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.

MENSCHENBLUT exhibits Phase B activity

a character piece based on the same two stanzas from Hebbel's poem Böser Ort (from the collection Waldbilder) with which Schumann prefaced his character piece Verrufene Stelle (Waldszenen Op. 82 No. 4):

Die Blumen, so hoch sie wachsen,
Sind blaß hier, wie der Tod,
Nur eine in der Mitte
Steht da in dunklem Rot.

Die hat es nicht von der Sonne,
Nie traf sie deren Glut,
Sie hat es von der Erde,
Und die trank Menschenblut!

Before performing the piece on October 15th, 2014, I made a few sketches at home of the introduction and main melodic gestures, to be performed with the left hand in the tenor register. As can heard in the recording, some things did not turn out the way I had previously notated them. While playing the music, I did not reference the notated materials.

One blatant mistake can be heard in Menschenblut. The melodic content is inappropriately harmonized from [0:42–0:47]. A similar melodic passage is then realized in a more acceptable manner from [1:14–1:19]. The melodic material unfolds in a simple structure that could be described as follows: introduction + first statement of the melody + second statement of the melody including brief modulation to a parallel major mode + coda.

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