Schumann - Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) was a paradox of a composer. In his life and art, he seemed to balance on a thread between contradictions. He was a great supporter of the community of composers around him, of young talent and of those who supported his fiercely defended critical ideals, yet he was in life mostly a loner who invented an imaginary society of composers in lieu of any real group of friends. He had major mood swings, perhaps from what we would call bipolar disorder today, and oscillated between periods of fanatic productivity and melancholic introspection. He was also a defender of classical ideals and forms whose music seemed more interested in exploring the very modern precept that content dictates form. It would be easy to choose just one of these perspectives to analyze Schumann from, but this would be an incomplete portrait. He was all these things, a fully fleshed, deeply complex person who tried to lead the life of a quintessential Romantic, passionate and obsessively art-forward.

Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 is as enigmatic as the composer himself. Notoriously difficult to perform, the composition has a history of alterations and additions that makes it just as difficult to pin down conceptually. The piece began as a challenge to write variations on a theme by Baron von Fricken, an “amateur”, as Schumann referred to him in the first title of the work, though additional movements from later publications do not follow the form of variation. The titling of the work as well was relatively chaotic, having changed many times over the course of its composition and publication. At one time, it directly referenced Schumann’s imagined dueling creative forces, the outgoing Florestan and the introspective Eusebius, who provided a frame and creative outlet for the composer’s mood swings. The two were eminent members of Schumann’s imagined society, the Davidsbund, and, with their sophisticated compositions, heroically triumphed over the ignorant pop culture Philistines. The imaginary creators’ imprint can still be heard throughout the Etudes.

The changing nature of the piece has meant that the order of the variations is dictated by the performer, making it difficult to summarize as a large-scale piece. What remains consistent in every performance is Schumann’s characteristic sound world, his aesthetic that unifies formal competence, virtuosity, and pure emotion. Most movements do vary the original theme, but this is merely a jumping off point. While other pieces in theme and variation form from this era can feel more like formal explorations than pianistic ones, the Symphonic Etudes are fundamentally about the idiosyncrasies of the piano. The movements are highly structured, but the scaffolding feels like it buckles under the weight of texture and color. Sublime is the correct descriptor here - though the piece is demanding to both performer and listener, all anyone can do is be in awe of Schumann’s music.