hello!!! 
ii´d like to know if someone has some info about papillons and about debussy, like the "background" of each piece, you know, what they mean and what inspired it...
Schumann – PapillonsWhole volumes can be (and have been) written about Papillons. So I will just summarise the main points, which you can then pursue in greater depth if you so wish.
1. Papillons was published in 1832, when Schumann was just 22. It was his second published work (the first one being the ABEGG variations). Yet it was arguably the most revolutionary work for piano as far as form was concerned. When Papillons appeared no one quite knew what to do with it By comparison, works by his contemporaries, Chopin. Liszt and Mendelsohn all seemed pedestrian (as far as form is concerned). Schumann was truly a bad boy!
2. According to Schumann his main source of inspiration was Jean Paul Richter´s novel “Flegeljahre”. The chapter 63, “Larventanz” (which can be translated either as “dance of the larvae”, or “dance of the masks” – Schumann loved that sort of ambiguity and word play) is what he is trying to depict musically with Papillons. You may want to read this novel (in fact all of the works of Jean Paul are important to understand Schumann – he was his favourite writer and he was trying to do in music what Jean Paul was doing in literature). Briefly, the chapter (63) concerns itself with the two brothers Walt and Vult (later to be incorporated by Schumann as Florestan and Eusebius) who are both in love with Wina. During a masked ball, they swap their fancy dresses to find out which of the two Wina truly loves. You can find an English translation of chapter 63 on page 493 of John Dalverio´s superb book “Robert Schumann – Herald of a New Poetic Age” (Oxford Universty Press). To give you an idea of how important this chapeter is, here is what Schumann worte to his mother: “everyone read the final scene of Jean Paul´s flegeljahre as soon as possible, that Papillons actually transforms the masked ball into tones”.
3. The main musical influence on Papillons is arguably Schubert´s waltzes and polonaises for 4 hands (Schubert was his musical idol then, as much as Jen Paul was his literary hero). You may want to get acquainted with those. In fact, by 1831 - the year before Papillons – Schumann was composing waltzes and polonaises for 4 hands in Schubert´s style – these were first published in 1933 only. From these early pieces, he selected and recomposed the dances that were to become Papillons.
4. The metaphor of the butterfly: A beautiful flying organism that starts life as an ugly caterpillar.
5. The connections between Jean Paul´s text and Schumann´s music are at turns very clear and very obscure. Schumann claimed that he adapted the text to the music, and not the other way round. (At some point during the composition of Papillons, Schumann underlined several passages in chapter 63 and related them to movements in Papillons. This has generated endless argument amongst scholars.) Here are the underlined passages and movements (in the order they appear in the text):
a. No. 1 “As he left his little room, he prayed to God that he may find it again happily; he felt like a hero, thirsting for fame, who goes forth to his first battle” (Jean Paul). This connects to the uprising octave motif (which reappears in the finale and that was to reappear in Davidsbudllertanze and Carnaval).
b. No. 2: “By making a wrong turn, as he was often wont to do, he first entered the punch room, which he mistook for the ballroom and into which beautifully muted music was wafting from a considerable distance. […] He couldn´t spot Wina, nor was there any trace of Vult. […] Finally, since he wanted to investigate the bustle in the adjoining hall, he made his way into the resonant and brightly lit ballroom, full of fluttering figures and fancy hats, all of them in an enchanted frenzy. What a fertile zodiac-heaven of criss-crossing, zigzagging shapes!” (Jean Paul)
c. No. 3 “What most attracted him and his astonishment was a giant boot that was sliding around dressed in itself” (Jean Paul). Schumann actually called the octave theme as “the seven-leagued boot in F# minor”
d. No. 4 “But Hope quickly turned around; first a masked shepherdess appeared, and then a simply clad nun with a half-mask and a fragrant bouquet of auriculas.” (Jean Paul)
e. No. 5 “For a second he stood alone next to the quiet maiden – the crowd momentarily served as a mask – with freshness and charm the half-rose and lily of her face emerged from the half mask as if from the bossom of a dropping bud – from behind their dark masks they gazed at one another like foreign spirits from two distant planets, as if they were two stars in a solar eclipse, and each soul observed the other from a great distance, wanting thereby to appear all the more distinct.” (Jean Paul)
f. No. 8 “Just as a youth touches the hand of a great and famous writer for the first time, so he gently touched – like butterfly wings, like auricula powder – Wina´s back, and put himself in a position whereby he could best look inot her life-breathing face. If there is a harvest dance that is itself a harvest, if there´s a Catherine wheel of loving enchantment, then Walt the wagoner had both.” (Jean Paul)
g. No. 7 “He tore off his mask, and a peculiarly hot desert-drought (or dry fever heat) broke through his facial expressions and words. “If you ever harboured any love for your brother” he began with a parched voice, taking off his garland and untying his woman’s garb, “if the fulfillment of one of your brother’s most sincere wishes, the importance of which you will learn in the 24 hours, means something to you; and if you are not indifferent to his experience of the smallest or greatest joys, in short, if you want to grant one of his most fervent entreaties, then get out of your clothes (that’s half the request); dress up as Hope, and I will take the wagoner´s costume (that’s the whole of it)” (Jean Paul)
h. No. 9 “Dear brother, Walt answered fearfully and at the same time let out the breath the had been holding up expectantly, “to your request, it goes without saying, I can only give one reply: With joy.” “Then hurry up” retorted Vult, without thanking him.” (Jean Paul)
i. The accented theme on no. 6 reflects Vult´s criticism of Walt´s awkward dancing: “For up to now – don´t be offended – you´ve glided through the hall, horizontally as the wagoner and vertically as the miner, with good imitation waltzes” (Jean Paul).
j. No. 10 “Upon entering the hall, it seemed to Walt as if everyone was aware of the costume-exchange and espied his innermost being more easily through this, his second casing, than through his first. A few woman observed that behind her flowers Hope now had blonde instead of black hair as before, but they attributed this difference to the wig. Also Walt´s step, as befits Hope, was smaller and more feminine than Vult´s. But soon he forgot himself and the hall and everything else, for without ado, Vult the wagoner set Wina, whom everyone knew, at the very head of the English dance and now, to the astonishment of his partner, artfully traced out a dance-sketch with her, and like some artists, painted as it were with his feet, only with larger decorative strokes. Wina was amazed, since she thought she was dancing with Walt the wagoner, whose voice and inflection Vult (contrary to Walt´s presupposition) convincingly mimicked form behind his mask so that he wouldn’t be deemed an impostor who was only trying to pass himself as the notary. Late in the dance, amidst hasty hand gestures, criss-crossings, and dashing turns to and fro, Vult let slip more and more Polish expressions – mere whiffs of the language: half-mad sea-blown butterflies from a distant isle. His speech wafted down to Wina like that rare lark song in late summer” (Jean Paul).
k. The reason why only ten numbers are referred to above, is because originally Schumann had planned for Papillons to have only ten movements (instead of the final twelve).
l. The six repeated As on the Finale represents the chiming of the clock that ends the party.
6. Some quotes from Schumann regarding Papillons:
“everyone read the final scene of Jean Paul´s Flegeljahre as soon as possible, [and tell them] that Papillons actually transforms the masked ball into tones”. (letter to his mother)
“How often I turned over the last page [of Flegeljahre] since the ending seems to me a new beginning – almost unconsciously I was at the piano, and thus one Papiloon afte another came into being” (letter to Ludwig Rellstab, a music critic)
“When you have a free minute I suggest that you read the last chapters of Flegeljahre, where everything appears in black on white right up to the giant boot in F# minor” (Letter to his friend Henriette Voigt).
“[if Rellstab wants to know] in black on white, where Vult flees and why – and where Jacobine is hiding, then he has most assuredly missed the point” (Schumann´s answer to Rellstab critique of Papillons).
‘I will say only that I underlaid the text to the music, and not the reverse – otherwise it would be a foolish beginning. […] Only the last piece, which playful chance fashioned as a response to the first, was inspired by Jean Paul.” (letter to Henriette Voigt)
“the alternation is so swift, the colors so variegated, and the listener still has the previous page in his head while the player has already finished [a movement]” (Schumann´s diary)
And here is what some critics of the time said:
“So far we don´t understand it” (Christoph Sorgel)
“[Schumann has] a fondness for overly abrupt harmonic shifts through which comprehensibility is endangered […] detrimental to the beauty, clarity and unity of a well regulated composition.” (Hummel)
“[Schumann] has created a new ideal world in which he mischievously revels, often with original bizarrerie” (Anon.)
Just the tip of a truly huge iceberg (as would befit such a masterpiece).
Best wishes,
Bernhard.
Topic: schumann liszt debussy