In a letter of July 1910 to Jacques Durand, Claude Debussy announced that, as an artist, he was "accustomed to living among apparitions." Exactly what form those apparitions took is anybody's guess, but some may well have appeared in the form of arabesques, and not always friendly ones at that. Despite the fact that arabesques are so innocuous ...

Clara Josephine Wieck was born two hundred years ago on September 13, 1819, in the German city of Leipzig. Her father Friedrich chose the name Clara, which meant bright, shining, or famous, and from her birth was determined to turn her into a piano virtuoso. By age eleven, she was touring Europe as a concert pianist, often playing her own compositi...

Preparation and Presentation Context: Pieces that are helpful to have experienced or played before approaching this oneBerens: Op. 70, No. 8 & No. 23Christopher Norton: Duet for One (from The Microjazz Collection 1) Czerny: Op. 777, No. 3Konrad Kuhner: School of Etudes, No. 1(right before or after) Schumann: Op. 68, No. 3 Get Ready: creative ac...

Preparation and Presentation Context: Pieces that are helpful to have experienced or played before approaching this oneBurgmüller Ballade (Magrath Level 4): Provides work on keeping sixteenth notes even in the LH (with RH eighth note chords accompanying them) and also provides work with keeping hands together when playing sixteenth notes. Simi...

Cover: Blaues Selbstportrait, 1910 by SchoenbergBreakfast was not a good idea before tackling measures seven and eight that featured sixty-fourth notes and tremolos, as well as a meter shift from 6/8 and 3/8 to 2/4, among other mind-bending directions. Is playing music meant to induce nausea? At age ten, I took one year of piano lessons. Adole...

1864 - Premiere of J. Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op. 23, for piano four-hands, in Vienna.  

Because of the textural, technical, and interpretive demands of music from the Romantic era, students usually do not encounter it until their early intermediate years. Most likely some of the first Romantic compositions a student will study will be by Robert Schumann, whose bicentennial is being celebrated this year. In this issue Sharon Stosur, El...

In 1845, Robert Schumann wrote what are undoubtedly some of the most beautiful and enduring pieces of music for the pedal piano, his Six Etudes in Canon Form, Op. 56; Four Sketches, Op. 58; and Six Fugues on the Name B-A-C-H, Op. 60 (for organ or pedal piano). Schumann was an enthusiastic student of counterpoint, and his interest in the pedal piano...

Following hard on the heels of the Mendelssohn bicentenary, 2010 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann (1810-1856), a composer who will surely garner his full share of symposia, concerts, and special events reassessing his place in the European canon. To a large extent, Schumann has fared better in music histories...

The lives of Clara and Robert Schumann make great movies.Two exist: Hollywood's "Song of Love" (1947), starring Katherine Hepburn as Clara Schumann and Paul Henreid as Robert, and the German film "Frühlingssinfonie (1983), starring Nastassja Kinski and Herbert Gronemeyer. Both films present what have become typical versions of Clara'...

from the series: ​The Other Teacher: Home Practice Elvina Pearce, EditorOver the years I have always found the "Fantasy Dance" of Schumann ("Phantasietanz," No. 5 from the Album Leaves, Op. 124) to be an excellent teaching piece for the early advanced student. Marked presto, it is brilliant, and dramatic - a wonderful "show-off" piece for...