Form, Diversity, and Lack of Fulfillment in the First Movement of Schumann’s Fantasie op. 17

[1] In an 1844 review of Schumann's piano music, Carl Kossmaly-critic, composer, and member of the "Davidsbund"-discussed the former's Fantasie in C major, op. 17:The "Fantasie for Pianoforte," dedicated to Liszt, offers without a doubt abundant examples of the lavishly proliferating, most stimulating excesses that are characteristic of the new-Romantic hyper-ingenuity. Eccentricity, arbitrariness, lack of definition, and disregard for boundaries could hardly be taken any further: just as the striving for originality results, every now and then, in the extravagant and the unnatural, so does a much-appreciated sense of effusiveness turn occasionally into bombast and complete incomprehensibility.(1) (Kossmaly 1844, 20)According to Kossmaly, Schumann had allowed himself to become "afflicted" (heimgesucht) with a passing enthusiasm for the "new-Romantic school"-a school that espoused a "view in which the notion of 'musical Romanticism' appeared to be taken to the extreme and too far into the arbitrary, the eccentric, and the formless" (Kossmaly 1844, 19).(2) And this sense of excess and eccentricity permeated not just form but also expressiveness. The new-Romantic school required, in fact, "that one would overflow continuously with the rarest perceptions, the most noble and sumptuous feelings; that one would have up one's sleeves and readily available the most profound things, the most exceptional maxims and artistic truths; and that one would spout incessantly the most delicate and subtle effusiveness" (Kossmaly 1844, 19).(3)[2] Contrary to what these excerpts might suggest, the overall tone of the review was one of praise. Kossmaly recognized Schumann's talent, celebrated his constant striving for originality, discussed numerous other pieces of his in an entirely favorable light, and acknowledged that the Fantasie itself had many a "noble stone. . .in the rough" (Kossmaly 1844, 19).(4) Even in his criticism, he conceded that the composer's extravagance could be understood in connection with his effort to counteract the emptiness, banality, and shallow virtuosity that-they both felt-characterized so much of the music around them. The Fantasie-it seemed-was a case of "too much of a good thing" (Kossmaly 1844, 18). One can only presume, then, that it was this over-saturation of originality and excess-which Schumann had failed to rein in, and flouted traditional form-that accounted for the element of "incomprehensibility" mentioned by Kossmaly.(5)[3] Given its reception at the time, it is hardly surprising that the work should have continued to generate the amount of literature that we have seen.(6) In an oft-quoted statement that resonates with Kossmaly's assessment of the work, Charles Rosen has called the Fantasie "the monument that commemorates the death of the Classical style"-a testimony to its extraordinary originality and expressive power (Rosen 1997, 513).[4] But the Fantasie has generated a wealth of literature not just because of its elusive form and overt expressiveness but also because of its position at the intersection of important issues in Schumann scholarship. The composer's claim that the piece was a lament for Clara (Clara and Robert Schumann 1984-87, [1984] 126); his suggestion that she was the "leiser Ton" in Friedrich Schlegel's epigraph (Clara and Robert Schumann 1984-87, [1987] 562);(7) and his linking of the piece to their forced and painful separation in the summer of 1836 (Clara and Robert Schumann 1984-87, [1987] 368, 495) have made it a locus classicus for explorations of connections between his music and his personal life (Daverio 1997, 154; Hoeckner 1997, 109-31). The work's long and complicated compositional history and its numerous title changes have invited speculation on the question of genre.(8) And a tradition that identifies the closing section of its first movement as a reference to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte has brought to the fore the composer's well-documented use of borrowed material. …