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.

Zart is one of many examples of Phase A piano playing exhibited in Playing Schumann Again for the First Time. These occasions of music-making were performed on the spot in front of a small audience, after having been asked to play music according to a certain character or other type of demand. I include numerous such examples in this project in order to convey to the reader-listener the importance of practicing extemporizing music in front of an audience.

A tender character piece such as Zart would also be a good platform for beginning with a different harmony than the one that will be established as the tonic harmony. This idea is inspired by Robert Hatten's analysis of Schumann's final piece from the Davidbsundlertänze, Op. 6, and his presumption that the harmonic unfolding of the piece – especially due to the lack of a tonic harmony in the initial bars – lend an improvisatory character to the music (see Hatten 2009, 289).

ZART exhibits Phase A activity

recorded on June 7th, 2016:

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