Haven't I Heard That Before? Preview | Schumann's Kinderszenen
- Leah Froyd
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Hello and welcome to the first preview of our upcoming concert, Haven't I Heard That Before with Daniel Anastasio! To introduce you to Daniel and his work, we will spotlight his videos and respond to them below! Follow along for some fun insights from Daniel and our team and join us June 6th and 7th to hear his performance live at the Clocktower Salon.
Kinderszenen | Scenes from Childhood by Robert Schumann
"Kinderszenen is fascinating from a piano pedagogy standpoint and often plays an interesting role in a student pianist’s life because Träumerei is a very popular piece for introducing intermediate students to “real rep” — but the pieces aren’t meant for children at all, rather that they are childhood portrayals from a mature standpoint."
-- Yunyi Ji, Parallax Concerts
This first scene, titled "Of Foreign Lands and Peoples" is a wonderful introduction to the rest of the work. Like Daniel mentions, it's a simple 2 measure figure in the right hand and gentle triplets in the left guiding it forward. Yet as Yunyi stated above, because it is composed from a reflective stand point, Schumann was able to add many musical details to make the deceptively simple music more rich and complex in its composition.
I would also like to point out that the uneven dotted rhythm in the second half of the motif juxtaposed with the triplet in the left hand illustrates a "skipping" gesture, evoking the character of the child:
In the next section the harmonic sequence introduces complexity of the outside world, but the motif is preserved in the left hand. This time, the first two intervals are descending This small detail ties together the new section (discovery) with the original skipping theme.
However, this adventure doesn't last long and we are returned to the comfort of the first theme in a matter of 6 measures!
Listen to the whole movement below and follow the skipping motif all the way through:
Träumerei | Dreaming
"I got into Träumerei because I was rereading a book on composition that was really important to me in high school...as an adult beginner at the piano the piece looks so unassuming on the page, but you really are playing an orchestral piece all by yourself. Each note is part of its own supporting melodic line. This piece is the most beautiful coordination exercises of all time."
-- José Daniel Vargas
Compared to the first movement, Träumerei is much more still. There is no motoric device (like constant triplets) to push the melody forward. Instead, the movement comes from the melody which makes it much more free and spans a much wider intervalic range. The motif is also almost twice as long which also contributes to creating a sense of wandering.
"Composers will often hold on to a note from one chord and resolve after the arrival of the new chord, a device called a suspension. In this piece, Schumann seems to suspend entire chords which hides where the down beat (beat 1) of every measure. This creates a stretching and squishing effect that adds to the dreamy quality of the music."
--José Daniel Vargas
When listening to Träumerei, notice the free moving melody and the way the performer is able to use the three eighth note pickups to send the listener into the dream.
Der Dichter spricht | The Poet Speaks
"The last movement, “The Poet Speaks” is a profound reminder of the mature narrator, similarly to Debussy’s preludes, where the name and nature of the piece is revealed at the end."
-- Yunyi Ji, Parallax Concerts
We'll leave you with the final movement,the Poet Speaks. The opening is a calm hymn with all voices in the same rhythm. The introduction eventually makes way for a cadenza (freely played). The whole movement starts and stops quite frequently, illustrative of a speaker reciting lines of poetry.
"The cadenza passage ends on an unresolved diminished arpeggio.I always thought that Schumann is inviting you to contemplate the music in that moment."
-- Geoffrey Lee, SF Ballet
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