Schumann Piano Trio op. 63
It has often been asserted that Schumann’s music in general (and
chamber music in particular) is an extension of his piano music and certainly,
the first piano trio op. 63, composed in 1847 and published the following year,
is very much dominated by a complex and important piano part of some
considerable virtuosity, the scherzo in particular being challenging for its
rapid repeat of notes (in which Schumann can be seen to be writing very much
for the newly invented double escapement action which made rapid
reiteration of notes possible). Nonetheless this famous and in many respects
heroic work is skilfully and effectively written for the string parts also which,
whilst they are called upon to provide quite a lot of accompanying material for
the piano, are also required to play lyrically in long legato phrases of melody.
Arguably, this suggests that Schumann’s allegedly unschooled approach to the
problem of string writing is manifest in a rather stereotypical use of the
instruments, although of course all writers of the time, including many string
players themselves, considered the singing melodic line to be the instruments’
pre-eminent area of competence (in which, through artful use of phrasing,
portamenti and vibrati etc the insruments could emulate the characteristics of
expressive singing). Indeed, this description does not do justice to
Schumann’s ambitious writing in a large-scale composition. The violin is
called upon to perform a number of double and quadruple stop chords (as at
bars 16 and 18 of the first movement, for example), virtuosic flourishes, as in
the sextuplet semiquavers at bars 56 and 59 of the first movement (separate
bows) and 112 and 114 (slurred), awkward dotted rhythms in the scherzo and
long slurs as in bars 123-5 of the finale (some of which I decided to split, as the
scanned image of the edition we used shows, although I attempted to convey
the meaning of the phrasing as faithfully as possible to the composer’s
marking here). Equally, the experimental and highly rhapsodic slow
movement, which calls for a free and quasi-improvised manner of playing,
provides both violin and ‘cello with considerable prominence at the centre, as
it were, of the work.
This work, as in the case of the Gade trio, op. 42 (with which it was
performed at a concert in the 2008 May Music Festival at St John’s Church,
Ranmoor, Sheffield) is a ‘Stage 3’ item in this project because no recording of
the work of particular relevance exists and the edition, Peters no 7025 of
c.1882 is unmarked and contains no bowings or fingerings nor an editorial
attribution. As in the case of the Gade work therefore, it required of us a
process of stylistic assimilation – carrying forward into the work traits of
fingering and bowing appropriate to the classical German tradition of which
Robert and Clara Schumann, along with Mendelssohn, Spohr and the
violinists Spohr, David and Joachim were members.
A number of specific performing practice issues arise in this work pertaining
to the following categories:
1. Fingering patterns on some of the longer and more cantabile phrases,
as at the opening;
2. How to perform the multiple stop chords;
3. How (as throughout the piece) to render variation to Schumann’s
typically complex use of accent signs and articulation marks.
4. How to perform dotted rhythms.
In terms of fingering patterns, we attempted to bring together our
understanding of performance of this time. Based around a senza vibrato tone
(with regular use of open strings which, being gut, lack the stridency of
modern metal-covered or wire fitments) nineteenth-century fingering
patterns with a regular use of harmonics and fourth fingers (the latter being
often avoided in the modern performance context on the grounds that they do
not favour vibrato) can be seen in the pencilled annotations. Given the use of
quite long slurs throughout the melodic passages (such as the opening of the
first movement, or the trio section of the scherzo), it seemed appropriate to
play with regular portamenti. These, as elsewhere in the project are either a
slide using the same finger, as found conspicuously on the fourth finger slide
in bar 17 of the slow movement, or the chain of consecutive first and second
finger portamenti in bars 49-50 of the slow movement, reflecting nineteenthcentury practices and especially relevant to David’s editions) or moving from
one finger to another using what Carl Flesch has termed the ‘B’ (beginning
finger) portamento, universally favoured by German players and theorists1.
Slides to and from harmonics are also characteristic of the fingerings
employed, and, in a way that credibly reflects the fact that aesthetic theory is
only ever likely to have been applied flexibly in practice, some of these
portamenti are between slurs (as in bar 46 of the first movement) and some
include practices generally frowned upon but likely to have occurred sparingly
in practice, such as the descending portamento to an open string in bars 62-3
of the scherzo (thus mirroring the fingered portamento in bars 58-9 at the end
of a corresponding phrase).
The evidence of performance on early recordings (such as Joachim’s
Bach performances as recorded in 1903) as well as printed and annotated
scores elsewhere (as in Ferdinand David’s markings in the Mendelssohn string
quartet parts considered elsewhere in this project) suggest that multiple stop
chords should, in general be spread quickly and not, as many modern
performers do, by splitting them in half as it were. Often, chords with more
than two notes are taken as re-taken down bows, and this we decided to
employ most of the time in the first movement. In bar 18 I decided to play the
second crotchet as an up bow, spread quickly from the point of the bow, in
order to give more length to the notes and to phrase these so that the tied
chord at the end of the bar, where a re-take is marked, could be more
conspicuously separated for rhetorical effect.
As Clive Brown explains in significant detail in his text, Classical and
Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900 (Oxford, 1999), Schumann had a
particularly detailed approach to accentuation2. In this trio, the markings are
as follows:
See D. Milsom, Theory and Practice in Late Nineteenth Century Violin Performance 18501900 (Aldershot, 2003), 91-3.
.
1
fp (1st, 3rd and 4th movements)
sfp (1st movement, bars 26,47 [first of the first time bars], bar 197, bar 218, bar
245)
sf (1st, 2nd and 4th movements)
sfz ( bar 125 of 1st movement and bars 167, 168 and 169, fourth movement)
>(1st, 3rd and 4th movements)
^(2nd movement, bar 2, bar 22, bar 23, bar 163, bar 164, bar 214 and 215; bars
111 and 112 4th movement)
Wedge (2nd movement bar 3, bar 24, bar 25 [first-time bar], bar 27 [secondtime bar bars 77 & 78 [both first and second-time bars], bar 144, bar 167, bar
232; 4th movement bars 17, 18 and 19, bars 37, 38 and 39, bar 113, bar 273, 274
and 275)
Dot (1st, 2nd and 4th movements, generally on quavers).
According to Brown’s analysis, the fp should be an accentual
lengthening and is generally located within piano passages. Schumann’s few
markings of sfp do not provide a clear distinction in terms of context in
comparison to fp, although the location of the marking in bar 26 for example
implies more of an accentual rather than simply dynamic variation, perhaps.
Schumann’s use of sf in this movement conforms to Brown’s description of it
as a ‘fairly powerful accent’3 in Schumann’s music and as Brown asserts, this
can be discerned (as in this trio) from the fact that it is not located in music in
piano dynamics. Schumann’s use of sfz in bars 167-9 of the last movement and
at 125 of the first movement is unclear, although these chords, on long notes
and places of strong emphasis suggest a powerful accent as in the manner of
sf, but perhaps a little sharper in character. The sideways accent (>) seems to
be a more ‘ordinary’ level of accentuation, a little less than ‘le petit chapeau’
(^), whilst the context of the use of wedges suggests that, as in the manner of
other conservative-minded German writers such as Brahms, Schumann saw
this as a stronger and more forceful form of staccato than the dot, although, in
German playing of this time, playing the staccato dot off the spring as a
spiccato or sautillé stroke was generally frowned upon, and we executed both
the dot and wedge on the string, the wedge lower in the bow (as on the chords
in bars 77 and 78) than the dot, which was a lightly separated stroke in the
upper half of the bow.
The complexity of this situation, which we tried to grade and effect
sensitively in our performance, shows how important it is to study the use of
signs by different composers since few if any of these markings have fixed
meaning. Equally, one has to discern from the context the true meaning of
such markings and as with all musical performance, much is left to the
discretion and intelligence of the performer.
In terms of the performance of dotted rhythms, there are two passages
that require intelligent handling – that at bar 57 of the first movement, which
is printed as separate bows, and also in the scherzo. I decided to join each pair
of notes together at bar 57 for technical reasons of expedience, but at the same
time here (as elsewhere) we attempted to play these somewhat over-dotted, a
practice which was evident in aesthetic theory of the time (to intensify the
meaning of the rhythmic device) as well as practice as observed in recordings,
3
C. Brown, Classical and Romantic Performing Practices 1750-1900 (Oxford, 1999), 86.
many of which, before perhaps 1930 at the earliest show a widespread
predilection for ‘over-dotting.’ The scherzo passage was tried bowed both
ways, and the way arrived at and replicated in the scanned edition image
seemed to be the most reliable. Here, as elsewhere, there are issues to be
considered regarding note length. If the semiquaver is played short and late,
should the dotted quaver preceding it be held for full length up until it, or
should there be a small gap between them? Generally, since a singing, legato
phrase line was considered desirable (lying, so to speak, ‘above’ the incidental
details themselves) we decided to play the rhythms dotted, but fundamentally
as much ‘on the string’ as possible.