The Metaphor of Expanse: Romantic Concept of Sound and Schumann’s Piano in the light of Piano Performance’s Trends in the First Third of the 19th Century

Perfomance style and peculiarities of piano’s texture by R. Schumann are characterized in this paper as one of the impressive manifestations of Romantic aesthetics, in particular, its desire to portray the world in its eternal creation, in its unceasing changeability. Feeling of infinity characteristic for painting and literature in the first third of the 19th century also distinguishes the Romantic piano performance which has embodied the intuition of spatialness of the sound, its universal boundlessness (in contrast to style brilliant, with its clear and sharp articulation). Colouristic effects in Schumann’s piano playing recollected by contemporaries (in particular, almost uninterrupted pedalling) extended his experience as a composer. In the finest transformations of piano texture, in the alternation of sonoric clearing and fading the riches of the sound are revealed and the feeling of infinite horizon, the feeling of “immeasurable vague expanse” (Schlegel)  arises.