Friday, June 7, 2013

Schumann's "Melody"

The first piece in The Album for the Young, it is a perfect piece.  In very few notes it arouses the deepest sense of what constitutes melody and how the piano is admirably suited to sing.  Any set of three notes rising or falling has the power to tear your heart out.  How? By arousing the deepest sense of conflicting modality between each successive note.  How does it happen?  By listening, of course.