THE CONCEPT OF CHROMATICISM IN ROBERT SCHUMANN’S KINDERSCENEN

Abstract

Music as an art represents composer’s ideas or mind. The ideas are induced or stimulated by their thoughts.  On this premise, this researcher derives the title with the aim of analysing an aspect of music - Chromaticism.Hence, this leads to deducing its symbolic meanings, which epitomisesociological traits, personal identity and emotional reaction of the selected composer.

The term chromatics is associated with colours. Chroma and chromaticism are two concepts that have been redefined several times through the centuries. The idea of relating colours to music is not new. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle unwittingly launched the challenging “Colour Music” in his work entitled De Sensu. Both Aristotle and Pythagoras had early considered the existing correlation between musical scale and colours (D.Margounakis 21). The conversion of sound to images has been a representation of the significant meanings between the two types of media. The method for converting images to music and vice-versa provides the area of computer music with a parameterized environment for audio-visual presentations.However, the theoretical approach to the determination of the chromatic index of the selected works of Robert Schumann will be deduced vividly. The theoretical methods to giving the meanings of chromatics in some selected the western musical works and themes will be enumeratedcomprehensively. The word ‘concept’ as used in the context of the subject matter is philosophical. This philosophy of concept provides the background to this study and this is viewed in line with the theory of chromatics. Therefore, this provides the basis for deriving the symbolic meanings of chromatics in the works of the chosen epoch (Nineteenth Century). However, analytical approach is given to the selected works of the composer of nineteenth century with a view to demystify the sociological and psychological meanings of chromatic employment - the main focus of the research.  The definition of chromatics provides a standard characterization: “In melodic and harmonic analysis the term ‘chromatic’ is generally applied to notes marked with accidentals foreign to the scale of the key in which the passage is written” (Dyson &Drabkin 32).The use of at least some pitches of the chromatic scale in addition to or instead of those of the diatonic scales of some particular keys can occur in limited degrees that do not detract from the sense of key or tonal center; thus it can function within the system of tonic – dominant- tonality. The definitions of chromatics (both in harmonic and melodic contexts) are the inspiration behind the choice of the selected works of Robert Schumann for symbolic deductions.