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The Tonal Analogue in Schumann's Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Eric Sams
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Extract

Nearly all of Schumann's music contains or derives from words, whether as texts, titles, programmes or epigraphs. It is also famous for its structure of music qua mosaic, an aggregation of small-scale motifs. Now, surely these two basic facts about Schumann—his obviously verbal content, his obviously motivic form—may well be related? He works by way of motto-themes, I suggest, because that is literally what they are—mottoes turned into themes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 96 , 1969 , pp. 103 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

1 Jugendbriefe von Robert Schumann, ed. Clara Schumann, Leipzig, 1885, p. 282.Google Scholar

2 Eric Blom, Everyman's Dictionary of Music, London, 1946, p. 380.Google Scholar

3 Jugendbriefe, p. 16.Google Scholar

4 Wolfgang Boetticher, Robert Schumann, Berlin, 1941, p. 159.Google Scholar

5 Jugendbriefe, p. 82.Google Scholar

6 Robert Schumanns Briefe. Neve Folge, ed. F. Gustav Jansen, 2nd rev. edn., Leipzig, 1904, p. 492.Google Scholar

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8 Jugendbriefe, p. 155.Google Scholar

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11 Jugendbriefe, p. 200.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 167.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., p. 166.Google Scholar

14 Robert Schumanns gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker, 5th edn., ed. Martin Kreisig, Leipzig, 1914, i. 201, 256 &c.Google Scholar

15 Boetticher, Schumann, p. 319; as Gerald Abraham has pointed out (Schumann: A Symposium, London, 1952, p. 193), the theme in question is an analogue of Papillons, No. 1.Google Scholar

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19 Politische Fastenpredigten, Tubingen, 1817, section V.Google Scholar

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21 Cf. Schubert, D. 365, ban 9–10, and Schumann, Carnaval, bars 10–11.Google Scholar

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29 Apparently Erwin Bodky used to tell his students in Berlin between the wars that this basic shape was in fact Schumann's Clara theme.Google Scholar

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