One of the most popular types of music in the Romantic era was the “character piece,” a short piece of music, usually for piano, that carries a poetic title to suggest the meaning behind the music.

One of the most popular types of music in the Romantic era was the “character piece,” a short piece of music, usually for piano, that carries a poetic title to suggest the meaning behind the music. Amongst character pieces, Schumann’s collection called “Scenes from Childhood” (he was German, so he called it he called it “Kinderszenen”) was one of the most popular. Here is a link for the Wikipedia entry on this collection:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinderszenen (Links to an external site.)

The Wikipedia page for Kinderszenen (“Scenes from Childhood”) lists the titles for all of the pieces in the collection (both in German and in English), and also provides recordings for each of the pieces.

Your assignment this week is to choose one of the pieces from the collection, listen to it several times carefully, and then talk about what connection there might be between the title of the piece you chose and the music itself: use specific musical vocabulary as well as time markers to detail your points.