Novellettes (Schumann)

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The eight novellettes, op.21 , a collection of character pieces for piano divided into four volumes and dedicated to the pianist Adolph Henselt , were composed by Robert Schumann in close connection with the Scenes from Children , op.15, and the Kreisleriana , op.16, in 1838 in Leipzig. With the designation " Novelletten ", which was later used by, among others, Niels Wilhelm Gade , Mili Alexejewitsch Balakirew , Alexander Konstantinowitsch Glasunow and Francis Poulenc , Schumann referred to the literary genre of the novella ( ital. Novelletta "small story"). As Schumann explained in letters, the pieces should tell “larger, coherent adventurous stories”: “Fun stories, Egmont stories, family scenes with fathers, a wedding, in short, extremely amiable things - and all of these are called novellettes.” Schumann also went through some of the contents of these stories on various occasions The preceding motto is specified: The intermezzo of Novellette No. 3, for example, was provided with a quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth for a preprint in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik . On another occasion Schumann combined the Novellette No. 2 with verses from Goethe's West-Eastern Divan .

Schumann's encounter with the English singer Clara Novello , who made a guest appearance in Leipzig in the winter of 1837/38 and attracted the composer's attention with her impressive concert performances as well as her name affinity with Clara Wieck, is the immediate reason for the naming . Schumann told his fiancé that the pieces were given the name Novelletten "because your name is Clara and Wiecketten doesn't sound good".

In terms of composition, Schumann's novellettes - like the Kreisleriana , which was created at the same time - are characterized by a freedom in dealing with traditional forms that was new for the time. The three-part ABA form (with a contrasting middle section) continues to form the basis (very clearly, for example, in Novellettes No. 1 and 2), but is increasingly expanded, modified and sometimes even completely broken up by a “narrative” impetus (as in the final part of Novellette No. 8).

literature

  • Arnfried Edler: Robert Schumann and his time. 2nd edition, Laaber Verlag, Laaber 2002, ISBN 978-3-89007-653-9

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from Arnfried Edler: Robert Schumann and his time. 2nd edition, Laaber 2002, p. 132.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Arnfried Edler: Robert Schumann and his time. 2nd edition, Laaber 2002, p. 133.

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