An Exploration of Schumann’s Stylistic Evolution as Demonstrated by his First and Last Sets of Variations: The “ABEGG” Variations, op. 1, and the “Ghost” Variations, WoO 24.

Joseph Shiner

Introduction

It is noteworthy that Schumann bookended his artistic life with sets of variations for solo piano. The Variations on the name ABEGG formed not just his op. 1 but also his “official debut”[1] as a composer in 1830; twenty-four years later the door was closed on his compositional career with his Theme and Variations in E-flat Major, WoO 24 (otherwise known as Geistervariationen, or “Ghost” Variations), immediately prior to his admission to the asylum at Endenich. Although this statement is in itself fraught with complications[2], these works nevertheless form fertile ground for an analysis of his stylistic evolution as encapsulated within the genre of standalone variations, to which he only rarely returned in the intervening years.[3] Through a comparison of both pieces, and drawing on the observations of prominent Schumann scholars John Daverio and Laura Tunbridge, this essay will demonstrate that these two works hold a significant amount of kinship as well as differences. Certain stylistic and structural features remained inviolate for Schumann throughout his compositional life—particularly in the areas of thematic and structural conception.

Genesis and structure

Although these works are far removed from each other both temporally and stylistically, several fundamental aspects of their composition bind them together in a striking way. The first is the genesis of both themes from sources at once extramusical and imaginary. Both of the personalities who supposedly gave their names for Schumann’s first theme, Meta Abegg and Countess Paulina von Abegg, are now generally considered to have been playful inventions of the composer (“Meta,” incidentally, is an anagram of the Latin tema, or “theme”). Twenty-four years later, Schumann famously attributes his theme to revelations by visiting spirits or “angels” during the night before his infamous suicide attempt,[4] although he apparently did not realise that the melody bore a striking similarity to the pre-existing themes of both the slow movement of his Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23, and “Vogel als Prophet,” the seventh movement of his Waldszenen, op. 82.

The other principal aspect that these variation sets share is their layout.[5] Schumann casts both pieces as a theme with no introduction, which is succeeded by five discrete sections. In both works, all these sections are tonally unified within the key of the theme, save the penultimate, which in both works diverts into a foreign key area before returning to the home key for the finale.[6] Therefore, notwithstanding the massive stylistic gulf that lies between the two works, these underlying features of structural and tonal planning that were crucial to the conception of his early variation set evidently resurfaced for Schumann in the process of composing his final work, whether consciously or subconsciously.

1 John Daverio, “Piano Works I: A World of Images,” in The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, ed. Beate Julia Perry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 71.

2 This refers to Schumann’s compositional activities both prior to his op. 1 and during his internment in the asylum, where he apparently composed fugues.

3 The only other instances are his Studies in the Form of Free Variations after Beethoven, WoO 31 (1832) and his Andante and Variations for piano, two violoncellos and horn (WoO 10), later arranged for two pianos (as op. 46), from 1843.

4 Laura Tunbridge, “Piano Works II: Afterimages,” in The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, ed. Beate Julia Perry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 98–99.

5 See Appendix.

6 Incidentally, both of these diversionary keys bear mediant relationships to the home keys (F to A-flat major in the “ABEGG” Variations; E-flat major to G minor in the “Ghost” Variations), adding another layer of tonal kinship.

Themes

Both themes share structural similarities, as well as the unambiguous evocation of a single topic, or affekt—while the effervescent theme of the “ABEGG” variations assumes the guise of a charming, lithe waltz, the chordal treatment of the “Ghost” theme suggests a hymn or chorale, perhaps echoing the manner of the theme’s supposed presentation to Schumann from angelic voices. Both are cast as clear two-part binary forms in the “classical” tradition, each invariably constructed from regular 4- and 8-bar phrases, displaying Schumann’s adherence to tradition (at least in this respect). However, whereas Schumann chooses to write out the repeats of the ABEGG theme in full to allow for dynamic and articulatory variation to take place within the theme itself, he chooses to enclose the second, 12-bar section of his “Ghost” theme between conventional repeat signs.

This theme bears none of the “repetitions, thematic allusions and fractured forms”[7] that are often cited as hallmarks of a late style, particularly that which is associated with Beethoven scholarship.[8] On the other hand, the simplicity of the theme is precisely what defines it, and its subsequent variations, in comparison to the earlier work, and indeed, as Laura Tunbridge suggests: “. . . the challenge of late Schumann is in many ways its simplicity and, at times, its sentimentality.”[9] Nevertheless, it is apparent that far from being a specific element that is intrinsic to a “late style” of Schumann, the straightforwardness that is on display in this theme constitutes a stage (even, perhaps, a logical endpoint) of creative evolution that began for Schumann in the 1840s, several years before what is generally deemed to be the beginning of his “late style”:

Schumann declared that he changed his compositional method in the mid-1840s . . . he began to sketch and plan, rather than letting music pour out from poetic inspiration. This “new manner” . . . has been characterised as a more “objective” and classical approach, in contrast to the “subjective” and Romantic attitude of before.10 Variations The variations are where the points of divergence between the works truly assert themselves—the wildly florid nature of the “ABEGG” variations forms a diametric opposition with the measured austerity of the “Ghost”

7 Laura Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 3.

8 John Daverio gives a concise summary of the different strands of late-style scholarship through the 19th and 20th centuries, from Winckelmann’s 18th-century theory of cultural decay, through Goethe’s metaphysical organicism and “transcendence of time and place,” through to the dualistic, Adornoian conception of late style as a polarisation of gestural and formal extremes. John Daverio, “Songs of Dawn and Dusk: Coming to Terms With the Late Music,” in The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, ed. Beate Julia Perry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 268–269.

Variations

The early Schumann, falling wholly under the influence of the prevailing trend of virtuoso pianism as embodied by Moscheles and Hummel, as well as the “rarified air”[11] of salon culture, allows both of these to imbue his work with a sense of “generic fluidity, straddling the boundaries between strictly segregated musical types”[12]—that is, straddling the boundary between showpiece, dance, and formal variation set. As a result, this yields vastly different trajectories between the variations, even if, as discussed above, the scheme of five variations is shared between them.

In the “ABEGG,” although the first three self-contained variations share both key and metre with the theme, they nevertheless diverge from the theme’s consistent eight-bar phraseology. Furthermore, the variations subsume the theme into the musical fabric, Schumann placing lesser or greater emphasis on either the contour of the theme itself, or the upwards semitone that forms the opening gesture of each of the sequential statements of the melody that comprises the theme. All three initial variations are dominated by this appoggiatura-motive, and the entire theme only dreamily resurfaces in the tenor midway through both the first and third variations. The fourth “variation” (as it is not named a variation at all, but marked Cantabile) sees Schumann abruptly shift key, metre, phrase structure and affekt entirely, while paradoxically reintroducing the entire thematic material in its most complete form since the theme itself, interspersing it [10] Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style, 9. with fioritura reminiscent of improvisation. In its dissolution of the theme’s formal and tonal identity, this interlude functions as preparation for (or introduction to) the disproportionately extended Finale alla fantasia that closes the work—these two sections combined comprising nearly half of the work’s total length.

It is clear that, in addition to blurring the boundaries of genre and style as discussed above, Schumann is progressively dissolving the strict structural delineations of the variation form. This gives his work a much more rhapsodic, freeform character; the improvisatory topic of the Cantabile decorations are therefore being applied by Schumann at a much deeper, fundamental level. On the other hand, twenty-four years later, Schumann consistently and rigorously adheres to the phrase-structure established by his theme in all of his “Ghost” variations. Not only this, but the theme is preserved in its entirety throughout the variations, being moved through the musical texture in the manner of a “migrating cantus firmus.”[13] Indeed, the only variation in which the theme is at all altered (other than by register) is the final one (which, as the story goes, is the only one that Schumann wrote after his suicide attempt), and here this occurs via the simplest imaginable method of rhythmic decoration, but it achieves a most unsettling effect.

Unlike in the “ABEGG” variations, there is no hint of an end-weighted trajectory within the “Ghost” variations. Instead, they present themselves almost as self-contained tableaux: the first variation reharmonising the E-flat-major theme and re-conceptualising its accompaniment; the second presents two strict canons: the first section by one beat and the second section by two bars. The third, marked somewhat livelier, moves the theme to the tenor and introduces a new accompaniment figure, and the fourth returns to the chordal texture of the theme while shifting key, presenting the complete, unadorned theme in the alto.

The fifth variation is where the difficulties arise, as it constitutes a sudden shift away from the relatively austere, unadorned language of the previous variations. Although the variation returns to the home key of E-flat major, the theme is (for the first and only time) actually varied, and in a strikingly extreme fashion. The theme is wholly subsumed into chromatic decoration, whose metric placement consistently highlights the “foreign” notes at the expense of the theme itself. This effect is compounded by the highly chromatic accompaniment. Through consistent and accumulating dissonance in counterpoint with the thematic notes embedded in the decoration, Schumann creates a highly unsettling and unprecedented harmonic atmosphere that could justly be described as proto-atonality (if it were not for the perfect cadence that concludes the variation and the work). This further disguises and obfuscates the theme as well as its formal structure, even though both remain utterly consistent.

Additionally, the final variation raises another question: even though Schumann marks no change of tempo, playing the theme at the same tempo as the previous variations is impractical. The density of the writing and harmonic rhythm imply a drastic reduction of tempo, which further serves to obscure the melody and its formal structure. After the theme has been so clearly and consistently presented throughout the work thus far, its sudden “loss” is marked and keenly felt, creating a highly enigmatic and poignant ending to the set. This stands in the starkest possible contrast to the conclusion of the “ABEGG” variations, even though, notably, Schumann’s themes are ultimately “lost” in both of them.

10 Tunbridge, Schumann’s Late Style, 9.

11 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 66.

12 Daverio, “Piano Works I: A World of Images,” 68.

13 Daverio, Robert Schumann, 479.

Conclusion

Because this process of thematic subsumption is common to both works, it would certainly be too far-reaching to suggest that in the final “Ghost” variation Schumann is either explicitly depicting his suicide attempt in the waters of the Rhine, or even evoking the descent of his mental state into incoherence more generally. However, such a startling rupture in the stylistic coherence of the work at the final possible moment should be marked as significant. The simple, uncomplicated didacticism that characterises the rest of the “Ghost” variations, along with much of Schumann’s late music, has, ironically enough, itself been interpreted as a “draining of madness”[14] from Schumann’s musical style rather than as evidence of it. What’s more, and further compounding the irony, this observation is typically set in direct contrast to “the quirky outbursts in earlier works such as Carnaval, the Concert sans orchestre or Kreisleriana.”[15] One could well add the “ABEGG” variations to this list, with their spontaneous, exuberant flights of fancy. When interpreted thus, the late style, as manifested in this final set of variations, becomes a foil to his mental insecurities, rather than an expression of it; however, with this final variation, Schumann poses one final enigma, one that can never be solved.

14 Daverio, “Piano Works I: A World of Images,” 271–272.

15 Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Daverio, John. “Piano Works I: A World of Images.” In The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, edited by Beate Julia Perry, 65–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. —————.

Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. —————.

“Songs of Dawn and Desk: Coming to Terms With the Late Music.” In The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, edited by Beate Julia Perry, 268–291. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Daverio, John, and Eric Sams. “Schumann, Robert.” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online. Accessed November 2, 2023. Edited by Deanne L. Root. https://0-doi-org.library.juilliard.edu/10.1093/gmo/ 9781561592630.article.40704.

Tunbridge, Laura. “Piano Works II: Afterimages.” In The Cambridge Companion to Schumann, edited by Beate Julia Perry, 86–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. —————.

Schumann's Late Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.