“L’orchestration mouvante” du Concerto pour piano de Schumann: genèse et perspectives

Abstract

The orchestration of Schumann’s Piano Concerto is considered revealing of the composer’s particular approach to the concerto orchestra. The rejection of exact doublings, the alternations between different woodwind instruments and the piano, the concerto-like solos in the orchestra, all preclude textural and timbral monotony, add plasticity to the orchestral texture and modify the character of the sound. Processes occur with such dynamic vitality that a “moving orchestration” effect appears. Not only the concerto’s aesthetics, style, and form, but surprisingly its orchestration had an impact on Schumann’s successors.