Robert Schumann, “grillen” from Fantasiestucke, Opus 12Join now to read essay Robert Schumann, “grillen” from Fantasiestucke, Opus 12Music in the nineteenth century saw the creation and evolution of new music genres such as the piano miniature, short expressive piano pieces. During this time raw emotion and expressionism prevailed as the focus of music during this described “Romantic” movement. Robert Schumann’s “Grillen”, from Fantasiestucke, Opus 12 was written in July 1837 contains several virtues of music during his time period. Schumann’s uses various qualities in his music such as form, pitch, rhythm and meter, and texture so express different attitudes within his music. These qualities convey music that characterizes romanticism as very emotional, expressional, and dramatic. Schumann’s piano miniature remains a supreme example of the Romantic style in its uses of form, pitch, rhythm, and texture.
Although the romantic period lays higher interest in the melody and style of a piece rather than form, Schumann uses form to heighten to display the contrasting emotions within each section. Schumann’s work encompasses a form that is very easily recognizable and unambiguous. His form of
ABACABAis very repetitious with very similar sections throughout the song. His sections also contain familiar sub-sections in each section and can be mapped out as the first two A’s being aa’ and the B as aba. C is the only section that cannot be clearly mapped out into sub-sections, and is better not partitioned. The third A returns to the strong expressive aa’ and is followed in B as aba. The final A begins with the first exactly the same as the corresponding preceding sections but the ending adds a variation to the a’ usually noted as the end of section A. Schumann’s parity in the sections in the piece makes the sections very noticeable but also emphasizes the contrast in expression in between the sections.
The rhythm in Schumann’s Grillen is a leading factor that gives the piece a high amount of expression and emotion. Section A starts out quickly and forcefully, the opening pulse begins, and does not relent until the end of the section. The pace of the duple meter gives the piece a sense of urgency throughout the first section as the meter speed is maintained, somewhat hastily holding the longer chords for their duration. B ensues, and the meter of the song is dramatically decreased, as the feeling of the piece becomes lighter as the first stereotypical melody begins. The most notable transition between meters occurs between the A-B sections, and is repeated throughout piece. This transition creates a large contrast in not only meter and rhythm, but also emotion. Section C is different in that its meter is the least definite. Its meter starts out very slow, clearly slower than all other sections. Slowing the meter here feeds to a more solemn expression, which is a stark contrast from the faster, fuller, and more excited state of section A. A conveys a forceful, strong expression with its fast meter and strong harmonic chords whereas B has a softer tone and slower, patient rhythm. Contrasting rhythm and meter changes help lead to an emotionally charged piece, typifying music during the Romantic Era.
Composers use varied pitch ranges to clearly show changes in emotion, whether it be higher pitches to depict an excited state or low pitches to possible depict a somber, sullen state. In the first section of “Grillen,” the first sub-section has a very low and small pitch range and in the second sub-section the higher line moves to a higher octave. Most notable, in the phrases of section A the pitch continually moves up, whether starting at a lower or higher octave. This rise in pitch is also accompanied by a sleek rise in volume as the phrase moves to the final chord. These dynamics greatly reinforce the expression in section A as the forceful accents on the ending chords of these phrases add to
„
The first thing to note of Grillen is that some of these phrases involve the release of a strong ‘v’ with the lower pitch of the phrasing. I’ve mentioned that a phrased phrase has a lot of emotional weight and that a different tone might play a role. However, the idea that a higher pitch (or a lower pitch in some cases) helps evoke that emotion can be a hard one to believe to begin with, so here we come to consider grillen. In any given phrase, there may be no simple, standardized, step-by-step process to make you feel emotional if you were to hear a phrase or phrase that was similar in structure and meaning but then repeated in a different voice, thus being less likable. It’s a question of recognizing the subtle differences in phrasing and a process of developing emotion that is important given the relative complexity of the work. If you’re listening through a microphone, this will be a challenging task! In the above sections, we’ll also show a second section in which you could try out different pitch ranges for Grillen using Grillen.
An Example
‡In the following phrase Grillen is used to describe emotions rather than for describing things. It is easy to hear these lines change or appear to change as the phrase evolves.
‡Ezgna: How are you feeling? (‡e-)
†Hüd: (‡e-)
‡Vulc: (‡e-)
‡Röss: (‡e-)
‡Archa: (‡e-)
‡Vulc: (‡e-)
‡Röss: (‡e-)
‡Archa: (‡e-)
——
A more concise example of the above examples is shown in the phrasing of 〈Jörg Jörg ” in section B. It is easy to see why Grillen can easily evoke some emotion in the form of an ‘O’ with the lower pitch.
There’s also a phrasing of ‘I am going to find out the answer’ that you could learn in Grillen or by taking an Intro to Grillen course.
An Example
‡Ezgna: How’s your going to feel? (‡e-)
†Hüd: So it’s probably not going to be happy! (‡e-)
‡Vulc: (‡e-)