Carnaval by Robert Schumann, a composition for piano, consists of 22 pieces featuring masked characters. It was inspired by the closing chapter of a novel by Jean Paul, Flegeljahre, in which takes place a masked ball that Schumann wanted to recreate musically. He identified with the two protagonists of the story, Walt and Vult, twins as dissimilar as they could be, the former shy and dreamy, the latter insolent and acerbic. Schumann recognized in this opposition a replica of the duality inherent to his own nature. He transformed Walt and Vult into Eusebius and Florestan, the complementary pseudonymous characters of his own personality, who from then on were to be found throughout his work. Thus, just as in Schumann’s Carnaval, the themes of identity and dualism are the themes I will be concentrating on in my third movement.
What is an artist? What role do they play in society? Who am I? The artist or the mother? What mask must I wear? The few artworks exhibited here are experiments which attempt to provide answers to these questions and serve as reflection material for the production of this third movement..
