Book contents
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- New Cambridge Music Handbooks
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Rethinking the Romantic Piano Concerto
- 2 The Genesis of Schumann’s Piano Concerto
- 3 Analysis (1): The First Movement
- 4 Analysis (2): The Slow Movement and Rondo Finale
- 5 Reception and Legacy
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Analysis (2): The Slow Movement and Rondo Finale
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 November 2023
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- New Cambridge Music Handbooks
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Rethinking the Romantic Piano Concerto
- 2 The Genesis of Schumann’s Piano Concerto
- 3 Analysis (1): The First Movement
- 4 Analysis (2): The Slow Movement and Rondo Finale
- 5 Reception and Legacy
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines the ways in which the Intermezzo and Finale respond to the challenge of balancing the first movement’s slow-movement and finale-like episodes with the movements of the overarching concerto cycle. The Intermezzo is a ternary-form lyric character piece, which invokes the epigrammatic style of Schumann’s early piano cycles, and which is elided with the Finale via an enigmatic reference to the first movement’s main theme. The Finale, in contrast, is an expansive sonata rondo, which, in a nod to the Beethovenian symphonic struggle–victory narrative, supplants A minor with the parallel major. Together, the two movements convey a productive dialectic of lyric concentration and symphonic expansion, which in combination radically rethink the bel canto and brillante stylistic hallmarks of Schumann’s virtuoso precedents.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto , pp. 115 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023