SCHUMANN Robert (1810-1856).

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  3. SCHUMANN Robert (1810-1856).
  4. Lot n° 247 
Lot n° 247
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SCHUMANN Robert (1810-1856).
autograph musical manuscript, Studie [Bunte Blätter, op. 99 no. 2], 1838; 2 oblong pages, one sheet 28.7 x 33.7 cm. (paper a little yellowed; 2 small brown traces of collage on verso). First sketch of one of the most beautiful piano pieces of the collection Bunte Blätter. Composed between 1836 and 1849, the fourteen piano pieces collected and published in 1852 by F.W. Arnold in Elberfeld under the title Bunte Blätter, op. 99 (or "Coloured Leaves", the pieces having also been published separately under different coloured covers) are all small masterpieces, divided into eight parts, including the three Stücklein (small pieces) which open this album. This musical manuscript is the very first draft n° 2 of opus 99, in E minor; written in brown ink, on oblong paper with 5 systems of 2 staves per page. It presents 30 bars, plus a 4-bar sketch of a new development in E major, abandoned. Schumann made erasures and corrections in pen (notably the last bar crossed out and redone), and later corrections in black pencil; he also crossed out a note, and added a bar in red pencil. There are some slight variations with the final version. This manuscript has no tempo indication (it will be Sehr rasch in the edition), and the bar numbering of the manuscript (C) will be indicated 2/4 in the edition; but there are many signs of nuances (f, p.); the first two triplets are indicated "3 quasi"; the 11th bar is numbered "a", and for its repetition in the 17th bar Schumann is content to note "a" rather than recopy it. At the top, Schumann has written the title and date: "Studie (1838)". Another title, at the top left, which was later crossed out "Notturno No. 2", shows that Schumann hesitated between the study and the nocturne; the first two pieces (Stücklein) of the Bunte Blätter, composed in December 1838, were first designated by Schumann in his diary (December 18, 1838) as the "first 2 Notturni". There are other interesting indications: after the second staff system (after the 8th bar), in the right-hand margin, Schumann twice wrote the title "Romanze"; above the 13th bar, Schumann wrote (and then crossed out in red pencil): "Strophe 2". Guy Sacre comments on this second piece, in opposition to the first in A major, resembling a Mendelssohn romance, as "very Schumannesque on the contrary, although of similar writing, because the wise beats are replaced by a turbulent stir, that the bass shifts in syncopation, that the melody superimposes its two approximate triplets on the sixteen eighth notes of the accompaniment, and that finally an irresistible passion sweeps the piece away, among the most inspired of these two reliquary notebooks. Provenance: this sheet was given by Marie SCHUMANN (1841-1929), Robert and Clara's eldest daughter, to the great Polish-born pianist Josef HOFMANN (1876-1957), as indicated by the ex-dono inscribed in pencil at the bottom of the second page: "Handschrift Robert Schumanns/Herrn Josef Hofmann mit freundlischem Gruß/Marie Schumann. Interlaken April 1923". Discography: Louis Lortie (Chandos, 1999)
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