The Programmatic Translation in Schumann’s Kinderszenen

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-452-5_39How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Romanticism; Piano; Program music; Schumann; Kinderszenen

Abstract

The programmatic piano miniature of the Romantic era represents a seminal manifestation of intermedial dialogue between musical and literary arts. By synthesizing poetic titles with intricate musical rhetoric, composers forged a dual narrative framework that simultaneously conveys emotional progression and poetic imagery. This study focuses on Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen Op.15 as a paradigmatic example, examining how it exemplify the Romantic aesthetics of “Dichterklavier” — the poet’s piano. Through analytical scrutiny of structural elements including thematic transformation, harmonic symbolism, and textural articulation, the research reveals how Schumann’s evocative titles like Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, Ritter vom Steckenpferd and Träumerei function not merely as descriptive labels but as hermeneutic keys that activate listeners’ imaginative engagement. Particular emphasis is placed on the dialectical relationship between the composer’s retrospective childhood vignettes and their musical realization through cyclic motifs and lyrical miniaturization. The investigation further contextualizes these works within the broader Romantic tradition of literary-musical synthesis, ultimately demonstrating how titular signification in piano miniatures expands artistic expression through semantic resonance while maintaining musical autonomy.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xinyu Xu
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/07/31
TI  - The Programmatic Translation in Schumann’s Kinderszenen
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 4th International Conference on Science Education and Art Appreciation (SEAA 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 306
EP  - 312
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-452-5_39
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-452-5_39
ID  - Xu2025
ER  -