Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Musical Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 “Seldom Satisfied, but Always Delighted”: Jean Paul and His Novels
- 2 Digressive Dances: Schumann's Early Cycles
- 3 Carnaval: Redefining Convention, Transcending Boundaries
- 4 Higher and Lower Forms
- 5 Schumann's and Jean Paul's Idyllic Vision
- Epilogue
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
3 - Carnaval: Redefining Convention, Transcending Boundaries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- List of Musical Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 “Seldom Satisfied, but Always Delighted”: Jean Paul and His Novels
- 2 Digressive Dances: Schumann's Early Cycles
- 3 Carnaval: Redefining Convention, Transcending Boundaries
- 4 Higher and Lower Forms
- 5 Schumann's and Jean Paul's Idyllic Vision
- Epilogue
- Appendix
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Although the Intermezzi had been described by Schumann as “longer Papillons,” this epithet might have been even more suitable for his next cycle. Carnaval takes its point of departure from the basic structural premise of opp. 2 and 4, but goes far beyond those works in scale, boldness, and depth of imagination. Completed in 1835 and published as op. 9 by Breitkopf und Härtel in 1837, Carnaval was popularized by Liszt from 1840 onward and became a stock-in-trade of the concert pianist in the twentieth century. The cycle was Schumann's longest, most thorough treatment of the “waltz-series” topos to date, to be equalled only by the two books of Davidsbündlertänze. It is truly a cycle, with clear linkages between all movements and even a cyclic return of earlier material that prefigures Lisztian thematic transformation; this unity was occasioned by a tribute to Schumann's onetime fiancée, Ernestine von Fricken, and her hometown, Asch. Like Papillons and Intermezzi, Carnaval starts from the premise of the Schubertian danceseries, but defamiliarizes it from the outset. The term “defamiliarization,” or ostranenie, coined by the Russian Formalist literary theorist Viktor Shklovskii, refers to the revelatory effect of literature on familiar, everyday objects and concepts. These ordinary phenomena—human relationships, common objects, conventional actions and beliefs, anything with which the implied reader may be familiar—become “strange” when an author applies literary devices to their representation. Schubert's waltz suites would have been an everyday musical object for Schumann, whose early Acht Polonaisen for piano duet closely emulate Schubert's dance style.
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- Information
- Schumann's Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul , pp. 76 - 123Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2004