During this period, I am analyzing some pieces by Robert Schumann, partly the second Novelletten and some pieces from Album for the Young. I already have some experience with analysis from previous exams; I am referring to sonatinas by Muzio Clementi, Haydn's Sonatas, and Vivaldi's Concerti Grossi. In all these works, I found techniques for developing initial material, procedures to start from "little" and arrive at "much" in motivic terms. In classical pieces, I found the sonata form, always different with each author but always related to the "scheme" that we all know.
In Schumann, everything changes!! Phrases repeated exactly as they are in different ways (first in major, then in minor), continuous modulations where the harmonic strategy is unclear, and above all, the form!! It is not a coherent development but a delirious (though brilliant) copy-paste of sections; it almost feels like looking at a well-assembled puzzle. This is not a criticism but certainly a concern, given that I have never encountered so many oddities in a single composer. I searched and researched in Schoenberg, in the book Bass on Form, but I found nothing that reflected such a strange, twisted, complex, yet simultaneously fluid and well-organized form.
I tried to talk about it with my Counterpoint and Fugue teacher, but he told me that he does not deal with these things and that his task is only to teach harmony and counterpoint from the manuals I currently use, by De Ninno. He also advised me not to look at composers' scores because, during exams, they might penalize me since everything I study in class is taken from scholastic treatises; but I am curious and want to understand how these illustrious "colleagues" and Masters wrote in the past, also because the Conservatory's working method seems useful to me but at the same time a bit boring—in 2 years I have never seen an author's score except now that I am venting!
Can you give me clarifications, advice, or tips on how to analyze, but above all, how to understand how Robert Schumann thought when he was writing music?
Waiting for the others, I doubt that one can know how Schumann reasoned anyway. He suffered immensely psychologically and this cannot have failed to have had a decisive impact on his approach to composition.
Anyway, if I were a composition teacher, I would have preferred to provide answers and give inspiration, contrary to what your teacher does not intend to give you; it's absurd.
Evidently Wagner, you have had the misfortune of encountering one of many little masters. Repertoire is the only thing that should be looked at. If I am not mistaken, a bit further down there is an analysis of a short piece by s. ;What would be his oddities compared to the works of his contemporaries, in your opinion? 'No predecessors' is misleading.
W
wagner
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Reply 5 by wagner
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Look guys, I did my first year of Counterpoint and Fugue with a Maestro who guided me towards contemporary music, and with him I created some "Donatoni-style models"; it involved filling formal panels with Donatonian figures and tracing his pieces to obtain something similar... thanks to this, I understood that in music everything starts from a minimum number of notes that is developed and grown. From the following year, I had a new Maestro; his first words were "We will take a complete path, from yesterday to today... from the counterpoint of De Ninno (an author he loves madly) to the dodecaphony of Schoenberg, but for that we will use Jachino's book (which I bought uselessly) and I forbid you from looking at the scores". But my first teacher put scores first, the music of composers, whereas De Ninno's examples are terribly boring and academic... it is also contrary to Schoenberg's didactic texts; I have two of them and am trying to study them on my own, but he says they are "misleading and not in line with the program of '38".
Parenthesis closed, I compare him with composers like Schubert, Mendelssohn, and even Brahms although he comes later... these three developed like Bach and Beethoven, starting from a minimum and generating form and content from that, whereas Schumann no, he seems like someone who throws things together instinctively and above all, instead of conceiving a gradual development, creates a puzzle of formal sections.
I looked over the piece I was telling you about again. From a formal and harmonic point of view... nothing in particular. Do you have examples to propose? So I can take a look.....
I struggle to respond, the discussion is too general. Propose a piece that you find atypical and let's make some objective considerations starting from the score. Every composer has their own peculiarities.. .. what did you analyze regarding Grieg, for example? If the discussion is then about Schumann in relation to German music... it can be seen, but let's look at these examples. I too remember Ettore in memoriam. Classic song form with great tonicizations and a couple of harmonic flourishes.
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wagner
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Reply 8 by wagner
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12
Ettore wrote:
I looked over the piece I was telling you about again. From a formal and harmonic point of view... nothing in particular. Do you have examples to propose? So I can take a look.....
Sheherazade from the youth album.... or the Novelletten....
I tried to talk to my Counterpoint and Fugue teacher about it, but he told me that he doesn't deal with these things and that his job is only to teach harmony and counterpoint from the manuals I currently use, by De Ninno. He also advised me not to look at composers' scores because during the exam they might penalize me since everything I study in class is taken from scholastic treatises,
I must say that reading these sentences makes me feel bad... very bad...
I don't understand... it's as if a piano teacher made you study only Hanon while advising you against playing Beethoven and Chopin. I mean, exercises are good, obviously... but this seems truly disconnected from the reality of music to me.
During this period, I am analyzing some pieces by Robert Schumann, partly the second Novellette and some pieces from the Album for the Young. I already have some analysis experience from previous exams; I am referring to sonatinas by Muzio Clementi, Haydn's Sonatas, and Vivaldi's Concerti Grossi. In all these works, I found techniques for developing initial material, procedures to start from "little" and arrive at "much" in motivic terms. In classical pieces, I found the sonata form, always different with each author but always pertaining to the "scheme" that we all know.
In Schumann, everything changes!! Phrases repeated exactly as they are in different ways (first in major, then in minor), continuous modulations where the harmonic strategy is unclear, and above all, the form!! It is not a coherent development but a delirious (though brilliant) copy-paste of sections; it almost feels like looking at a well-assembled puzzle. This is not a criticism but certainly a concern, given that I have never encountered so many oddities in a single composer. I have searched and researched in Schoenberg, in the book "Fundamentals of Musical Composition" [Bass sulla forma], but I found nothing that reflected such a strange, twisted, complex, and at the same time flowing and well-organized form.
I tried to talk about it with my Counterpoint and Fugue Master, but he told me that he does not deal with these things and that his task is only to teach harmony and counterpoint from the manuals I still use, by De Ninno. He also advised me not to look at composers' scores because in an exam setting they might penalize me, since everything I study in class is taken from scholastic treatises; but I am curious and want to understand how these illustrious "colleagues" and Masters wrote in the past, also because the Conservatory's working method seems useful to me but at the same time a bit boring—in 2 years I have never seen an author's score except now that I am venting!
Can you give me clarifications, advice, or tips on how to analyze, but above all, how to understand how Robert Schumann reasoned when he wrote music?
It happens to many people to have to "clash" with the method of their own teachers... for subjects like musical analysis or harmony, the possibility to do something on your own exists, and it is called the conservatory library :-) take a musical analysis manual and start reading scores, playing them, and drawing inspiration from them.
For my part, I can recommend the usual classic heavy books, which however are always an entry point, not "the" conclusion: De La Motte's Manual of Harmony, which is NOT a harmony manual but a kind of introduction to historical harmony (and speaks quite a bit about Schumann, the defunctionalization of sevenths, third relations, etc...); Rosen's "The Romantic Generation" is an interesting tome that, with a few tricks, can even be found as a .pdf online (I JUST downloaded it and JUST started reading). The beauty of Rosen is that he has not the slightest fear of getting his hands dirty with musical analysis, but manages to go beyond, to pull the threads of an overall discourse, which one may or may not agree with, but provides the means to learn how to connect music to history and aesthetics.
We have all had bad teachers, at different times and in different situations. The beauty of a forum like this is that it tries to give you some weapons to defend yourself even from them...
I have photocopies of this article with me; I printed them a few years ago. Schumann, precisely because of the problems he had, feels particularly "close" to me, and when I listen to one of his works, I cannot help but imagine him in his suffering.
