The spoken and the unspoken in Schumann’music

The intuition of a split between said and unsaid in Schumann’s music arose from listening to the Lieder. A musicological study comparing the piano literature with the lyrics supports this theory. It points out a disarticulation between word and sound, between lyrics and music. Attempts at building a structure rely on musical forms, particularly cyclical ones. A silence is at the core of this parting of ways. Beyond that, the Schumannian drama is that of a flawed fundamental psychological unity seeking wholeness through a variety of forms without ever finding itself.