# Is this considered a "quotation"?



## mossyembankment (Jul 28, 2020)

Schumann is known for including quotations and references to his earlier works, and these are often analyzed - but I haven't found any mention of this one. Is this too attenuated/dissimilar to be considered a quotation?

In Kreisleriana (1838) No. 4, there is a theme that repeats throughout, you can hear it clearly stated at about 0:00-0:30, 1:17-1:31 and also at 3:05-3:35.






Then in the final song of Dichterliebe (1840), during the piano coda, from about 3:20-3:38:






Obviously they aren't identical, but to me the resemblance is strong enough that I'm curious whether it was an intentional reference (esp. given that he was known to do this). On the other hand, he reused material from the violin concerto in composing the theme for the Ghost Variations, apparently without realizing it - but this was more than ten years later when he was in a much worse mental state.

Thoughts?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Some resemblance there, indeed.

Here's a thought, plausible or not I won't argue: Remember that Schumann was quite a literary fellow. The _Kreisleriana_ was apparently inspired by E. T. A. Hoffmann's eccentric conductor Johannes Kreisler, a character of varying moods, resembling Schumann's own "Florestan" and "Eusebius," the two characters the composer used to indicate his own contrasting impulsive and dreamy sides. That final song of the _Dichterliebe _ suggests a similar schizophrenic scenario, one in which the vocalist is set to bury, in his large coffin, both angry, bitter dreams and his love and his suffering.

I can see how the composer might have felt a similar sprit between these two musical passages and composed the music for the later one, perhaps even unaware of a tonal similarity to his earlier work, since it came from the same "resource" of his heart.


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## mossyembankment (Jul 28, 2020)

Very interesting points. Yes, I was wondering if it may have been intentional, but it definitely could have been another instance of accidental self-quotation...


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

mossyembankment said:


> Very interesting points. Yes, I was wondering if it may have been intentional, but it definitely could have been another instance of accidental self-quotation...


"...accidental self-quotation."?

Perhaps a better term might be "subconscious self-quotation".


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