Child scenes

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Title page of the first edition

Children's scenes , op. 15, is a cycle of thirteen short piano pieces by Robert Schumann from 1838. In contrast to the Album for the Young , op. 68, these are pieces that are not for children, but according to Schumann's own words were composed as "mirroring an elderly for elderly". The most famous piece of this cycle is the "Träumerei". The children's scenes influenced the romantic program miniature for piano like no other cycle previously written.

construction

title key metronome Sound recording
1. From foreign countries and people G major Quarter note = 108/84/80
2. Curious story D major Quarter note = 112/132/112
3. Hash man B minor Quarter note = 138/108/184
4. Pleading child D major Eighth note = 138/124/112
5. Lucky enough D major Eighth note = 132/152 /
6. Important incident A major Quarter note = 138/126/126
7. Daydream F major Quarter note = 100/84/72
8. At the fireplace F major Quarter note = 138/104/132
9. Knight of the Hobby Horse C major Half note. = 80/66/69
10. Almost too serious G sharp minor Quarter note = 69/54/54
11. Fear G major Quarter note = 96/80/84
12. Child falling asleep E minor Eighth note = 92/88/72
13. The poet speaks G major Quarter note = 112/112/112
  1. ↑ The metronome numbers come from the first edition (approx. 1839), the edition by Conrad Kühner (approx. 1880) and the edition by Emil von Sauer (1922) in the order given.
  2. ↑ In Sauer's edition, the original Schumann's metronome numbers have been added by the editor's suggestions in brackets. In the piece of luck enough , however, an error seems to have been made, since (instead of Eighth note= ...) Quarter note= 132 (96) is given. As a result, Sauer's proposal, although it looks like a slowdown from the original tempo, is in truth an acceleration of the tempo.

Background and interpretation

Far from the dominant virtuosity of the 19th century, the appearance of which he rejected, Schumann also composed small character pieces . On March 19, 1838 he wrote to Clara Wieck : “And that I will not forget what I have composed. Was it like an echo of your words once when you wrote to me that I sometimes seemed like a child to you - in short, it was neat to me, like in a grand piano dress, and I wrote about 30 cute little things that I wrote about I read out about twelve and called them children's scenes . "

Relationship to program music

Whether and to what extent the children's scenes are to be regarded as program music is a. from Schumann's reaction to a derogatory criticism by Ludwig Rellstab : “But more awkward and narrow-minded things didn't seem easy to me than Rellstab wrote about my children's scenes. He probably thinks I'll stand a screaming child and look for the notes. It is the other way around -: the headings were of course created later and are actually nothing more than fine pointers for presentation and understanding. "

How Schumann thought in general about the role of extra-musical influences on music is shown e.g. For example, in his remarks on the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz : “When it comes to the difficult question of how far instrumental music should go in the representation of thoughts and events, many are too anxious here. One is certainly mistaken if one believes; the composers laid pen and paper with the miserable intention of expressing, depicting, and painting this or that. But do not underestimate random influences and external impressions. Unconsciously alongside the musical fantasy an idea often continues to work, next to the ear the eye, and this, the always active organ, then holds certain outlines in the midst of the sounds and tones, which can condense and develop into clear shapes with the advancing music ... "

Philipp Otto Runge : "The Hülsenbeck Children"

Idealization of childhood

In romanticism , childhood was regarded as a glorifying antithesis to the distress of everyday life and the adult world. Holderlin writes: “Since I was still a quiet child and knew nothing about everything that surrounds us, I was no longer there than now, after all the efforts of the heart and all the wrestling! Yes! the child is a divine being as long as it is not dipped in the chameleon color of man. It is entirely what it is, and that is why it is so beautiful. ”Schumann also speaks of childhood in an idealizing way:“ There is a wonderful depth in every child. ”The unspoiled naturalness of the child's world puts it in close proximity to nature, in which sees romance as a main source of poetry. Naturalness and childhood are ideal states that the normal adult has lost and that need to be found again. Philipp Otto Runge : "We have to become children if we want to achieve the best."

Poetic content

In line with the specifically romantic conception of music, Schumann regards music as a kind of higher language that makes it possible to convey poetic content that cannot be expressed in words.

Typical elements of romantic poetry are addressed in the children's scenes , such as: B.

  • Longing for unknown, distant worlds, thirst for adventure ( from foreign countries and people )
  • Interest in the unusual, individual, bizarre or humorous ( curious story )
  • Turning away from the everyday outside world, retreating into inwardness ( reverie )
  • Immerse yourself in fantasy worlds ( Knight of the Hobby Horse )
  • Melancholy, Weltschmerz ( almost too serious )
  • Interest in the uncanny, the creepy ( scaring people )
The poet speaks , Cadence
Aufschwung , from Fantasiestücke op.12

The poetic aspect becomes particularly clear in the two final pieces Kind im Einschlillen and The Poet speaks . The first piece ends with an open ending on the subdominant of E minor ; the beginning of the second piece sets the cadence course by G major continued modulating, so that both pieces have a direct connection to the musical form. Diving into the nightly dream world of the slumbering child opens the gate for the poetic communication of the last piece. This begins with a four-part chorale that refers to the quasi-religious character of the message: musical poetry as divine inspiration and proclamation. In the center of the piece appears a quiet cadenza-like passage, the melody of which is strongly reminiscent of the beginning of the second of the Fantasiestücke op.12 ( Aufschwung ). Here, of course, it is not a passionate, stormy "upswing", as it is there, but a delicate, almost mystical upswing of the soul into higher spheres, for example in the sense of a formulation by 17-year-old Schumann: “Nature approaches on the flower ladder The poet's soul becomes quieter and quieter in the image of the deity ”. "Always quieter and quieter" the piece ends in complete calm.

Metronome marks

The first edition of the children's scenes does not contain any verbal tempo indications, only metronome numbers. These are probably not from Schumann himself, but he knew them and thus authorized them not to correct them in later editions. However, these metronome numbers have been ignored many times, e.g. B. from the table above. There, in addition to the original information from the first edition, those from the edition by Conrad Kühner (approx. 1880) and the metronome numbers proposed by Emil von Sauer in his edition from 1922 are given. The editors deviate from the original information in various ways, mostly in the sense of slowing down, but sometimes accelerating. The difference is particularly striking with the piece Hasche-Mann . While Kühner reduces the already fast original tempo Quarter note= 138 to Quarter note= 108, Sauer exaggerates it to an almost utopian Quarter note= 184. The only piece that shows the same metronome in all three editions is Der Poet speaks. In the work edition by Clara Schumann , the metronome numbers are completely omitted, so that the player is given a completely free hand because of the lack of verbal tempo markings.

In almost all recordings of the children's scenes , most of the tempos deviate from the original metronome markings in some blatant ways, mainly in the sense of a clear slowdown. For example, the pieces From foreign countries and people and Träumerei are usually played much more slowly than the respective metronome number corresponds to. The rumor (now recognized as wrong) seems to have prevailed that something was wrong with Schumann's metronome and that his rules are therefore not binding. In strange contrast to this view is the fact that most of the interpreters follow Schumann's metronome indications for the forest scenes largely exactly or at least approximately. The Schumann Prize winner Michael Struck advocates taking the metronome numbers in children's scenes more seriously.

Reviews

  • Franz Liszt : “In the children's scenes [...] that grace is revealed, that naivety that always hits the right spot, that mental trait that often touches us so peculiarly in children and, while their gullibility elicits a smile from us, at the same time through them The astuteness of their questions embarrasses them - a trait that can also be found in the early civilizations of peoples and forms that tone of imaginative simplicity that awakens the desire for the wonderful. "
  • Ernst Bücken : “Strangely enough, these simple compositions, which were inspired by the Munich universalist Count Pocci with his songs and piano pieces for boys and girls , are already from contemporary ( Rellstab ) and later criticisms, which they mostly relate to Ludwig Richter put into it, misunderstood. The children's scenes […] are created by a fantasy that here evidently only moved and dreamed into the children's paradise for a few beautiful moments. But the creator of the children's scenes, in contrast to Ludwig Richter, whose imagination is at home in this Biedermeier circle, is not familiar with Biedermeier narrowness and restriction, and so much so that it never leaves this "house" at all. Schumann does the opposite. In the cadenza of the last piece of clay, The Poet Speaks, his imagination prepares itself for a flight back into the realm of great clay creations in a quotation from the pieces of fantasy . "
  • Hans Pfitzner : “We open: Children's scenes by Schumann, No. 7, Träumerei . Each of the small pieces in this opus is a musical structure of fine charm, poetry, musicality and, above all, the most personal character; but whoever understands the cause of the music did not recognize that this dreaming stands out solely through the quality of the melody. For those who don't understand it, it's a bit in song form with tonic, dominant, subdominant and the closest keys - without any deviation from the usual [...]. But for us who know, what a miracle of inspiration! What can be said about it that could open up understanding to those to whom this melody [...] does not go 'through and through'? - Nothing. I can speak of the nobility of tonal language, of the absolutely unprecedented, deeply personal, primordial peculiarity of the melody, the German, delicate, intimate of the melody - it is as if the words fled from the tones in a circle, they can all add up not remotely saying what the melody itself utters. The title is a faint indication of the mood, she will be better understood if one imagines that it is not the reverie of a child (not actually in the Kinderszenen properly) and secondly a reverie , not a reverie is - a sensual, serious, deeply lost, subtle and yet powerful feeling, as the well-known Schumannkopf, leaning on the hand, suggests. In this way one could go on indefinitely - without conjuring up the magic of this music with words; it is a drop of music from the deepest source; we are also musically depraved and lost if we wean ourselves from this beauty. "

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eva Weissweiler (eds.): Clara and Robert Schumann, correspondence . Critical Complete Edition Vol. I, Basel / Frankfurt am Main 1984, p. 121.
  2. ↑ quoted from: Otto von Irmer: Foreword to the edition in Henle-Verlag, Munich / Duisburg 1953, p. 4
  3. ^ Robert Schumann: in Zeitschrift für Musik from August 14, 1835
  4. ^ Friedrich Hölderlin: Hyperion , Neudruck (Ed. G. Mieth), Herrsching o. J., p. 118
  5. ↑ Robert Schumann: Critical Letters of the Davidsbündler (1834), in: Collected writings on music and musicians (Ed. H. Schulze), Wiesbaden undated, p. 20
  6. ^ PO Runge: Hinterlassene Schriften, reprint, Göttingen 1965, Volume I, page 7
  7. ^ Robert Schumann: Das Leben des Dichters (speech, given on September 12, 1827), quoted from Ernst Bücken: Robert Schumann , Cologne 1941, p. 133
  8. ↑ a b c Telephone interview with Dr. Michael Struck on Schumann's metronome (PDF; 510 kB)
  9. ^ Franz Liszt: Robert Schumann (1855), in: Schriften zur Tonkunst (Ed. W. Marggraf), Leipzig 1981, pp. 246f.
  10. ^ Ernst Bücken: Robert Schumann , Cologne 1941, page 47
  11. ↑ Hans Pfitzner: The new aesthetics of musical impotence , in: Collected writings , Volume II, page 189 f

Web links

Commons : Children's scenes  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files