Played by Lixin Zhang at the 2018 Wallace International Piano Festival, 15 July 2018.
Lixin Zhang Photo: Lewis Eady Charitable Trust
Schumann was in a jokey mood for these Novellettes. He wrote them for his beloved Clara Wieck, whom he was later to marry. Referring to another Clara, the famous soprano Clara Novello, in a punning way, he wrote in a letter to Wieck:
“I have written such a frightful amount of music for you over the past three weeks – pranks, Egmontian tales, family scenes with fathers, a wedding, in short, extremely engaging things. I gave this piece the title Novelletten because your name is Clara and Wiecketten does not sound good enough.”
Recorded by RNZ Concert, 15 July 2018
Engineer and producer: Tim Dodd
