Robert Schumann / Peter Wittrich:
The Merry Peasant

- Sheet music for piano -

With its humorous variations on a theme of Robert Schumann, the Fröhliche Landmann [The Merry Peasant] slips into different roles. Peter Wittrich sets out with him on a journey through time from the Baroque to the modern era.

In ten variations, Wittrich makes the "Landmann" familiar with the different styles and famous themes of the music epochs by treating Robert Schumann's popular theme contrapuntally in the sense that Bach imposes Mozart's sonata form onto it, or letting the "Landmann" dance a proud polonaise with Frédéric Chopin. Der fröhliche Landmann also becomes a jazz pianist and improvises with Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Petersen in a blues sound before he indulges, in a Grand finale, in the brilliant virtuosity of the 19th century together with Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Rachmaninov.

Apart from performing the entire work, individual variations can be arranged in small cycles according to preferences in style, e.g. for "Jugend musiziert", or counter-posed against the original work. A fresh and entertaining contribution to the Schumann Year 2010.
 

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