Schumann's Portraits

Carnaval, Op. 9

Perhaps Schumann's most celebrated work, his Carnaval op. 9, appears to me as an expansion of his Papillons and earlier character pieces. Schumann takes the idea of building a short piece around a character or specific scene or mood, and applies it to real persons as well as ficticious ones.

Carnaval is much longer than Papillons, being 21 short pieces, Papillons only having 12. This time around, Schumann gives each of his pieces a title. Many of the titles are characters, some imaginary, some real, while others are kinds of dances, or some scene or setting. Once again, Schumann uses the ballroom scene in Jean Paul's Flegeljahre, however, this time is appears to be from a different perspective. Schumann no longer entirely follows the story of Walt and Vult, but each piece appears to be a different character attending the ball. Schumann uses several fictional characters, such as his famous Eusebious and Florestan, but also other made up characters such as Pierrot, the sad clown, and Arlequin, the lively jester. Schumann uses real characters as well, such as his immitations of both Chopin and Paganini. He also depicts Clara in his "Chiarina", and Ernestine von Fricken in "Estrella."

Schumann ties all of the very large work together with four notes: A-flat, E-flat, C, and B. Schumann randomly offers these notes as "Sphinxes" in one movement, but generally begins nearly all of the pieces with these four notes in different combination, even thought the pieces appear in different keys. In-fact, Schumann titles the entire work "Carnaval (Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes)" or "Small Scenes on Four Notes."

Throughout the work, Schumann does a number of notable Schumannesqe things, such as his obsurring of the beat. Schumann loved to play around with time, including several hemiloas, and melodies that lie almost entirely on upbeats and syncopations. Schumann also experimented with other rhythmic oddities, such as in Eusebius, he divides measures in 7's, half measues into 5's and 3's, while keeping the accompaniment in duple almost all the way throughout, something that hadn't been too explored yet in Romantic music, all of which was aimed at making the music sound un-measured and free.

And of course, Schumann reuses themes from Papillons in Carnaval, such as the main theme from the first piece in Papillons in "Florestan" of Carnaval. He also uses the "Grandfathers Dance" which appeared as the finale in Papillons, and uses it in "Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins," the last piece in Carnaval, as well as a number of snippets of previous pieces in Carnaval, to sum up the work and tie everything together.