Schumann's Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul.(Book Review)

Schumann's Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul. By Erika Reiman. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004. (Eastman Studies in Music.) [xiii, 229 p. ISBN 1-58046-145-X. $75.00.] Music examples, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.

Schumann's Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul is an impressive study. The first chapter is an overview of Jean Paul's aesthetic practice in his novels and as outlined in his treatise, Vorschule der Asthetik. For musicologists, this is the most revealing chapter: it describes the oeuvre of an author whose works are virtually unknown to English speakers, except perhaps to lovers and scholars of Schumann who are more likely to know about him than to have actually read any of Jean Paul's works. Robert Schumann read, reread, extolled, and recommended them. Erika Reiman gives a brief and useful overview of the life of the author (who was born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter). The greater part of the chapter she devotes to describing the various types of digressions embedded in his novels, a concept that will be central to her analyses of Schumann's piano cycles. "In Jean Paul, or in Schumann, such turning points [that is, digressions in Jean Paul, or "dramatic modulations" in Schumann] are both definitive and deconstructive--as well as surprisingly frequent" (p. 18).

Successive chapters center on Schumann's piano cycles from the 1830s: Papillons, op. 2, Intermezzi, op. 3 (chapter 2); Carnaval, op. 9 (chapter 3); David-bundlertanze, op. 6, Fantasiestucke, op. 12, Kreisleriana, op. 16, Noveletten, op. 21, Faschingsschwank aus Wien, op. 26, Kinderszenen, op. 15 (chapter 4); Arabeske, op. 18, Blumenstuck, op. 19, and Humoreske, op. 20 (chapter 5). They are long, and the reading is dense. The method in chapters 2 and 3 is to describe each opus, piece by piece, in considerable detail. Despite copious musical examples, the reader needs a score with numbered measures to follow the argument. Taken as a given is that each opus is a cohesive whole, with connections between the parts through affect (Reiman dubs each of opp. 2, 3, and 9 a waltz-series, see p. 76), themes, keys, and, in some cases, the open-endedness of one piece finding completion in the next. Within each whole Reiman finds various types of digressions comparable to digressions in Jean Paul's novels.

Chapter 4 is more selective, choosing only some pieces or numbers from each opus. Discussion centers on those Reiman sees as calling up conventions of sonata, sonata-rondo, or rondo form. Some cases in point are debatable: Reiman points to a change of key and the introduction of a new theme as "sonata signals" (p. 125) in works whose additive construction and unchanging affect overwhelmingly suggest dance types (Davidsbundlertanze, book 1, no. 3, for example). More convincing is her argument that the movements of Faschings-schwank aus Wien follow the pattern traditional in a classical sonata cycle, at once "exploring and deconstructing" that pattern (p. 151). ...