Novelletten, Op. 21

• Schumann composed this set of eight piano miniatures in early 1838; he had finished a complete draft by April of that year.¹
• Schumann coined the term “novellette” as a music genre for this set of piano miniatures. He likely was making a literary reference (a “novelette” is a short novel or novella). The name was also a nod to the famous soprano Clara Novello.²
  • Schumann may have received some flack for this from his then-girlfriend, Clara Wieck – he wrote to her that he named the set after Clara Novello instead of her because,“’Wiecketten’ doesn’t sound good enough.”³
  • Robert did pop a secret note to Clara in his Novelletten: the final piece in the set contains a quote from her Nocturne Op.6 No. 2⁴ (composed two years earlier.)
• Listen for: contrapuntal writing: Schumann had recently been studying Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier when he wrote his Novelletten.⁵

“I’m playing with forms.”

Robert Schumann, to Clara Wieck, on his Novelletten.⁶

1. John Daverio and Eric Sams, “Schumann, Robert,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed July 30, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040704.
2. Peter F. Ostwald, Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985), 138.
3. Ibid.
4. Daverio and Sams, “Schumann, Robert,” Grove Music Online.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.