Happy Sunday everybody! I hope that you are all doing well! Today will be one of my last few posts for this year. I thought that I would share a deeper side of me in this one. I hope that you all enjoy it!

One thing that I have learned by growing up in a strict traditional household practicing a different culture is that people who are not like you want to hold you back, make you more like them. Both of my parents were born and raised in India, coming to the United States for their education and building a great life for my brother and me. I grew up practicing Hinduism, taking part in incredible traditional Indian festivals, and when compared to my friends, I was generally sheltered and not allowed to partake in as much. Initially, it used to bother me when I felt that I was being held back by my culture and religion, feeling as if I was not allowed to do everything I wanted, not allowed to be like the other kids around me. This caused me to resent my culture and religion and run away from it for many years…

However, what I have come to understand as I have grown and matured is that my culture and the core values that my parents have imparted me with are what have made me who I truly am. Growing up in a primarily Caucasian society, I would be constantly berated and belittled for being different. I became used to hearing,

“What are you eating?”

“What are you wearing?”

“Why aren’t you allowed to do this?”

Now, I understand that I was not held back by my family nor my culture, or religion. Rather, I was held back by the belief that I had to be like everybody else around me. I was held back by the belief that being different was wrong. I was held back thinking that my culture, something that I am now so proud of, was holding me back from doing the same things my friends were doing. I have come to learn time and time again how important it is to pull against anybody or anything that holds you back, even when that person is yourself. My own thoughts, perpetuated by the actions and words of others around me, held me back from embracing a beautiful culture that has made me who I am today. I have learned how important it is to stay true to yourself and your roots.

In this piece, done in colored pencil and gold leafing, I demonstrate being held back literally. I show a depiction of myself reaching out to the viewer, dressed in a traditional sari, attempting to pull against the two hands on either side of me trying to hold me back. By wearing the sari I am embracing my culture, adding a layer of traditional Indian heritage with the gold leafing and garb. The hands represent the various forces that are holding me back from embracing myself. This piece was so cathartic to create both in its message as well as through the technique of foreshortening.

I have been meaning to write this post for some time but was wary of sharing and did not completely know how to put my thoughts into words. I hope that everything I talked about made some type of sense and that you all enjoyed reading some of my realizations and epiphanies. Thank you all so much for taking the time out of your day to read my words. As always, if anything that I discussed in this post stood out or if any questions arise please feel free to comment and share your thoughts! Looking forward to next Sunday.

~ Riya

Personal website:   https://riyarts.weebly.com/

There are times when I have to force myself

Not to taste the sound of abandoned thoughts. 

Distractions that distort creative wealth

Sometimes keep newness from changing to rot.

I remember when I was able to 

Keep the words changing and stable because

Bumps that come with the world were ones I knew.

I wish the poem was done when I was,

And not after my fingers squirmed to find

Delete, eraser, the ability

To seek solace while striking through my 

Careful meaning etched with a pen that sees.

I am counting all the lines I wrote in, 

Hoping I can find an answer within.

So you’re at the door to a concert, anticipating a night of beautiful music full of romanticism and grandeur. Someone stops you at the door. They give you a booklet. What is this?? Reading material for the concert? Will the concert be so tedious that the audience is handed a short story to occupy themselves with? At the top it reads “a listener’s guide to Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze”. Hm, a program note, how precocious!

Program notes help contextualize music and are helpful to even the most educated of audiences. For unfrequent concert goers, these program notes ground unfamiliar music to real life, the conception of the piece and what the composer might have wanted to get across. In most cases, program notes are welcome. Only in exceptional cases are program notes unwelcome, cumbersome and hindering the many different interpretations of the music. However, Schumann demands Program Notes!

Here’s Why:

Background

Schumann is a German romantic composer, pianist, and influential music critic who lived from 1810-1856. He wrote a prolific amount of piano music, chamber music, songs, and symphonies. Despite his notoriety as a composer today, during his lifetime, he was mostly known as a music critic. He brought many prominent composers to fame including Chopin and Brahms. That being said, his writings were very important to him and the public. He was very well versed in literature and often would incorporate them into his works. Schumann was a romantic at heart and would include descriptive titles like, “Entirely redundantly Eusebius added the following, but his eyes spoke with rapture” which is the title of the last movement in Davidsbündlertänze. Without program notes, the audience is left in the dark about the context of his various titles.

Titles

I think the Schumann’s most inventive and descriptive titles come from his piano music. Since both him and his wife are pianists, this genre was probably the most accessible genre for him to write. It is also one of the most intimate instrumentations to write for as he generally wrote them for his wife to perform (he could not perform due to a hand injury). Generally, his titles for his movements reflect the tempo or speed at which he wants it to be played at. However, there are two key instances where he deviants from this in Davidsbündlertänze, the last movements of each book

no. 9 Here Florestan stopped and his lips trembled

no. 18 Entirely redundantly Eusebius added the following, but his eyes spoke with rapture

An average program note on Davidsbündlertänze would explain who Florestan and Eusebius are. A good program note would explain why they are placed at the end of each book. A great program note would explain how Schumann’s writings pertain to the piece and bring meaning to this romantic masterpiece.

Other depictive titles would include movements in Kinderszenen such as “child falling asleep” or “the poet speaks”. These types of titles only need a translation and any other explanation would be extraneous.

However, titles in Carnaval are names and an explanation of the event and who these people are would be necessary to give the context of the piece.

(one of my favorite movements from Carnaval)

Literature

Sometimes we need to include program notes to notify the audience of what is written before the piece. In both the Fantasy in C, op. 17, and Davidsbündertänze, there is an epigraph.

In the Fantasy, he prefaced the work with a quote from Schlegel:

Durch alle Töne tönet

Im bunten Erdentraum

Ein leiser Ton gezogen

Für den, der heimlich lauschet.

“Resounding through all the notes

In the earth’s colorful dream

There sounds a faint long-drawn note

For the one who listens in secret.”

Davidsbündlertänze is prefaced with this “old saying”

Old saying
In each and every age
joy and sorrow are mingled:
Remain pious in joy,
and be ready for sorrow with courage.

Musical allusions

As I mentioned before, Schumann was an avid music critic. He consumed music voraciously. Schumann would plant little Easter eggs in his music, quotes of melodies from other pieces, either quoting himself from the same piece, a past piece, or entirely new music.

In Davidsbündlertänze, he uses quotes the entire no. 2 Innig (inward) in no. 17 Wie aus der Ferne (as from the distance). Any audience member paying attention will recognize the tune right away and it’s such a magical moment anyway that mentioning it in the program notes would spoil it.

In Carnaval, he quotes his earlier piece Papillions op. 2 in no. 6 Florestan. I think it’s worthy to note because this quote gives more context to Carnaval as a piece. The inclusion and recognition of the quote would place the audience in a masquerade ball.

My last example of a musical allusion is the most poignant. In Davidsbündlertänze, Schumann uses the theme from Clara’s Mazurka to start the entire 30 min piece. He pays homage to her and signals that Clara is the starting point and inspiration of the piece. Schumann writes in another Clara homage in his Fantasy op. 17. Written for the Beethoven Monument, Schumann pays tribute by quoting from Beethoven’s song cycle An die ferne Geliebte (to the distant Beloved) at the very end of the first movement. He quotes the melody in Beethoven’s last song “Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder, die ich dir, Geliebte, sang.” (Take these songs/which I to you/Beloved/sing), unifying his love ode to his Beloved, Clara Schumann.

~

So, now you’ve found your seat and settled in for the concert about to happen, waiting for some beautiful Schumann melodies to wash over you. Read through those program notes and slip into the mind and shoes of Robert Schumann. Listen to the rhapsodies of love and desire with astute ears, a well-informed mind, and an open heart.