Schumann, Robert

Keynote Address, Twenty-Sixth Annual SMT Conference

“…On that return, he recorded the impression that his hometown "was now completely extinct." (12) When death comes to our childhood home, what was once idyllic can become the primal site of loss and greatest sadness.…”

“…In a letter from Robert to Clara in April 1838, we even learn that Robert regarded the word "Ehe"-the German word for "marriage"-to be a "musical word"; its pitch equivalent is E-B-E, as heard in measures 10-11 in the bass and as B-E-B at the word "die Erde." (19) [14] Clearly the momentous effect of section B, which begins at measure 45, has everything to do with the static quality of the dominant prolongation throughout sections A and A'. After 46 measures of hovering on dominant harmony, the motion to V 7 of IV at measure 47 comes on the word "spannte" as if to expand the entire tonal universe; and here the radiant return of the introductory gesture, now in its highest register, miraculously creates the illusion of "stretching" the phrase over the great vocal divide between "spannte" and "weit" that ignores Eichendorff 's poetic enjambment.…”

“…The Arabeske takes the form of a modest, five-part rondo-A-B-A-C-A; it is thus most likely the "Rondolette" Robert tells Clara he has composed, in a letter from Vienna during his six-month stay there in 1838-39. (30) As shown in the score at the beginning of Example 6, the rondo refrain itself-the A-section-is cast as a small ternary. I'll propose that the refrain opens with a presentation-type phrase whose modelsequence design allows the theme to strive upward to the high G-natural at measure 8.…”