GEISTERVARIATION VI, CLARA WIECK GEWIDMET for string quartet, composed for the Fonè Quartet, is a tribute to the memory of Robert Schumann and his wife Clara Wieck, and has many connections with the most typical aspects of the German composer’s poetics, despite departing from them completely on a superficial level.
It is also a meta-variation of the Geistervariationen, Schumann’s last composition – written during the days of his attempted suicide, after which he was interned in the mental asylum in Endenich, and dedicated to his wife – from which it draws, in addition to the title, all its main musical characteristics.
About halfway through, the viola is entrusted with a citation of the theme of Clara Wieck’s Romance variée op. 3, on which the composer based his Improvvisi op. 5.
