Hi Rafant,
Thanks!
After having played a couple of his piece, perhaps I can see why your former piano teacher shuns his music. Here are a list of reasons, why not to teach Schumann -- perhaps not album for the young, but kinderszenen and his more complicated works.
1. Music is emotionally complicated (require a certain level of maturity or in this case, requires you to through maturity out the window, which is hard to do).
2. Voices (usually unequal) weaving in and out.
3. Textural qualities usually require a keen ear. Otherwise it everything sounds like 'Fur Elise' with the sustenuto perpeturally depressed.
4. Uncorfortable hand positions. (Bad technique starts to show!)
5. Requires a greater command of the space infront of you.
6. Uncomfortable jumps and high speeds (Need for accuracy).
7. Schumann went mad (not that he wasn't so throughout his life).
For the moment, I'll stop here but the list goes on...
However, here is why you should start with some schumann (particularly, something like kinderszenen)
1. The complexity and emotional requirements means that the music is much more subtle. It tends to be very poignant and less in your face. Many of the pieces in kinderszenen are introspective, and have a completely different quaility to baroque and classical era music, which is (arguably) more intellectual and structural. It also means that (again arguably) there is more room for interpretation and expression.
2. It taught me a thing or two about picture music, and how to use voicing in a more sensitive way. For example for knight on the hobby horse, you can distinctly hear the littie boy in the right hand and the rocking horse in the left! (If you don't believe me try it out for yourself. Maybe I'm going insane!)
3. It trains your ear especially with the use of the pedal, which I have come to realise how deficient my skills are.
4. A differnt playing techique and set of skills are required, although fundamentally, the hand action ought to be the same as with bach and haydn. This is where I realised that i need to rework my whole technique to be able to get further, and finally understand the need to play with the arm and aim to develop a good fluid (economical) action. The reason is simple -- so that you are not hurting after play pieces a couple of times.
5. You start to get an idea of how to use the space infront of you.
6. The music, although technically demanding, is short and comes in bite-sized chunks that you can work on. I've never felt overwhelmed by the pieces.
7. If you are going mad as well.
In other words, i find that the music is very satisfying. I think it is appropriate for students with maturity that know a reasonable amount about classical music and are at intermediate level. As such, if you are interested and are willing to spend time working on some interesting technique, I recommand it! (perhaps against your teacher's wishes.) However, having learnt the piece in the wrong way and am now trying to correct my technique -- be careful to pick up good habits along the way!
Somehow these pieces are more ameanable to experimentation. The greenlight to tryout new things is given. Can't really put my finger on why this is the case. Perhaps because it just has a less rigid structure and so you really need to try out things to find what works for you. This is also perhaps why teachers are so hesitant to teach this piece. That they are afriad that you find a "wrong" way of doing things. Also it means that the student must be independent enough to learn the piece, otherwise, one might not succeed.
The advantage to learning these pieces is that I am starting to learn things in a completely different way. I'm trying out Mozart's simplest sonata next (K545, all movements). I try not to learn things in a linear way any more. I am convinced (finally) that it's better to break it down into technical chuncks, practice the relavent technique and slowly build the piece up layer by layer -- as suggested several times on this website. Prior to learning kinderszen, although I was told to do this, I tend not to have the self discipline to stop half way and though a piece, and i end up learning pieces by reading through from start to end several hundered (?) times, and only isolated parts when I do encounter problems. Nowadays, I start with what my teacher tells me or what I think are the most technically demanding motifs, reducing them to exerciese and try to play just small chucks at speed. In the case of mozart's sonata in C, the tempo is allegro, which is a difficult speed for playing appegios and scales evenly.
It seem that it's more natural to use this "breaking down into elements and building layer by layer" method with pieces in kinderszenen, than with mozart, because of the "non-linear" nature of the pieces. Although the method should be just as effective with mozart. Until I was forced to do it and experienced it for myself, I never quite believed that it works (more effectively).
You are right about muscle memory. I'll have to stay well away from that.
Just some thoughts!
al.
Topic: Questions on Easy Schumann