Tuesday, July 30, 2013

First Loss: The Reversal of Logic

Schumann's "First Loss" in Album for the Young is a brilliant one-page study in what is so challenging about reading music.
  • The accents are on the wrong beats of the bar
  • The slurs, for the most part, extend over the bar line
  • The black keys drown out the white keys
  • The notes of resolution are not arrival points
The whole thing is about disappointment.