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.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORG! exhibits Phase B activity

After this performance of Happy Birthday, I made two written attempts to find suitable realizations of a stretto passage using the song’s melody, which can be seen here below:

recording made on December 2nd, 2014:

Of all the music presented in Playing Schumann Again for the First Time, Happy Birthday Georg! best fulfills one of Czerny's categories for extemporizing music in which the performer "executes a single theme in all the typical forms to be found in composition[; ...] incidentally, it should not be concealed that this manner of extemporizing is the hardest of all" (Czerny 1829, 43; my translation).

[0:00–0:29] This introductory passage takes the form of a waltz, or any kind of quicker dance in tertiary meter.

[0:30–1:07] This passage could easily resemble the first movement of a traditional sonata in duple meter.

[1:08–1:57] Two variations of the preceding passage emerge, keeping the melody intact and altering the accompanimental patterns.

[1:58–2:32] This passage could be described as scherzo-like.

[2:33–3:03] Music in the parallel minor and with a more serious affect, provides some contrast.

[3:04–3:26] This march-like passage also takes place in the parallel minor.

[3:27–3:47] This stretto passage displays some contrapuntal and imitative characteristics. The two notated attempts at stretto that can be seen here to the left were written down after the performance as alternative material for this passage.

[3:48–4:08] The performance concludes with a march-like coda.

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