Playing Schumann Again for the First Time

Bobby Mitchell
Promotors: Matthias Heyman, Jan Michiels, Boyan Vodenitcharov

How can one learn to improvise convincingly within the context of nineteenth-century piano repertoire? And why is it important to improvise on this repertoire in the twenty-first century? Using the music of Robert Schumann as a starting point, Bobby Mitchell’s doctoral research, Playing Schumann Again for the First Time, answers these questions through methods for a pianistic practice driven by experimentation that strives to find ever more layers where improvisation can take place, both in the musical practice of sound and notation. These methods of practice are contextualized through a discussion of the presence of improvisation in western classical music practice in the nineteenth century. They are then substantiated by a plea to use improvisation as a working tool to rethink the current performance practice of nineteenth-century music. Improvisation and the concepts that underpin this term will also be discussed, and the knowledge gained in this project will be described as improvisation-as-practice as well as improvisation-as-art.