Robert Schumann - Kinderszenen Op. 15, "Scenes From Childhood", 1838. 00:38 Scene No.1 | Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and Peoples) http://youtu.be/7lihXS3GLw0 02:09 Scene No.2 | Kuriose Geschichte (A Curious Story) 03:15 Scene No.3 | Hasche-Mann (Blind Man's Bluff) 03:48 Scene No.4 | Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child) 04:38 Scene No.5 | Glückes genug (Happy Enough) 05:17 Scene No.6 | Wichtige Begebenheit (An Important Event) 06:09 Scene No.7 | Träumerei (Dreaming) http://youtu.be/6z82w0l6kwE 08:43 Scene No.8 | Am Kamin (At the Fireside) 10:02 Scene No.9 | Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobbyhorse) 10:43 Scene No.10 | Fast zu ernst (Almost Too Serious) 12:12 Scene No.11 | Fürchtenmachen (Frightening) 13:52 Scene No.12 | Kind im Einschlummern (Child Falling Asleep) 15:31 Scene No.13 | Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks) Vladimir Horowitz in Vienna, 1987. Kinderszenen, "Scenes from Childhood", Opus 15 is a set of thirteen pieces of music for piano written on during the spring of 1838. In this work, Schumann provides us with his adult reminiscences of childhood. When Schumann wrote Kinderszenen, he was deeply in love with Clara Wieck, soon to become his wife over the objections of her overbearing father. The composer worked at a feverish pace, composing these pieces in just several days. Actually, he wrote about thirty small pieces, but trimmed them to the thirteen that comprise the set. The 13 pieces showcase their creator's musical imagination at the peak of its poetic clarity. As a result, the Kinderszenen have long been staples of the repertoire as utterly charming yet substantial miniatures, the sort of compact keyboard essays in which Schumann's genius found full expression. In March of that year, Schumann wrote to Clara, "I have been waiting for your letter and have in the meantime filled several books with pieces.... You once said to me that I often seemed like a child, and I suddenly got inspired and knocked off around 30 quaint little pieces.... I selected several and titled them Kinderszenen. You will enjoy them, though you will need to forget that you are a virtuoso when you play them." The Kinderszenen are a touching tribute to the eternal, universal memories and feelings of childhood from a nostalgic adult perspective. They are fairly simple in terms of execution, and, of course, their subject matter deals with the world of children. From spirited games to sleeping and dreaming, Kinderszenen captures the joys and sorrows of childhood in a series of musical snapshots. Schumann described the titles as "nothing more than delicate hints for execution and interpretation". Schumann claimed that the picturesque titles attached to the pieces were added as an afterthought in order to provide subtle suggestions to the player, a model Debussy followed decades later in his Preludes. Scene No. 1, "Von fremden Ländern und Menschen" (Of Foreign Lands and People), opens with a lovely melody whose basic motivic substance