19th Century Phantasiestücke, for Clarinet and Piano

Description

According to E. T. A. Hoffmann, fantasy (Phantasie, also translated as imagination in English) is an “unfamiliar region”, “enclosed within the realm which, in true life and being, the human spirit governs according to his own pleasure”. These lines are excerpted from a novella curiously called Princess Brambilla, published, with other stories, in a four-volume collection issued between 1814 and 1815. This collection is called Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier, “Fantasy pieces in the manner of Callot” (Callot was the author of bizarre engravings depicting the follies of the Roman Carnival). Similar to Jean Paul Richter’s Flegeljahre, Princess Brambilla takes place during carnival; carnival is the context where people are masked and appear as fantastic creatures. Masks, therefore, hide as much as they reveal, and vice-versa; when wearing a mask, people are free to imagine themselves as somebody or something other, and to act correspondingly. Masks, following the three meanings of the word Larve in German, are also chrysalises and ghosts: our inner butterfly sleeps within the outward appearance of our Larve, and what seems real is actually ghostly, an illusion.
Robert Schumann was particularly fascinated by what the carnival stood for, and, certainly, this fascination owed much to both Hoffmann and Jean Paul. In Jean Paul’s Flegeljahre appear the twin brothers Walt (dreamy and introverted) and Vult (rough and frank), upon whose models Schumann would shape his own alter-egos, “Eusebius” and “Florestan”. Schumann himself would describe these two characters and the League of the Companions of David to which they belonged (“Davidsbündler”) as a red thread found throughout his writings (and his music). In his own words, it “bound ‘Truth and Poetry’ in a humorous fashion”.
Truth (the brusque Florestan) and Poetry (the enchanted Eusebius) can be put in parallel with another couple of terms: humour and fantasy. In the same novella, Hoffmann wrote about the female protagonist, Giacinta: “I could say that you are Fantasy, whose wings need humour if they are to soar aloft, but without the body of humour you would be nothing but a pair of wings, and would drift away through the air, a plaything of the winds”.
Robert Schumann evidently took inspiration from Hoffmann’s Fantasiestücke for the composition of several cycles of pieces, just as he had been inspired by Jean Paul for Papillons and Carnaval. Doubtlessly, humour and fantasy were two crucial components of both his literary output and of his musical oeuvre. Interestingly, there are no less than six opus numbers in his catalogue in which the term “Fantasy” recurs: the Fantasiestücke op. 12 and op. 111 for piano, those op. 73 for clarinet and piano, those op. 88 for piano trio, as well as two Fantasies, the magnificent op. 17 for solo piano and the lesser-known op. 131 for violin and orchestra.
Of these, two cycles are recorded in this Da Vinci Classics album, one in its original version and the other in a transcription realized by the performing artists. Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestücke op. 73 are among his best-known works of chamber music, and deservedly so. They were written in February 1849 in Dresden. At first, their composer thought of calling them Soireestücke (Pieces for a soirée), and this title would have been very apt in turn. They had been conceived for performance at the soirées given by the Schumanns in their home, where countless artists, musicians, thinkers and philosophers met. If Hausmusizieren (the practice of making music together at home) was and still is a beloved pastime of many German households, this was doubly true for a family of musicians such as Schumann’s.
These three pieces constitute a miniature suite of their own, thanks to the net of cross-references as concerns motivic construction and formal shape, as well as – obviously – key and mode. They also build up a climax of pathos and frenzy; one might say that they begin “Eusebius” and finish “Florestan”. They also possess an undeniably narrative component. This is not meant to say that they parallel any given literary narration, but rather that their style and tone are evocative of the medieval “ballads” which enthralled the Romantics.
This set was originally conceived for clarinet and piano, and therefore inserts itself within the German tradition of clarinet music (in the vein of Weber). However, given their destination for home music-making, they were also offered for performance with violin or cello, and indeed they are very frequently heard in the latter version.
In that same 1849, Schumann was appointed Chapel Master at the Musikverein of Düsseldorf. At first, the position appealed him very much, as it granted him and his numerous family some financial stability, as well as the possibility of enacting his artistic views. Rather soon, however, things took a different turn; his directorship and conducting were criticized, and the ensuing bitterness probably contributed to undermine the composer’s psychological health. A parenthesis of joy and relax came in the summer of 1851, when Robert and Clara undertook a long river cruise from Bonn to Basel. It was for them as a new honeymoon, and they thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Back home, Schumann wrote the three Fantasiestücke op. 111 for the piano, finishing them in a matter of a week. A month later, Clara would write down on her diary: “R. has composed three piano pieces of a very earnest, passionate character which I find exceptionally delightful”. Also in the case of these pieces, their intended title was not Fantasiestücke from the outset. The composer had initially thought of calling them Romanzen, although the possibility of naming them “fantasy pieces” had also come to his mind. He hesitated further, pondering the simple title “Piano pieces”, but eventually decided for the definitive version. The alternative title Romanzen may have been suggested to the composer by the dedicatee of the work, Princess Reuß-Köstritz, to whom he had already dedicated his Drei Romanzen op. 28 about ten years earlier. The two cycles also share a similar compositional concept in their alternation of quick and slow movements with different characterizations. Pianistically, they are less challenging than many other of his earlier works, and their “fantastic” style is less pronounced than that of the other cycles by the same name. However, by so labelling them, Schumann was also broadening the concept of “Fantasy piece”, and therefore paving the way for his followers.
Among them was Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817-1890), one of Schumann’s close friends. Born in Copenhagen, Gade received his first musical training as a violinist and enjoyed the support of Felix Mendelssohn, who premiered his first Symphony at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. So enthused was Mendelssohn with Gade’s works that he offered him the position of professor at the Conservatory of Leipzig, which he directed. In the city, Gade was a habitual visitor at the Schumanns’, and Robert keenly “enrolled” him among the Davidsbündler, the “companions of David” – in the fictional company of Florestan and Eusebius. Gade would spend his last years in his homeland, Denmark, where he directed the newly founded Royal Danish Academy of Music.
His Fantasiestücke op. 43 were written in 1864 and published the following year in Leipzig. The composer had already completed a cycle of “Fantasy pieces” for solo piano (op. 41, in 1861), and both works are clearly indebted to Schumann not only for their title but also for their style and concept. However, in comparison with Schumann’s op. 73, Gade did not employ thematic connections among the pieces. The “fantastic” aspect is particularly evident in nos. 1, 2 and 4, whilst the third could be described as “fantasy”: by the title of Ballad, it alludes to the northern Sagas of the Scandinavian tradition. Musically, Gade would deeply influence and contribute to bring to life a genuinely Scandinavian school.
This happened also thanks to his extensive activity: among his students were Carl Nielsen (who would write a Fantasiestück in turn), and the other two protagonists of this album, Carl Reinecke and August Winding.
Reinecke had also been a friend and admirer of Robert Schumann; indeed, a 1907 recording of one of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke op. 12 played by Reinecke has survived, and provides us with an invaluable testimony about performing practices of Schumann’s time. Reinecke was particularly close to the Schumanns and to Mendelssohn between 1843 and 1846, when he lived in Leipzig; in the following years, he would play in a four-hand piano duet with Clara, and be conducted by Robert in a performance of the Second Piano Concerto by Mendelssohn. His Fantasiestücke op. 22 date from his youthful years, and are particularly noteworthy for their Lied-like style of simple, expressive cantabile. They form a charming contrast, as the first piece is quiet and dreamy, whilst the second has a Mendelssohnian quality in its fairy-tale, enchanted style.
August Winding would succeed his former teacher (and brother-in-law) Gade as the director of the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1891; his works were praised by many of the leading figures of the era, including Hans von Bülow who explicitly cited his Drei Phantasiestücke among the composer’s major works. They were written about 1871 and published the following year. Their later date with respect to the other works accounts for their more modern style, which is however clearly influenced by that of his predecessors. In the piano part, they reveal in a particularly evident fashion the mark of Reinecke’s teaching, since Winding had been his piano student until 1848.
Together, these collections of Fantasiestücke bring to life the words of another quote from Princess Brambilla: “For only now did the mystery of music awaken, uttering the supreme truth in heavenly tones”.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2021