Humoreske op. 20 in B-flat-major is a romantic

Romantic music

Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

 piano piece

Piano Music

Piano Music is a suite of four short pieces composed by Alexina Louie in 1982 for the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects. The four pieces are The Enchanted Bells, Changes, Distant Memories, and Once upon a time....

 by Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....

, composed in 1839 and dedicated

Dedication

Dedication is the act of consecrating an altar, temple, church or other sacred building. It also refers to the inscription of books or other artifacts when these are specifically addressed or presented to a particular person. This practice, which once was used to gain the patronage and support of...

 to Julie von Webenau

Julie von Webenau

Julie von Webenau née Baroni-Cavalcabò, , was a German-Austrian composer. She was a student of Mozart's son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. In 1839 Robert Schumann dedicated his piece Humoreske Op. 20 to her...

. Schumann cited Jean Paul

Jean Paul

Jean Paul , born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, was a German Romantic writer, best known for his humorous novels and stories.-Life and work:...

´s style of humour as source of inspiration, although there are no direct programmatic

Program music

Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...

 links to Jean Paul´s oeuvre found in the piece.

It consists of seven sections (not originally indicated as such by the composer except for the last one, Zum Beschluss), to be played attacca after each other. Surprisingly enough most of the piece with few exceptions is set in the tonality of B-flat-major respectively g-minor. The musical texture and emotional tone, though, varies widely and differs greatly between the sections:

I. Einfach (B-flat-major, , M. M. = 80) - Sehr rasch und leicht (B-flat-major, ²/₄, M. M. = 138) - Noch rascher (g-minor) - Erstes Tempo - Wie im Anfang (B-flat-major)

II. Hastig (g-minor, ²/₄, M. M. = 126) - Nach und nach immer lebhafter und stärker (d-minor) - Wie vorher - Adagio

III. Einfach und zart (g-minor, , M. M. = 100) - Intermezzo (B-flat-major, ²/₄) - (M. M. = 100)

IV. Innig (B-flat-major, , M. M. = 116) - Schneller - (Tempo I)

V. Sehr lebhaft (g-minor/B-flat-major, ²/₄, M. M. = 76) - Immer lebhafter - Stretto

VI. Mit einigem Pomp (c-minor, , M. M. = 92)

Zum Beschluss. M. M. = 112 (B-flat-major) - Allegro

Sources

• Robert Schumann: Sämtliche Klavierwerke, Band IV, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 1988, pp. 1–29.