Secret Messages in Schumann’s Music: A Study of the Influence of German Literature and Cipher on the Music of Robert Schumann

Abstract

As with romanticism’s metaphysical nature, the genres of art in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century were an amalgamation of different art forms and a tapestry of figures and thoughts from music, philosophy, poetic writings, and utopian ideologies. Art itself was viewed as limitless and provided infinite possibilities of expression. The dualism in romantic expression often oscillated between abstraction and sensuality, and as a result, there was almost never a sole art form expressing a single feeling or a thought. Exploring the secret messages hidden within Schumann’s piano music and their relationship with German literature and cryptography offers a deeper understanding of why Schumann’s music is so contrasting and fragmented but still logical in a broader sense. In this study, I reveal the relationship between romanticism and Schumann’s music, and explain how ideas from literary romanticism transformed Schumann’s compositional techniques. Excerpts from Davidsbündlertänze, op. 6, Carnaval, op. 9, and Kreisleriana, op. 16 serve as examples of Schumann’s connection between his tonal language and specific literary sources. In the first chapter, I examine the narrative strategies of Jean Paul that Schumann replicated in his music, including paired characters, defamiliarization, teleology, digression plotting, humor- contrast and the German rhetorical device Wit. The second chapter turns to the influence of E.T.A. Hoffmann and examines Kreisleriana as an illustration of the confluence between the two figures’ works. In the third chapter, I discuss the secret messages veiled in Schumann’s music, especially through cryptography and special meaningful quotations from other composers. Through the study and examination of literature and non-musical elements present in Schumann’s work, a more comprehensive view of the composer and his music emerges.