Home 1. Introduction 2. Markers 3. Archive 4. Audible Markers 5. Visible Markers 6. Notational Markers 7. Conclusion
3.1. Integrated Silences 3.2. Inherent Silences 3.3. Silent Discourse 3.4. Meta-Silences 3.5. Silencings
In Humoreske Opus 20 for piano (1839), Robert Schumann added a silent melody to be thought or silently hummed by the pianist. This line, whether the height of romanticism or subtly avant-garde, he labeledInnere Stimme:
This melody is intended to be sensed inwardly, ‘as one often does when one’s heart is full while playing,’ as Clara [Schumann] explained. The soprano line, or the ‘outer’ voice, traces out this inaudible inner voice, trailing behind it by just a fraction like a shadow missing its subject, an echo without a source. (Lin, 2020)
The performer is not supposed to perform (neither sing nor hum) but rather to internalize and imagine this inner voice. The audience is usually not even aware that the inner voice exists. It is a silent counterpoint to the piano parts, a kind of hauntology in which a ghostly voice from the past merges with the present.
Figure 9: first line of Humoreske by Robert Schumann (Edition Peters: 2002)
The pianist must know and feel the Innere Stimme, feeling it fundamentally below and within the actually performed notes of the two outer staves. The same musical passage returns again later, towards the end of the work, but without the inner voice, creating an “absence of absence,” according to music writer Douglas Murphy. He gives a related example from the 20th century: “It also occurs in jazz—Charlie Parker ‘weaving’ his way around a standard melody, suggesting it without ever playing it directly” (Murphy, 2008).
As a performer, I find that every composition I learn acquires a dense layer of instructions, notes, references, cues, and memories, which coalesce over time into my artistic and embodied knowledge of the piece. When I perform the music, all these different layers run along in my head, like the parallel pistes running through a multi-track tape recorder. Even if the audience only hears the performance of the primary notes printed in the score, all of the other tracks continue in my mind. These ever-active voices are in constant dialogue, as Kyriakides points out, interacting with the different aspects of the self that they represent (Kyriakides, 2017, p. 38). Yet, for all their activity, they are effectively silent tracks, unheard by the audience.
I have chosen to include this example because silence is implied through a notation of something else. But Schumann’s parallel world could also be a meta-silence: the silence/silencing itself is not notated, yet arises from the work.
The image shows a graphical response to Schumann’s score by performance/sound artist Olaf Nicolai. He deliberately confuses eloquent silence and silencing as if Schumann’s concept were about censorship. He has blacked out the performable score, leaving only the absent voice visible. The blackouts are definitely “not.” Any connective knots have been hidden by ink. Even the instructions are effaced.