Programmatic Thinking In Schumann's Early Piano Cycles: An Approach To Intermezzo

Schumann's piano music not only has its own meaning as a piece of music, but also contains additional literary meaning. While the influence of extra musical source on Schumann's most early character piano cycles have been studied at great length, intermezzo, op. 4 is among the one that have received relatively less attention, probably because it lacks a title. The goal of the current study is to explore the link between extra musical elements and intermezzo. The compositional background and the thematic, harmonic and structural schemes of the work are analyzed in detail, along with the ways how those elements impact on the style of the cycle was further examined by carefully comparing with Papillion, the one of those containing the richest literary meaning.The analysis reveals that intermezzo exhibits also Schumann's typical programmatic thinking with a lot of distinctive musical features and aesthetical value shared in Papillion, Carnival and many other piano cycles; and also embraces a wealth of literary and other extra-musical ideas. The value of title in Schumann's piano cycle and its limitation are also discussed. We think it is more valuable to ferret out the literary meaning, rich emotional and psychological content of Schumann's piano music that lies hidden below the surface of the title, thus opening up many more possibilities of interpreting Schumann's piano music and making them much more enjoyable.