Schumann, Symphony No. 4 (1841 version)

Schumann’s compositional output falls neatly into periods that are categorized according to the genres – the piano works of the early years (1830-39), the Lieder year (1840), the symphonic year (1841), the chamber year (1842) and so on. Perhaps this is a result of him trying to impose order on, and give form to his wild imagination. The 4^th symphony was written during the symphonic phase of 1841 and actually came before the 2^nd and 3^rd symphonies, but the reception of its premiere was not exactly favourable and so the publication of the symphony was postponed. A revision of it was made in 1851 and published in 1853 as the 4^th symphony (and the original version was eventually published by Brahms in 1881).

Schumann later described this symphony as a symphonic fantasy due to the close thematic relationship share by the four movements and the way the movements lead to one another without a break in the musical flow. This subtitle also hints at the work’s unorthodox approach to symphonic form and leads to the bigger questions of where the Schumann symphonies sit in relation to those by Beethoven and Brahms, or if one should be comparing Schumann with Beethoven and Brahms at all.

The most unsettling feature of this symphony is the lack of recapitulations in the opening and the last movements – unsettling in terms of not fitting in with the Beethoven or even the Schubert model. Hand in hand with this, we also have an absence of structural tension as results of unassertive 2^nd subjects and uniformity of motivic material. What this simply means, however, is that the music has a disproportionate preoccupation with the present and a similarly disproportionate neglect on structure (perception of structure requires a balanced comprehension of past, present and future). The compositional process of Schumann is often remarked as being very quick and impulsive, and this preoccupation with the present is most likely a manifestation of his impulsive creative process. Hence, it would make more sense to treat this work as a free-flowing and through-composed fantasy, and take delight in the numerous inter-movement references without assigning them structural significances.

In his later years, Schumann seemed to have become more conscious of the generic requirement to have a purposeful discourse in a symphony. The revision of the 4^th symphony showed attempts to tone down his early tendencies of extemporization, such as repeating the exposition in the 1^st movement to establish the sonata form, and also having a clear break between the transition to the finale and the finale itself.

October 2012