Playing Schumann Again for the First Time

Bobby Mitchell

How can one learn to improvise convincingly within the context of the nineteenth-century piano repertoire? And why is it important to improvise on this repertoire in the twenty-first century? Taking the music of Robert Schumann (1810−56) as a departure point, Playing Schumann Again for the First Time proposes an answer to these questions through methods towards a pianistic practice that is driven by experimentation and strives to continually find more layers where improvisation can take place, both in sounding musical practice and in notation. These practice-based methods are contextualized by a discussion of the presence of improvisation in Western classical musical practice in the nineteenth century. They are then substantiated by an argument to use improvisation as a tool for rethinking the current performance practice of nineteenth-century music. Improvisation itself and the concepts driving this term will also be addressed: improvisation in musical performance will be described as a process guided by a feedback loop between mimesis and morphosis with which the practitioner engages using his or her individual cognitive and embodied approach to listening, forgetting, and conceptualizing; the results of which bear his or her own sonic signature. The knowledge gained in this project lies within the realm of what will be described as improvisation as practice, a category of improvisational behavior that circumvents the need to be presented as art and is rather intended for the development of one’s own music-making.

This manuscript was created on August 2nd, 2014.

Kreisleriana V. meets Kreisleriana VIII. (first instance)

Recorded live as part of RASCH¹¹ in Ghent, Belgium on October 2nd, 2014

KREISLERIANA V. MEETS KREISLERIANA VIII. exhibits phases C and D activity

While superimposing the rhythmic and gestural characteristics of Kreisleriana No. V onto the harmonic structure of Kreisleriana No. VIII, certain decisions had to be made that proved to be too challenging to make only while playing. It became necessary to notate a manuscript of the music before learning to play it.

This music appears elsewhere in this chapter, namely as the third movement of the Sonata in G minor.

Kreisleriana V. meets Kreisleriana VIII. (second instance)

Recorded live in St. Gallen, Switzerland on October 15th, 2014

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