Schumann's Humoreske, Op. 20, was completed in Vienna in March 1839 during a period of loneliness and emotional turmoil for the composer.
Composer Biography
Robert Schumann traveled to Vienna in 1838 hoping to establish an independent life with his fiancée, Clara Wieck, away from her jealous father, Friedrich Wieck.
Compositional Technique
Schumann's Humoreske, Op. 20, is a lengthy work of 963 bars that acts as a compendium of his early pianistic style, featuring a highly contrastive montage of musical forms.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Schumann considered his Humoreske to be 'not especially funny but perhaps my most melancholy work,' defining humor as a 'felicitous fusion of the gemütlich and the witty.'
Composer Biography
Clara Schumann, a pioneering pianist and gifted composer, had limited opportunities to develop her compositional talents due to raising eight children and having a 'fantasizing' husband, Robert Schumann.
Composer Biography
Robert Schumann was a great admirer of Franz Schubert, even sobbing all night upon hearing of Schubert's death in 1828.
Interpretation
Pianist William Youn arranged his selection of Schubert's Valses sentimentales D 779 by copying, cutting, and reassembling them like a jigsaw puzzle to create a harmonically varied sequence.
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