A movement with beauty, shape and a sense of space. The imitation principle is understandably very strong in this work composed, the music editor understands, when Schumann was intent on restoring rigour and confidence to his own compositional process. For the players there is surprisingly intensity and discipline needed to play this relatively short movement. Whilst this music references the past there is a romantic twist or two in the harmonic language. A tempo of 84 quarter note (crotchet) beats to the minute is used in the realisation. Trills begin on the note and have been written out in the first section of the score in the ossia staves. Understand that the melodic and rhythmic shapes of the ornaments are constant throughout the whole movement. The French word for study is Etude and those who develop or have developed a keen interest in music will be very aware of the many musical challenges associated with this word! Schumann’s Canonic Studies were composed in 1845 for pedal piano and subsequently arranged for piano duet / piano four hands by Georges Bizet. There are also other versions for organ, two pianos and string quartet. The accompaniment downloads available enable players to enjoy an ensemble music experience playing either the Primo or Secondo parts. The Primo part sounds on the one channel of the stereo signal and the Secondo part sounds on the other. Accompaniment 1 plays at 80 quarter note beats (crotchet) to the minute, Accompaniment 2 at 76 quarter note (crotchet) beats to the minute and Accompaniment 3 at 72 quarter note beats (crotchet) to the minute and Accompaniment 4 at 68 quarter note beats to the minute.. There is a two bar count in with the sound of a woodblock. When performing printing two pages of music onto one side of A4 offers a very practical solution for players.
