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.

PRELUDE TO WALDSZENEN exhibits Phase B activity

The first 22 seconds of the prelude give a satisfying impression that a pedal point on the tonic in second inversion has been established, and the pianism above that harmonic foundation establishes the desired character. The left hand doesn't quite participate, but the effect is still pleasing. Starting at around [0:23], the listener begins to desire some sort of development, so that the quote of Schumann's first bars of Waldszenen I. [00:34] sound very welcome. The passage from [0:55–1:02] unsatisfactorily reduces the whole texture to two-voice counterpoint with no audible harmonic underpinning’ and although the following harmonic passage still brings the music to the desired cadence, the prelude arrives at the tonic in second inversion ([1:13]), the same harmony and inversion in which Schumann's text then begins. Some kind of contrast between the end of the prelude and the beginning of the piece would have been preferable.

a recording made on May 22nd, 2014 (the prelude can be heard from [0:00–1:17]):

and a recording of Schumann's piece, performed just after the prelude above:

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