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.

SONATA IN G MINOR exhibits Phases B, C, and D activity

I.:

II.:

III.:

IV.:

Three of the four movements of this Sonata in G minor were extemporized in performance, prepared with little to no written contribution, and recorded on October 15th, 2014.

The first movement exemplifies an attempt to use the harmonic structure of Schumann's Sonata in G minor, Op. 22, as well as to imitate the texture and character of the original, but perform the music with melodic and figurative elements that vary from the original.

The second movement resulted from a super-imposition of the accompanying elements from the second movement of Schumann's Sonata in G minor, Op. 22, with the melody from No. 6 of Kreisleriana, Op. 16.

The third movement is not extemporized to the same degree as the other movements, because the music was first notated and then realized in performance. This music can also be heard elsewhere in this project with the title Kreisleriana V. meets Kreisleriana VIII.

The fourth movement was intended to function in rondo form, with the Grandfather Waltz (present in the last movement of Schumann's Papillons, Op. 2) as the main theme. In order to find musical content that could serve well in the contrasting sections of the rondo, I transcribed some of the harmonic functions from the last movement of the Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, in order to practice them with the intention of being able to re-create something from them spontaneously during the performance of this movement.

Movements one, three, and four exhibit Phase B piano playing and certain moments of the Sonata in G minor remain unsatisfactory.

In the first movement, a harmonic structure was planned for the exposition (from [0:00–2:11] and then repeated from [2:11–3:52]) and recapitulation (from [5:05] to the end of the performance), but the development section (from [3:53–5:05]) unfolded without any specific harmonic plan. The repetition of the exposition section is different from the first, because no written materials were used during the performance. A small critique can be made about [3:00]: a modulation going straight from an augmented sixth chord to the dominant without passing by the tonic in second inversion is unusual.

The second movement sounds satisfactory from beginning to end, but also somewhat harmonically repetitive and unadventurous. The diminution of the inner voices at [3:05] creates some sense of development, but the harmonic content remains within the same territory for the duration of the performance.

Because the third movement was composed and then realized in performance, it exhibits both Phase C and D activity.

In the fourth movement, mistakes start happening from around [0:32–0:44] and again from [0:59–1:14]. And, in general, the tonal characteristics of the various contrasting sections to the rondo theme are not harmonically specific enough – each of the contrasting sections enters many different harmonic territories, rather than one specific section exploring one specific territory (for example, the first contrasting section could have explored the relative minor and the second the subdominant). Harmonic material that I tried to reserve for the coda, namely the harmonization of a descending bass line, already enters around [2:55], with still over two minutes of playing left. And finally, the whole five-minute movement seems to be performed at one general mezzo forte dynamic.

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