Carnaval

Along with the Papillons, the Davidsbündlertänze and the Kreisleriana, Robert Schumann’s Carnaval op. 9 is one of the composer’s most important piano cycles. Similar to the Faschingsschwank from Vienna op. 26, the individual character pieces refer to carnivalesque scenes of a masked ball, attended not only by the composer himself (under the pseudonyms Florestan and Eusebius), but also by other representatives of his field such as Frédéric Chopin and Niccolò Paganini as well as his later wife Clara (as Chiarina) take part. The new edition is based on the Urtext of the New Schumann Complete Edition. In the absence of manuscript sources (with the exception of sketches), the edition can essentially only be based on the German first edition; the incomplete French first edition was used for a critical comparison. The notes on interpretation take into account the instruments of Schumann’s time as well as historical sources on performance practice.