A Discussion Of Application And Performance Of Rhythmic Accents In Schumann's Piano Cycles

As an outstanding German composers and musical critics,Schumann is one of the representatives of Romantic music in the nintenth Century.Schumann's piano cycles is a new form invented by shumann combining the characters of suites,variation form and song cycles of Schubert.These small works that have different titles,independent themes and cross comparisons use variation form to tie the cycles together becoming delicated,free and sophiscated.Schumann's piano cycles are unique not only in form but also in melody,rhythm,texture,harmony and so on.One of the characters absorbing people's eyes most is it's varied rhythm.On the hand of rhythm,Schumann was actively inclined to disturb the restrictions of the bar-line by using changefulness of rhythmic accents,and using this anti-traditional ways to make the variations of music come ture.As Schumann supposed,music should be a ‘free speech,…a higher poetic form of punctuation,as in the Greek choruses,the language of the Bible or the prose of Jean Paul'.This thesis selects Schumann's piano cycles as the research object,analysis the utilization and presentation of rhythmic accents.On the basis of these,this thesis also would elaborate the performance of these accents.This thesis can be divided into four section:The first chapter is a description of this research selected topic reason and documentary survey of existing study;The second chapter introduce the technical theory of rhythm,meter,accents and rhythmic accents,and also expain the unique and research value of rhythmic accents in Schumann's cycles;Third chapter is analysis of utilization of rhythmic accents in Schumann's piano cycles;The last chapter elaborate the performance of rhythmic accents on the basis the chapter three.The conclusion part is a summary of this thesis and have a description of forth futher discussion in this scope of this research.