The story of Robert and Clara Schumann is a familiar one: He was a brooding, poetic soul with a passion for music, literature and composition and she the prodigious daughter of his piano teacher. Their love was one that overcame distance, disapproval, and even illness as Robert’s health gradually declined.
The Arabeske, Op. 18 was composed during the couple’s three-year engagement while Clara was touring abroad. One of his experiments in small-form writing, the Arabeske is an exquisite example of Schumann’s ability to compact immense ideas into concise creations.
In this seemingly-simple piece, reflections of the composer can be discovered. Always torn between his two loves — music and literature — Schumann put elements of both into his work. In the notes of the central motif, we can hear the outline of his beloved’s name: the main theme hangs upon the notes “C” and “A” and might be interpreted as the spelling of “Clara” using the musical alphabet.
Here is pianist Wilhelm Kempff to play this for you:
