Robert Schumann - Album for the Young op. 68 - No. 1 - 34 - Part 1 by Robert von Heeren

This is the tracklist of CD1 of the Double CD, which I originally published in Oct. 2019 on amazon.com via Amazon's Media On Demand service (ASIN B07YTDP7KX), which has been closed by Amazon in August 2021, so this Double CD is no longer available there. Cover-Art by Manuela Buechler, AI Design, Switzerland.
This Doublealbum is the first of the series "Demanding piano music for children and students".

The "Album for the Young" (Album für die Jugend) was written in 1848. Schumann originally composed only a few short piano pieces, which he wanted to give to his eldest daughter Marie for her birthday as a gift. But Schumann had an idea: in his opinion, the piano pieces that the children had to learn in piano lessons at that time were musically bad. So, he could compose much more beautiful piano pieces for children and summarize them in one album. By the way: “Albums” were quite popular at that time and were just books with blank pages, so anything could be put or stuck into them. They were used to collect little things; hence each album became something individual and unique, a bit like a dairy. Encouraged by his wife Clara Schumann, he quickly composed more than 50 pieces. He removed many of them for unknown reasons. Maybe some of the pieces were in his eyes incomplete or not interesting enough or it was simply too much. He arranged the remaining pieces, limited the collection to 43 pieces and did in the same year sent it to his publisher. The other pieces, which he removed from the collection, appeared much later after Schumann's death and are often referred to as "Supplement" (a few pieces can be found on CD 2), but Schumann never meant to publish them.

From the very first bars of the Album, the piano player is kept in a good mood with swinging music but is at the same time challenged: as simple as the "Melody" or the "Warbling Song" may sound, these pieces are not easy to play! This starts with the choice of a suitable tempo, goes on to legato playing and phrasing, not to mention to come up with a beautiful “singing” piano tone. Schumann was obviously not interested in conceiving merely an educational textbook in the sense of a piano school for piano lessons. Instead, he wanted to bring the youth to the taste for wonderful - and nevertheless demanding - but still playable music. What a wonderful idea compared to the often-boring scales and other dry exercises (“Etudes”) that many piano students still suffer today…
From this point of view, one might think that the Album for the Young is not a textbook of piano playing, but simply a random collection of beautiful music for piano solo…

Not quite!

If you take a closer look at the pieces and their order, you will not only notice that their degree of difficulty gradually increases, but you will also notice that he addresses different playing techniques such as pedal (which is used for the first time in no. 14 “Little Study”) or staccato playing in individual pieces (e.g. in no. 6 and 7) and skillfully wraps them in beautiful music full of character and romantic tone. He always pays attention to style, expression, and sound. Every single piece is carefully composed and completely elaborated: One beautiful gem follows the other!

Contains tracks

• Introduction into the double album with piano music by Robert Schumann, spoken by Robert von Heeren by Robert von Heeren
• Einführung in das Doppelalbum: Robert Schumann, Album für die Jugend /Kinderszenen, Robert v. Heeren by Robert von Heeren
• Robert - Schumann - Melody - C major - Album for the Young - op. 68 - No. 1 by Robert von Heeren
• Robert - Schumann - Soldier's March - G major - Cheerfull and firm - op. 68 - No. 2 by Robert von Heeren
• Robert - Schumann - Warble Ditty - C major- Not fast - op. 68 - No. 3 by Robert von Heeren