Sonic Asymmetry

Robert Schumann – “Kinderszenen, op.15”

ロバートシューマン –  「子供の情景、オーパス15番」

TIME COMMITMENT: 18 minutes

This ultimate miniaturist was frequently inspired by literature.  In this vignette, he was evidently seeking  – and finding – humor, adventure, quest for the unusual, yet he appears to be diving into the inward reaches of an adult, rather than children’s, life.  The “Scenes” are crafty, perfectly rounded between dissolute shrapnels and more nimble passages.  To this day, musicologists discuss the significance of the unusual tempo changes.  Was Schumann’s metronome really broken?

MUSIC

INFO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinderszenen

A REFLECTION

Hush, be still. Outer space

Is a concept, not a place.

Try no more. Where we are

Never can be sky or star.

From prison, in a prison, we fly;

There’s no way into the sky.

C.S.Lewis: “Science-Fiction Cradlesong”