Longing for the Tonic in Robert Schumann’s ‘Meine Rose’ Op. 90 No. 2 and Fantasiestück Op. 73 No. 1

Abstract

This article studies two late works by Schumann: the Lied ‘Meine Rose’, Op. 90 No. 2 (1850), and the Fantasiestück, Op. 73 No. 1, for clarinet and piano (1849). It analyses the works in the light of nineteenth-century developments in approaches to the treatment of tonality. Both ‘Meine Rose’ and the Fantasiestück are miniatures and can thus be linked with music-making in private salons. The choice of the two works is based on musical as well as aesthetic factors. Musically, they both avoid confirming their main tonic in a firm manner, a feature that the article links with aesthetics of the time. Most importantly, the music's inability to secure a firm tonal centre can be associated with early nineteenth-century aesthetics of longing: in the same way that unsuccessful attempts to secure the tonic underlie the two Schumann works, so contemporaneous aesthetics saw human existence as being governed by unfulfilled longing. The paper argues that in ‘Meine Rose’ the Romantic ideology can be connected to transcendental qualities associated with nature, while the Fantasiestück can be associated more generally with infinity and longing. In both works, it is precisely Schumann's special treatment of the tonic, drastically departing from Classical conventions, that justifies connecting the works with these aesthetic issues.