Post by d***@aol.comPost by JohnGavinPart of the reason for Carnaval's popularity over the others is that it
works better as concert music in large halls.
If so, it has nothing to do with sound (assuming that's what you're
getting at: I don't think we disagree so much as we come at this
point from different angles). It has to do with the shape of the piece
and the degree of its complexity.
Actually, it does have something to do with the sound. Carnaval is,
from a pianist's point of view, easier to project. To a performer, it
feels as if the audience Schumann mentally envisioned for the music,
and the space it inhabited, was a different one.
Post by d***@aol.comSchumann ultimately imposes a kind of direction on Carnaval that he
withholds from -- refuses to impose on -- its closest companion, the
Davidsbündlertänze, which doesn't even end "properly" and is
followed by melancholy commentary lying outside the larger form.
(We're well on the way to Boulez's notion of form as digression and
reflection in the 3rd Sonata here.) Nevertheless, Carnaval was the
first fully realized masterpiece en route to the even more radical
achievement of the Davidsbündlertänze. Both pieces represent the
moods of the little band of David, and both are collections of short
dance fragments filled with eccentric rhythmic and contrapuntal effects
pasted together to create a larger mosaic: the result is no mere
potpourri as with the many opera overtures in which a number of tunes
from the opera are simply strung together but a radically new kind of
larger form. In the case of Carnaval, the mosaic form built up by a
cinematic shifting from one dance to another ultimately seems to
culminate in the final March.
You're saying that Schumann was anticipating Hollywood?!?!!
Post by d***@aol.comMoreover, the textures in Carnaval are
simpler than the textures in the Davidsbündlertänze: Carnaval not
only has the more conventionally "effective" larger shape, it's
easier to learn to hear. Now that Schumann's style has been thoroughly
assimilated and no longer seems shockingly bizarre and eccentric,
it's difficult to appreciate that only the Davidsbündlertänze among
pieces written according to the same principles was a more radical
achievement than Carnaval.
Beethoven's piano sonatas endured a similar process of assimilation.
For more than a century, the late sonatas were very rarely played and
virtually never on public recitals. The ubiquitous "big" pieces
were the Waldstein and the Appassionata. Carnaval became Schumann's
Waldstein or Appassionata.
Some of this may be true, but basically you are indulging once again in
your favorite conceit of "only give them enough time and the general
audience will learn to appreciate any difficult thing the artist gives
them". I don't know why you are so enamored of this idea - I mean,
really, who cares, besides yourself? It's not as if the audience has
learned to appreciate that difficult thing in its original context,
which is what would count for something. More often, the case is that
the esthetic sense of the audience has shifted/eroded enough so that
what was originally tough simply no longer matters in the same way as
it once did, which is a far cry from true appreciation, or from some
kind of linear cultural "progress".
And I suspect that if you compare the eventual appreciation of late
Beethoven with some kind of similar process with Schumann, Schumann
will come out the loser, simply because the quality of Schumann's
output generally doesn't match that of Beethoven. It's useless to even
do the comparison. But anyway, they were two very different sorts of
composer, and using their "radicalism" as a bracketing term doesn't
work very well. Just as the most obvious point - much of Schumann's
most radical writing was rather directly based on literary interests
and thinking, but Beethoven didn't seem all that interested in
employing extra-musical processes to create what he created.
Post by d***@aol.comPost by JohnGavinMy hunch is, if you
research recital programs from the 1920s to the end of the century,
Carnaval would probably appear 5 to 10 times more frequently on recital
programs than the others
Of course it would. But that doesn't explain why it "works"
better. It proves that Carnaval was easier for pianists to assimilate
than the Davidsbündlertänze.
It doesn't "prove" anything about pianists at all. It possibly could
hint at something about audiences and concert management, though.
Pianists (and their management) don't program music depending on what
they've assimilated, but on what they think will work in concert. It's
well known that many pianists have studied, played, and loved music
that they have never presented to the public. Or in some cases, have
presented only once or twice. It has absolutely nothing to do with
their assimilation of the music.
Or maybe it does. Maybe they've assimilated it well enough to know it
doesn't work very well in big public concerts.
Post by d***@aol.comAnd it proves that Carnaval, uniquely
among Schumann's forms of its type, ultimately has a more traditional
larger shape imposed on it. Schumann has proved both that he can and
that he doesn't have to impose such a larger shape: in Carnaval and
the Davidsbündlertänze respectively.
Just out of curiosity, what precisely is that "more traditional larger
shape" that Carnaval has imposed on it. Since you say it's
traditional, maybe you could offer some earlier examples of that
tradition. The only thing I can think of that remotely fits is Weber's
Invitation to the Dance, but that single piece is not enough to be a
tradition.
Post by d***@aol.comNor is the triumph of the Davidsbund in Carnaval as definitive as it
may seem. That mad march in 3 exhibits the triumphant and manic mood
of New Years' Eve revelers wearing party hats and linked in a conga
line after drinking too much champagne: an ephemeral and fleeting mood,
not a definitive triumph. There's a desperate insistence on
triumphant gaiety as the march unfolds that betrays an underlying
anxiety. As the tempo of the march increases toward the end, the
character of the march switches from phrase to phrase, switching
between a forced and manic glee and snatches of genuine if momentary
happiness. The Davidsbündlertänze may not depict the morning after
when everybody is hung over. But it's another more sober occasion
when there's no champagne to wash away the melancholy and hard
truths.
It's wonderful that you're on a Schumann jag - he's quite worth going
on a jag about.
wr