The young Schumann deliberated for some time as to which profession he should choose, and he was leaning towards literature. One of his ideas was the poetic cycle Die Schmetterlinge; this failed to come to fruition. In the summer of 1831, however, Schumann completed and in November the same year published as his second opus an eponymous series of twelve pieces for piano.
Papillons emerged somewhat unexpectedly from three waltzes composed in 1829 in Heidelberg (where Schumann was attempting a career in law), two polonaises written earlier still – in 1928 – and several other pieces connected by the programme concept.
In his letters, Schumann indicated that Papillons was linked with the scene at the masked ball from Flegeljahre by the Romantic writer Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, who preferred the lighter-sounding French pseudonym of Jean Paul to his ponderous German name. Jean Paul wrote fragmentary and disconnected prose in which the poet’s dreams take on the status of the only reality worthy of depiction. Schumann created something similar to this in his music. Papillons opens with a brief introduction and a soaring waltz. Contemporaries expected this to be followed by a series of similar waltzes... But no, the third piece is a quadrille, and this is followed, as if viewing through a kaleidoscope, by the most diverse dances possible – a highly colourful, witty and fantastical mixture.
The brief Papillons formed, in miniature, the prototype for many of Schumann’s then as yet unwritten works: the concise outline was subsequently to take on flesh. He recalled them often. The ninth piece in the series Le Carnaval is called Papillons, while the German Groÿvater Tanz that can be heard in the cycle’s finale was later to return in Faschingsschwank aus Wien.
Schumann wrote his Symphonic Études in 1835 and they were published in Vienna in 1837. They were subsequently published in Leipzig under the title Études in the Form of Variations. The theme of the variations belongs to a certain dilettante: in all probability it was created by the amateur flautist, the father of Ernestine von Fricken who inspired Carnaval. And soon the Études were being performed by Clara Wieck – later to be Clara Schumann...
The theme is an exceptionally fine one, and the section with which it begins can be easily recognised in any of the variations. According to the “dictionary of intonation” of the time, this is a typical theme of Fate, though its fatalistic character is overcome as it develops – the Symphonic Études are in now way pessimistic!
In the 1830s, variations were normally either drawing-room pieces or dazzling concert works in which travelling virtuoso musicians would demonstrate their stunning technique. At the time, Schumann was literally possessed by the idea of piano technique and he wrote another whole series of études and a Toccata, though he did forever abandon the “dazzling style” of the age. As he did drawing-room music. His Symphonic Études are demonstratively serious and make reference to Beethoven and Bach: the scale of the whole work and the originality of each individual piece brings to mind Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, while the polyphonic technique goes back to the Baroque age.
Anna Bulycheva
