Robert Schumann: Träumerei

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With composers and their pieces —and I suppose with most works of art— we sometimes want to understand the composer through the piece, especially if the composer intrigues us in some way; and other times, we try to understand the piece by learning more about the composer.

Robert Schumann is intriguing in many ways. Firstly, and most importantly, he was a literary man.  He lived at a time when the boundaries between art, music, literature and theatre were breaking down, and artists and laymen were beginning to appreciate the ways in which the various media and their traditions influenced, and inspired creativity in the others.  Germany and Austria were at the center of this awakening, and Robert Schumann was instrumental in providing opportunities for this cross-fertilization to take place.

The home of Robert and Clara Schumann was a regular gathering place for amateur and professional artists and intellectuals in Vienna, and Schumann's parlor was the location for frequent chamber concerts.  Clara Schumann was a brilliant musician, a pianist and performer in her own right, and the couple was loved by their entire circle of friends, and nurtured the talents of many young artists, most notably Johannes Brahms.

Best of all, however, is the fact that Robert Schumann was a literary man, and began publication of a journal, in which he discussed and praised the work of numerous budding artists, providing a forum for analyzing musical, literary and dramatic works from various points of view, from the new Romantic sensibility that was beginning to emerge.  So we not only have the music of Schumann with which he could be understood, we also have a large volume of musical criticism and analysis that we know was very influential in its time.

Romanticism, in its excesses, can easily degenerate into sentimentality, though the boundary between the two is by no means easy to decide, and must remain a matter of individual opinion.  One of the most difficult matters to decide is the view of childhood through the eyes of an adult.  Children —of necessity, as evolutionists assure us— are charming and delightful to adults.  In fact the young of any mammal species appear attractive and charming to all mammal species (except when we're very, very hungry, of course).

In addition to this confusing tendency of regarding kids as cute, we often remember our childhoods with affection simply because they were a carefree time, especially if we are struggling with adult existence, and if we recall our parents as being indulgent and protective.

Robert Schumann wrote a set of piano pieces called Scenes from Childhood, or Kinderscenen, which contain some of his most beloved compositions.  The best known movement is Träumerei, or Reverie.  The word "reverie" is a very adult word; when a child is having one, we call it a "daydream".  It is a state that was recognized more frequently in literature of the Romantic period than in earlier times: a state where one's thoughts are not constrained by necessity, but seem to be driven by one's subconscious, comfortable in its belief that it isn't being noticed.

Here, to get it out of the way, is a rendition of the piece transcribed for orchestra, played by the Vienna Philharmonic.  The Vienna Philharmonic has a reputation for wonderful renditions of romantic pieces:


Repeated listening to this piece leaves a strong impression of its symmetry and structure.  Almost trite in its simplicity, it is a model of structure for a short piece.  The structure, using a self-explanatory representation, is AABCA', where A is the opening idea, which is repeated, followed by variations B and C in related keys, and closing with a variant of A.

To my mind, this is by no means an artless little children's piece, when played by an orchestra.  The interweaving lines under the main melody are by no means self-effacing; they draw attention to themselves simply by trying to disappear.  In the original version for piano, the counterpoint (the technical word for the melodic aspects of the parts and how they interact) is less intrusive.  Unfortunately, I found it difficult to select a simple performance of the piano version on YouTube; every performer seemed intent on imposing an individual stamp on his or her performance.  That was very much the world that has come to stay after Robert Schumann passed away: the world of untrammeled individualism, where performers are somewhat more preoccupied with the uniqueness of their performance than the piece itself.

I thought I should look again, and this performance stood out as a good choice.  The pianist, who appears to be an Afghanistani, presents a straightforward reading, except for a little more pedal than I would like.  But pedal is unavoidable for a piece called "Reverie", where legato is essential, and a little blurring of lines is forgivable:



I have often tried to play this piece, and learned it to the point where I could play it mostly from memory (taking some liberties with the written notes, I suppose).  But I have been fascinated by the counterpoint, and I can only conjecture that others have felt the same fascination; it is almost as if it had been written for a string quartet.  Was it written at a time when Schumann was writing string quartets?  I wish I had the motivation to follow up on the subject ... perhaps I will, someday.

Most music-lovers are not tuned-in to the dimension of the interweaving melodic lines of the music; after all, we're listening for the tune carried by the topmost part, and are only aware of the other parts as harmony, and sometimes, texture.  The inner melodies are more noticeable when there is imitation: the echoing of a main melody by inner melodies.  In Träumerei, the imitation is easy to hear.  It might be easier to hear it once you have seen it.  Here is a bit of the score (the entire score is available here) :

where the imitative phrases have been colored.  The string quartet is an ensemble ideal for performing imitative, contrapuntal music.  Unfortunately, not many reputable string quartets are likely to waste their time with a piece written for the piano, and so popular.  Everybody has done it, they would say, so what's the point?  And really, from their point of view, playing Träumerei is hardly the road to immortality.

You be the judge.  Here are a few examples of the piece played by a string quartet.  This first one, actually, now that I listen to it once again, is not bad:


These fellows have transposed the piece up to BFlat (or possibly A):


Most of the others I remember from a few months ago seem to have evaporated; there is just one by a wind ensemble, though the video is too poor to really tell:



Fascinating, as Spock would say.

Finally, an arrangement for string quartet I made myself, played by the software:


Great liberties have been taken with the notes, especially a very vulgar seventh in the last section, but it seemed that the harmony needed it there, especially played on strings.  (It would have sounded terrible on a piano, I know.  Even more terrible, I suppose I should say.)

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