable than the Kreisleriana. It is long and it is varied; but here, perhaps more than in any other similar works of the composer, there is a continuous excellence of workmanship and intensity of expression.
Besides these cycles there are sets of short pieces which are independent of each other. Such are the ‘Fantasy Pieces,’ the Novelettes, the ‘Romances,’ and the Bunte Blätter, among others. These may be fairly compared with the ‘Songs without Words’ of Mendelssohn. How utterly different they prove to be, how virile and how genuinely romantic! They are not only the work of a creative genius of the highest order, they show an ever venturesome spirit at work on the keyboard. Take, for example, the ‘Fantasy Pieces.’ The first, called Des Abends, is as properly a song as any of Mendelssohn’s short pieces which are so designated. The very melody is inspired and new, rising and falling in the long smooth phrases which are the gift of the great artist, not the mere music-maker. The accompaniment appears simple enough; but the wide spacing, the interlocking of the hands, above all, its rhythm, which is not the rhythm of the melody, these are all signs of fresh life in music. The interweaving of answering phrases of the melody in the accompaniment figures, the contrast of registers, the exquisite points of harmonic color which the accompaniment touches in the short coda, these are signs of the great artist. It is remarkable how little Mendelssohn’s skill prompted him to such beautiful involutions; how, master as he was of the technique of sound, he could amble for ever in the commonplace. And Schumann, with far less grasp of the science, could venture far, far beyond him.
The second of the ‘Fantasy Pieces,’ Aufschwung, calls imperiously upon the great resources of the pianoforte. There is power and breadth of style, passion and fancy at work. It is a wholly different and greater art than Mendelssohn’s. It is effective, it speaks, it proclaims with the voice of genius. And in the little Warum? which follows it, skill is used for expression. There is perhaps more appreciation of the pianoforte in this piece, which by nature is not pianistic, than there is in all the ‘Songs without Words,’ an appreciation of the contrasting qualities of high and low sounds, of the entwining of two melodies, of the suggestive possibilities of harmony.
Take them piece by piece, the Grillen with its brusque rhythms, its syncopations, its rapidly changing moods; the In der Nacht, with its agitated accompaniment, its broken melodies, and the soaring melody of the middle section, not to mention the brief canonic passages which lead from this section back to the wild first mood; the delicate Fabel, the Traumes Wirren with its fantastic, restless, vaporish figures and the strange, hushed, shadows of the middle section; and the Ende vom Lied, so full for the most part of good humor and at the end so soft and mysteriously sad; these are all visions, all prophecies, all treasure brought back from strange and distant beautiful lands in which a fervid imagination has been wandering. Into such a land as this Mendelssohn never ventured, never even glanced. For Schumann it was all but more real than the earth upon which he trod, such was the force of his imagination.
The imagination is nowhere more finely used than in the short pieces called the Kinderscenen. Each of these pieces gives proof of Schumann’s power to become a part, as it were, of the essence of things, to make himself the thing he thought or even the thing he saw. They are not picture music, nor wholly program music. They are more a music of the imagination than of fact. Schumann has himself become a child in spirit and has expressed in music something of the unbound rapture of the child’s mind. So, even in a little piece like the ‘Rocking Horse,’ we have less the picture of the ‘galumphing’ wooden beast, than the ecstasy of the child astride it. In the Curiose Geschichte there is less of a story than of the reaction of the child who hears it. In the Bittendes Kind and the Fürchtenmachen this quality of imagination shows itself with almost unparalleled intensity. The latter is not the agency of fear, it is the fear itself, suspense, breathless agitation. The former does not beg a piece of cake; it is the anguished mood of desire. Only in the last two pieces does Schumann dissociate himself from the moods which he has been expressing. The former, if it is not the picture of the child falling asleep, is the process itself; the latter is, as it were, the poet’s benediction, tender and heartfelt.
The whole set presents an epitome of that imagination which gave to Schumann’s music its peculiar, intimate, and absorbing charm. His might well be considered the most subjective of all pianoforte music. It is for that reason dull to practice. The separate notes of which it is composed give little objective satisfaction. The labor of mastering them routs utterly in most cases the spirit which inspired them. Fine as the craftsman’s skill may prove to be in many of the pieces, it is peculiarly without significance, without vitality, until the whole is set in motion, or set afire by the imagination.
The most imaginative and the most fantastic of the works as a whole is the series of twenty short pieces which make up the Carnaval, opus 9. Here there is a kaleidoscopic mixture of pictures, characters, moods, ideas, and personalities; the blazonry of spectacle, the noise and tumult, the quiet absorption that may come over one in the midst of such animation, the cool shadows beyond the edge of it wherein lovers may wander and converse; strange flashes of thought, sudden darting figures, apparitions and reminiscences. All is presented with unrelaxing intensity. One cannot pick out a piece from the twenty which does not show Schumann’s imagination at fever heat. There is a wealth of symbolism; the Sphinxes, mysterious sequences of notes that are common to all the pieces, and dancing letters which spell the birthplace of one of Schumann’s early loves.
As to the Sphinxes it may be said, as before, that the coherence which they may add can hardly exist outside the mind of the player, or of the student who has made himself thoroughly familiar with the work. The average listener may hear the whole work a hundred times, learn to know it and to love it, without ever realizing that the first intervals of the Arlequin, the Florestan, of the Papillons and others are the same; those of the Chiarina, the Reconnaissances, and the Aveux likewise, note for note identical. Such hidden relationships in music are vaguely felt if felt at all. Just as two words spelled the same may have different meanings, so may two musical phrases made up of the same intervals be radically different in effect.
The Carnaval opens with a magnificent prelude. The first section of it suggests trumpeters and banners, the splendid announcement and regalia of a great fête. After this we are plunged at once into the whirr of merry-making. Schumann’s cross-accents and syncopations create a fine confusion; there is hurly-burly and din, a press of figures, measures of dance, light and tripping, an ever-onward rush, animato, vivo, presto! There is a splendid effect in the last section, the presto. The measure beat is highly syncopated. It will be observed that in the first eight measures the first notes of every other measure, which are in all dance music the strongest, are single notes. These alone keep up a semblance of order in the rhythm. By the extension of one measure to four beats, the sequence of notes is so changed that in the repetition of this first phrase the strong accent falls upon a full chord, thus greatly re-enforcing the intended crescendo.
The next two numbers in the scene are pictures of two figures common to nearly every fair, the Pierrot and the Harlequin. The distinction between them is exquisite. In Pierrot we have the clown, now mock-mournful and pathetic, only to change in a second and startle with some abrupt antic. Harlequin, on the other hand, is nimble and quick, full of hops and leaps. At the end of the Pierrot, by the way, there is the chance to experiment with the pedal in overtones. The sharp fortissimo dominant seventh, just before the end, will set the notes of the following chord, all but the fundamental E-flat, in vibration if the pedal is pressed down; so that the keys of this second chord need hardly to be struck but only to be pressed. And when the pedal is lifted, this second chord will be left still sounding, by reason of the sympathetic vibration which was set about in its strings by the loud chord preceding.
Pierrot and Arlequin are professional functionaries at the fair. We are next introduced to a few of the visitors. There is a Valse noble and then Eusebius. Schumann imagined within himself at least three distinct personalities of which two often play a rôle in his music. One is active and assertive. He is Florestan. The other is Eusebius, reflective and dreamy. Here, then, is Eusebius at the fair, wrapped about in a mantle of gentle musing. His page of music in the Carnaval is one of the loveliest Schumann ever wrote. Elsewhere, too, the contemplative young fellow speaks always in gentlest and most appealing tones; as in the second, seventh, and fourteenth of the Davidsbündler Dances, all three of which are subscribed with a letter E.
In the Carnaval, as in the Dances, Florestan breaks roughly into the meditations of Eusebius. He works himself into a very whirlwind of energy; and then Schumann, by a delicious sense of humor, lets the artful Coquette slide into his eye and put an end to his vociferations. To her there is no reply but the gentle, short Replique. Are the Papillons which follow masqueraders? The horn figures of the accompaniment bring in a new group to the fair, fresh from the outer world. They are gone in a flash, and their place is taken by three dancing letters, ‛As,’ C, and H; As being German for A-flat, and H for B. And these letters spell the birthplace, as we have said, of one of Schumann’s early loves.
The love of his whole life follows—Chiarina, his beloved Clara; and, as if with her were associated the loveliest and most poetic of pianoforte music, he calls Chopin to mind. Chopin at this fair! It is a fantastic touch. More than when Eusebius speaks, the background of gay dancers and masqueraders fades from sight. For a moment Chopin is in our midst. Then he has vanished. And at once another thought of Clara, this time as Estrella; then an acquaintance in the throng. He has seen a face he knew, it is a friend. It is the Sphinx of Chiarina in the music. Is it she he recognized? Are the lovely interchanges in the middle section conversations with her? If so, their mood is light. They have met at a fair. They are in the merry-making.
Two more professionals, masquers this time—the world-favorites, Pantalon and Colombine; and at the end of their piece an exquisite thought of Schumann’s. Then the German waltz, simplicity itself; and in the midst of it none other than the wizard, Paganini! Surely, there was never a stranger trick of thought than that which thus placed Paganini in the midst of a simple, tender German waltz. He vanishes in a puff of smoke, as conjured devils are supposed to do; and the waltz goes on, as if all this intermission had been but a flash in the air above the heads of dancers too absorbed in their pastime to note such infernal phenomena.
After the waltz, a lover’s confession, hesitating but enraptured; and then a Promenade. There is full feeling, there is delight and ecstasy. Our lover whirls his maiden from the fair. Farther and farther they go, hand in hand, into the shadowy, calm night. Fainter and fainter the sounds of revelry, till all is silence.
There is a pause. The lovers are dispatched. Away with dreaming, away with sentiment! Back into the hurly-burly and the din. Here comes the band of David down the plaisance, hats in air, banners flying, loudly cheering. These are the sons of the new music. These are the champions of the new era of freedom, these the singers of young blood. More and more reckless, madder and more gay! Spread consternation abroad among the Philistines, put the learned doctors to rout, send them flying with their stale old tunes and laws! So the Carnaval ends, with the flight of the old and dusty, and the triumph of the enthusiasm of youth.
Here is a phantasmagoria unmatched elsewhere in music. It is very long. It is too long; and, judged as a whole, the work suffers in consequence. It is overcrowded with figures, too full of symbolism; and the ear tires, the attention wearies. Yet there is not a piece in it which one would be willing to discard. All are beautiful and new and full of life. Many present something peculiar to Schumann, the fruit of his imagination, which is in advance of most of the music of his time. It must occupy an important place in the history of pianoforte music, as representing one of the finest accomplishments directly due to the influence of the Romantic movement.