Schumann's Music and E. T. A. Hoffmann's Fiction

John MacAuslan

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781316560433
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Four of Schumann's great masterpieces of the 1830s - Carnaval, Fantasiestücke, Kreisleriana and Nachtstücke - are connected to the fiction of E. T. A. Hoffmann. In this book, John MacAuslan traces Schumann's stylistic shifts during this period to offer insights into the expressive musical patterns that give shape, energy and individuality to each work. MacAuslan also relates the works to Schumann's reception of Bach, Beethoven, Novalis and Jean Paul, and focuses on primary sources in his wide-ranging discussion of the broader intellectual and aesthetic contexts. Uncovering lines of influence from Schumann's reading to his writings, and reflecting on how the aesthetic concepts involved might be used today, this book transforms the way Schumann's music and its literary connections can be understood and will be essential reading for musicologists, performers and listeners with an interest in Schumann, early nineteenth-century music and German Romantic culture.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Figures
• Music examples
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Chrysalis, 1827–1834: Schumann’s emergence as a literary composer
• 2 Notions of resonance and expression
• 3 A musical carnival, 1834–1837: Carnaval, op. 9
• 4 Form, content and conception
• 5 Dream images, 1837: Fantasiestücke, op. 12
• 6 ‘In possession of the secret’, 1836–1838: Schumann’s stylistic evolution
• 7 New worlds, 1838: Kreisleriana, op. 16
• 8 Associations and expressiveness in Schumann’s ‘Hoffmann works’
• 9 Antimatter, 1839–1840: Nachtstücke, op. 23
• 10 ‘The closed book’: Interpreting aesthetic entities
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index