intermezzo.

I’m working on Schumann’s Intermezzo (No. 4 from Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26), written in 1839 when he intended to settle with his future wife Clara, whom he married the year after. A poetic piano piece, in the only recording I’ve listened to so far it is played extremely fast, with whirlwind-like arpeggios providing background texture, projecting a brief but so lyrical melody to the foreground.

In general I want my arpeggios to sound hazier, but to reach that effect I will have to first clear each note and train myself to clean the sequences. The middle part of each section I still have no control of. This section sounds like an effort to fly a kite, failing, trying to fly it even higher, failing again, reaching a certain peaceful height on the third attempt, and finally letting it float gently down while the wind ceases to blow. This is how the piece is structured, generally. The ending, then, when the wind has completely ceased to blow, is a series of declarations of simple major chords, a settling ground I haven’t yet mastered.

At the moment everything still sounds like a mere attempt. I found it helpful to break my practice in two, venturing to remember a Skriabin Prelude that I’ve once learned by heart in between. I will work on this again tomorrow.