Texture in Robert Schumann's first-decade piano works.
Item
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Title
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Texture in Robert Schumann's first-decade piano works.
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Identifier
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AAI9720137
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identifier
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9720137
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Creator
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Sauer, Thomas.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Carl Schachter
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Date
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1997
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music
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Abstract
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This study treats centrally an aspect of music which is normally treated peripherally in the analytic literature: texture. Under discussion are Schumann's piano works from the years 1829-1839. Broadly, the study defines texture as the sum of sounding material, and postulates that textures can be parsed into components according to the quality and function of their sounding material. The notions of textural quality and process are key to the assessment of texture throughout the study; a qualitative assessment determines the characteristics of and relationships among textural components, while the concept of textural process allows that alterations in the constitution of texture affect perceptions of musical shape.;A German-language concept, Klaviersatz, is related to that of pianistic texture. Four writers in German have addressed the features of Schumann's Klaviersatz; their ideas are summarized prior to an overview, in Chapter Two, of Schumann's first-decade piano music from the standpoint of textural quality. This overview departs from an 1835 review by Schumann in which he identifies three of the piano's particular tonal capabilities as (1) fullness of voicing, (2) use of the pedal, and (3) volubility in passage playing. Schumann's pianistic oeuvre is considered in light of these instrumental capabilities. The study finds that his textures are distinguished from those of his contemporaries above all by their abundant polyphony and by the derivation and function of their figuration.;The remaining three chapters of the study are devoted to analyses of portions of Schumann's variation sets, sonata-form movements, and character pieces, respectively. The formal constraints of each genre, and Schumann's responses to those constraints, are made apparent in discussions of textural process.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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D.M.A.
