Essential Repertoire,
Piano Sheet Music Essentials: Robert Schumann
In our Piano Sheet Music Essentials series, we aim to offer recommendations for some of the most popular piano pieces by a selection of celebrated composers, broken up into general difficulty level, so pianists of all ages and abilities can begin to explore the works of great classical composers. This article focuses on the work of Robert Schumann, German composer, pianist, and influential music critic.
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau in 1810, and began composing music at a young age. He went to study law in Leipzig, but he gave up his studies to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. Unfortunately a hand injury prevented him from fulfilling his dream, and so he began to focus his energies on composition and music criticism. He is widely considered as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era.
Easy - Intermediate Pieces
The pieces listed below are suitable for beginner to early intermediate pianists. As with all sheet music, some basic music theory, and an understanding of how to read and interpret sheet music is required. Including arrangements of more difficult pieces, this collection provides accessible choices for beginners and offers an introduction into the world of Robert Schumann.
An inexpensive practical edition of the easiest pieces from Schumann's enormous oeuvre for piano, providing not only a microcosm of material for piano lessons but fascinating insights into the music of this great romantic composer. Especially interesting are the simple pieces he wrote for, but later omitted from, his famous Album for the Young.
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Easy-to-play original works from one of the most important composers of the Romantic era: Robert Schumann. This collection includes pieces from Album for the Young and Scenes from Childhood, enabling young players to experience Romantic piano music for the first time. Ideal for teaching the first use of the pedal, pupils can learn how to play expressively and to distinguish between melody and accompaniment.
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One of Robert Schumann's most endearing melodies, Träumerei, arranged here for easy piano by Alexander Cole.
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Edited from the autographs and original editions, this book contains three of the easiest pieces from the Album for the Young.
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Selections from Scenes from Childhood and Album for the Young plus other works comprise this useful volume. Schumann's life and works are chronicled and his compositional style is briefly described.
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Intermediate – Early Advanced Pieces
The following pieces are suitable for intermediate to early advanced pianists. Some publications will include pieces that are easier to master, and some that are much more advanced. Our selections below include popular pieces such as Träumerei, Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, as well as selections from Album For The Young and Scenes from Childhood.
Schumann was a poet at the piano, and the best known of his piano pieces bear programmatic titles such as Träumerei, Von fremden Ländern und Menschen, or Vogel als Prophet. His whole oeuvre exudes a sense of poetic freedom. Whether in his easiest pieces for children from his Album for the Young or in the more demanding Papillons, we can hear Schumann’s own distinctive voice everywhere – a voice whose many registers can be experienced in this selection, which ranges from the easy to the moderately difficult.
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This fine selection features the most famous masterpieces by Robert Schumann. Includes selections from Album For The Young and Scenes from Childhood, three of the Davidsbundler and several more beautiful pieces of music. Every piece has been composed, or specially arranged, for solo piano and is accompanied by high quality demonstration performances. An essential addition to your piano library.
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Most of the pieces gathered in this volume were written before Schumann was thirty, when when he was writing many of his greatest piano works and shortly before the outpouring of songs that celebrated his engagement to Clara. Schumann's Albumleaves encapsulate this writing in beautiful, miniature form, exploring the warmth and resonance of the piano.
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Robert Schumann's Album for the Young is one of the milestones of educationally inspired piano literature. This edition does not focus on systematic technical studies but on the development of the player's musical performance as well as on the realisation of musical associations.
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In spring 1838 Schumann composed "30 short, sweet things", as he called them in a letter to his fiancée Clara Wieck. He originally composed these under the title Kindergeschichten and intended them as a supplement to the Noveletten, Op. 21, also composed in 1838. From these piano miniatures he chose twelve pieces. At the beginning of the following year, now expanded with a thirteenth piece, they were published as Scenes from Childhood The collection centred on Träumerei which is the seventh and the most famous piece in the collection.
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Advanced – Professional Level Pieces
Lastly, these selections are most suited for advanced to professional level musicians and contain some of the most challenging Schumann compositions. The publications below include complete works, and collections of popular pieces.
Schumann's Papillons are published as part of ABRSM's 'Signature' Series - a series of authoritative performing editions of standard keyboard works, prepared from original sources by leading scholars. Includes informative introductions and performance notes.
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Schumann’s turbulent love-affair with the barely eighteen-year-old Ernestine von Fricken, though strong enough to lead to a secret engagement, lasted only a few months. Nevertheless, it managed to give rise to one of his most frequently played compositions, Carnaval.
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Kreisleriana, Op. 16, is a composition in eight movements by Robert Schumann for solo piano, subtitled Phantasien für das Pianoforte. The work's title was inspired by the character of Johannes Kreisler from the works of E. T. A. Hoffmann.
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Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), is a set of nine short solo piano pieces; it was his last major cycle for solo piano.
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Schumann's A minor concerto is considered as the ultimate romantic piano concerto. The state of the sources is unfortunately patchy, as the original version of the first movement, a Phantasie of 1841 that was given two trial performances, can no longer be reconstructed. On the other hand, the posthumously published score raises certain questions, since it diverges from the editions authorized by Schumann and published in 1846, after the first performance.
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Consisting of seven volumes, the complete piano works of Robert Schumann are available here edited by Clara Schumann.
Volumes two to seven are available here.
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Gift Ideas
Schumann's works for piano solo in one box set. The Schumann expert Ernst Herttrich has closely examined each edition and also dedicated himself to those works that were previously missing from Henle's catalogue. Arranged clearly according to opus numbers, it includes not only all of Schumann’s piano works, revised to reflect the latest scholarly findings, but also informative accompanying texts, alternative versions and more.
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The New Robert Schumann Edition (RSA) is intended as a historico-critical edition of the collected works. This volume includes six piano works; Sonata No. 2, Op. 22, Nachtstücke Op. 23, Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op. 26, Drei Romanzen Op. 28, Scherzo, Gigue, Romanze and Fughette Op. 32, and 43 Clavierstücke für die Jugend Op. 68.
Browse more available volumes in the series here.
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Ellena Taylor - Sheet Music and Books Manager
