Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Papillons for Piano Op. 2 (1829–31)

Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Children’s Corner for Piano (1906–08)

I. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum
II. Jimbo’s Lullaby
III. Serenade for the Doll
IV. The Snow is Dancing
V. The Little Shepherd
VI. Golliwogg’s Cakewalk

Robert Schumann
Papillons Op. 2
Staged Performance

Intermission

Claude Debussy
La Boîte à joujoux (The Toy Box) (1913)
Staged Performance

Prélude. Le Sommeil de la boîte (The Toy Box Asleep)
Premier tableau. La Magasin des jouets (The Toy Shop)
Deuxième tableau. Le Champ de bataille (The Battlefield)
Troisième tableau. La Bergerie à vendre (Sheepfold for Sale)
Quatrième tableau. Après fortune fait (After Making a Fortune)

Theatrical Chamber Music
Sir András Schiff and the Salzburg Marionette Theater Perform Schumann and Debussy

Michael Horst

Contrasts and Changes of Scene
Schumann’s Papillons

Featuring works by Robert Schumann and Claude Debussy, tonight’s performance promises not only a rich selection of colorful and sensual piano music. Thanks to the involvement of the world-renowned Salzburg Marionette Theater, the program also has a visual and theatrical dimension that allows new perspectives on familiar works—especially when, as is the case with Papillons, one of them is heard first as a purely instrumental piece and then performed a second time as a ballet for marionettes.

It was hardly a coincidence that Robert Schumann chose the waltz as the basis for his early piano cycle, a sequence of 11 short dances plus a finale composed in 1831. With the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the waltz had become the undisputed number-one dance across Europe. In remarkable contrast to the waning importance of the piano sonata genre, sequences of waltzes became increasingly popular among composers writing for the piano—and enjoyed great success with audiences as well. Schumann himself was an admirer of Franz Schubert’s Valses nobles D 969; even as a teenager in his native Zwickau, he had played Carl Maria von Weber’s Aufforderung zum Tanz at a public concert.

Unlike Schubert’s waltzes or other works of the period, Papillons is notable for the stark contrasts between the individual dances—a kind of abrupt change of scene that is certainly due in part to the work’s literary model, Jean Paul’s novel Flegeljahre (known in English, if at all, as Walt and Vult: Or, the Twins). Inspired by a ball scene in the book’s final chapter, Schumann chose not only the title Papillons, which suggests the ephemeral atmosphere of a carnival ball with its association of butterflies, but he also found the connecting element that would bind the individual dances, drafted like diary entries in various sketchbooks, together. In retrospect, however, the composer found “the changes too fast, the colors too varied,” summarizing: “This self-destruction of the Papillons might have something critical, but it certainly has no artistic merit. One might drink a glass of champagne between the movements.”

Apart from the strong contrasts in the individual dances’ character, the harsh sequence of different keys is notable as well, as is the wealth of musical invention: the simple Waltz No. 1 is followed by a nervous Prestissimo, then a study on a canon as No. 3, whose literary equivalent in Jean Paul’s novel might be a “huge boot slipping about, wearing itself.” Only towards the end, Schumann expands the scope of the pieces; the Finale, No. 12, is introduced by the often-quoted “Dance of the Grandfathers,” before the music reverts to No. 1 before ending the colorful melee of this carnival ball with six strokes of the bell sounding midnight.

A Father’s Declaration of Love
Debussy’s Children’s Corner

Looking at Claude Debussy’s Children’s Corner from two different perspectives almost suggests itself: on the one hand, there is the pianistic aspect, with the 46-year-old composer taking another step on the path of exploring the sonic possibilities of the instrument, a journey that would culminate a few years later in his two volumes of Préludes (1910–13). The other aspect is the very personal note expressed in the unusual dedication—“To my dear little Chouchou, with her father’s tender apologies for the following.”

In the years after 1900, Debussy had finally brought a measure of calm to his personal life. After several affairs and two lengthy, turbulent relationships, both of which failed, the mentally fragile composer met Emma Bardac, the mother of one of his students, a woman who was intellectually his equal and financially independent from an earlier marriage to a banker. When Claude and Emma were finally able to marry in 1908, their daughter Emma-Claude, known affectionally as Chouchou, was already three years old. The six-part piano cycle Children’s Corner was published the same year.

Contrary to the implications of its title, the composition was not conceived for a child’s piano fingers or ears. Its technical challenges are significant, and most beginners at the keyboard would stumble even over the antics of the very first piece, Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum. Like Schumann’s Kinderszenen, the work is an adult’s declaration of love for the world of children, their toys and dreams—their very own world, where little things have great meaning. The English titles of the individual numbers are original, and perhaps due to the composer’s enthusiasm for Anglo-Saxon culture; on the other hand, they may also have been a familial way of thanking Chouchou’s English governess for her services.

The opening piece, an ironic homage to Muzio Clementi’s famous collection of etudes, Gradus ad Parnassum (“Ascent to Parnassus,” 1817), soon leaves the repetitious C-major figures of the opening bars behind, advancing towards very different harmonic realms, the piano part taking on a special quality with the player’s hands reaching across each other. In Jimbo’s Lullaby, the left hand’s bass line affectionately traces the clumsy steps of a toy elephant, a stuffed animal; but a French lullaby, artfully harmonized by Debussy, finally succeeds in putting Jimbo to sleep. Serenade for the Doll cleverly combines guitar imitations with harmonies constructed from fourths and fifths.

An unusual study in sound is presented in The Snow is Dancing: a rhythmically homogeneous, but harmonically shifting accompaniment in sixteenth notes runs through the entire piece like a dense veil; above this, a simple melody unfolds (“tender and sad”), but all elements of disquiet are quickly extinguished by the falling snow. In The Little Shepherd, the title character plays his flute—the piece consists of just 31 measures full of bucolic melancholy and hints of dance-like cheerfulness. Golliwogg’s Cakewalk brings the suite to a spirited close, in an homage to American ragtime, whose popularity had reached Europe at the time. With not-so-subtle irony, Debussy quotes the opening bars of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde—a detail the performer of the world premiere, Harold Bauer, was said to have missed nevertheless. Likewise, little Chouchou presumably did not notice when she attempted to play the pieces a few years later. Tragically, she was denied further development of her musical talents: not even a year after the death of her father in March 1918, she succumbed to diphtheria at the age of only 13.

“Giving the Marionettes a Soul”
Debussy’s La Boîte à joujoux

“András Schiff was keen to play Schumann’s Papillons as absolute music before we repeat the piece with the marionettes,” recalls Philippe Brunner, artistic director of the Salzburg Marionette Theater since 2019. In 2014, the work joined the repertoire of this storied theater company, which has its home in the building of the Salzburg Landestheater. The tale, presented here as a ballet, resulted from the connection to Jean Paul’s novel, Schumann’s source of inspiration. It tells of two brothers, Walt and Vult, who woo the same woman, Wina. “We turned this love triangle into a purely pantomime story,” Brunner explains. “The faces remain neutral, like a canvas onto which the audience can project its own impressions.”

While one of the brothers is a good dancer, the other has little talent for this—a constellation that lends itself to assigning certain numbers of the piano cycle to each. Finding the right timing for the sequence of dances, says Brunner, is the special achievement of director Thomas Reichert: “If a marionette bops around, it might be amusing at first, but to make a good performance, the audience has to be able to feel that it has a soul—which requires a certain slowness.”

The collaboration with András Schiff began with the staging of Debussy’s children’s ballet La Boîte à joujoux (The Toy Box) in 2010. Originally intended by the composer for a marionette company, the work was first published in a piano version in 1913. The troubles of World War I prevented him from completing the instrumentation. After Debussy’s death, his friend, the composer André Caplet, created an orchestral version used for the posthumous world premiere of La Boîte à joujoux in Paris in 1919, which was performed by professional dancers.

Despite a few later productions by other dance companies, the work has remained a rarity both in the theater and in the concert hall. “There were no historical models for us to draw on,” says Brunner, “so we designed all new sets and costumes.” Unlike at their home in Salzburg, the touring production shown at the Pierre Boulez Saal is presented by only four puppeteers, who are visible to the audience; the staging by Hinrich Horstkotte has the appropriate “toy box look,” according to Brunner, allowing for the necessary flexibility when changing between the four sets.

After all, there is plenty of action in the 30-minute piece. More than 25 puppets must be handled—including the three main characters and several other figures, various animals, and the personnel of classic commedia dell’arte. Entrances, exits, and changes of scenery take place in rapid succession; the music illustrates and comments upon the action in a witty, clever manner. “Needless to say, it’s a particular joy to be able to work with such a wonderful pianist as András Schiff,” says Brunner, who is one of the puppeteers himself. “This made it possible for us to really develop the piece together: how much time is required for the music, how much time do we need—until it’s all combined at the end.”

Like Children’s Corner, La Boîte à joujoux is far too sophisticated musically to be intended solely for children’s ears. Bringing 35 years of experience as a composer to the project, Debussy combines trumpet calls with music-box sounds and Indian melodies (for the elephant in the first scene) in a highly virtuosic manner, while also “hiding” various musical quotations in the score, including the Soldier’s March from Gounod’s opera Faust (in the second scene) and Mendelssohn’s famous Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream (in the third scene, an idyllic shepherds’ pastoral). Under the hands of a master such as András Schiff, for this program the piano is transformed into an entire orchestra.

Michael Horst is a freelance music journalist based in Berlin who writes for newspapers, radio stations, and magazines, as well as giving pre-concert talks. He has published opera guides on Puccini’s Tosca and Turandot and translated books by Riccardo Muti and Riccardo Chailly from Italian to German.

Translation: Alexa Nieschlag