Schumann, Robert

International Music Score Library Project [IMSLP] entry: Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann [1810-1856] was one of the greatest German composers of the Romantic era. His forte was piano pieces, but he also wrote much chamber music, songs, symphonies and a favourite piano concerto. Several films have been made of his life, especially of his relationship with Clara Wieck. He was also an influential critic.

Piece	MP3	Midi	Genre
Carnaval, Op. 9		MIDI	piano classical virtuoso
1. Preambule
2. Pierrot		Pierrot and Arlequin are characters from the commedia dell'arte
3. Arlequin
4. Valse Noble
5. Eusebius		Eusebius is Schumann himself, the dreamy poet
6. Florestan		Florestan is Schumann again, this time the man of action
7, 8. Coquette, Replique, Sphinxs		The flirt, a response and the mysterious sphinxs
9. Papillons		Fleeting scenes rather than butterflies
10. A.S.C.H. S.C.H.A. (Lettres Dansantes)		For the significance of ASCH, see the Wiki article on Carnaval
11. Chiarina		Clara, later his wife
12. Chopin		The composer, who drifts away, perhaps into sleep, or just poetic thoughts
13. Estrella		Ernestine von Fricken, then his girlfriend
14. Reconnaissance		A jaunty stroll, in the middle of which he has a romantic episode, presumable with Ernestine
15. Pantalon et Colombine		More from the commedia dell'arte
16, 17. Valse allemande, Paganini		A waltz, in the middle of which he meets the famous violinist
18. Aveu		A confession, perhaps of his love
19. Promenade
20, 21. Pause, Marche des "Davidsbundler" contre les Philistins		A short introduction followed by a march -- in waltz time! The League of David is Schumann and his friends, who are opposed to the old-fashioned reactionary Philistines, represented by a 17thC German melody known as the Grandfather's Song.
	Carnaval, subtitled Scenes mignonnes sur quatre notes, is a sequence of pieces, representing the composer going to a masked ball, and meeting his friends, including himself, and other stock characters. Sequenced mostly in 2013 from the Schirmer edition, edited by Harold Bauer and in my collection. However, there are a lot of mistakes in this, and I did a lot of cross-checking against the public-domain 1879 edition by Clara Schumann. This also contains many infelicities. So a lot of the phrasing, dynamics and pedalling are mine, and so are a few of the raw notes. Several of the pieces are simply too fast for MIDI; they are sequenced at half speed in half notes. Eusebius, Chopin and Aveu don't sequence properly from the score; I apologise for and to Chopin, but the other two are minor adjustments from my own performance. In Paganini, the initial loud bass and quiet treble may sound wrong, but they are as marked in the score.
For a salon piece based on Schumann's Merry Peasant [from his Album for the Young, see under G. F. West.

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Andy Walker, anw [at] cuboid4.me.uk [remove digit to construct address]