Talk:Bunte Blätter

Clara Schumann’s role

This is little more than a placeholder article at present; my long curiosity about the Bunte Blätter, and the well-established fact Clara Schumann compliled and edited all her husband’s late works for publication with an eye towards posterity, choosing not just their opus numbers but the “arc” of their musical development—with the benefit of hindsight?—leaves open countless questions: these fragments are indisputably personal, composed like youthful valentines from a constant but forgetful lover... And why the title, Bunte Blätter? Was that a cop-out, a bunt in itself? Too much we don’t know, and may never know Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 10:01, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
Dear Vesuvius, is that really your name? They must have given you hell at school. I would like to know more about the circumstances of publication of these pieces. My guess (and it is only a guess, co's i've never done the homework) is that the Bunte Blätter are in fact what the German word suggests . . . . not leaves but pages. I think he had an urgent message from his publisher saying ``Send me some more stuff!" and he sent the publisher the sweepings from his studio floor. No doubt musicologists have covered acres of—leaves—with explanations of how the pieces fit together but i don't believe a word of it. The internal evidence is compelling: several of these pieces tail off in a thoroughly unconvincing and unsatisfactory way. The Langsam (entitled just `V') for example, and the magical little waltz in A-flat, number III. These leaves were languishing on the studio floor beco's he didn't know how to wrap them up properly. In some ways this makes them more interesting than the properly completed pieces rather than less because they give us a sight of his work-in-progress. He had an idea and of course wrote it down but then had to take it somewhere but he didn't always know how to. I have always thought that Mondnacht is another example of this kind of thing. A good idea that he couldn't work out properly. But less of this. Let us get a Schumann scholar to tell us about the circumstances of the publication tf@dpmms.cam.ac.uk118.67.199.162 (talk) 03:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)