Thomas Jefferson did not live to see The Rotunda at the University of Virginia completed. Originally the University’s library, The Rotunda consists of three floors, the middle containing three elliptical conference rooms, the top the famous dome room, widely considered to be one of America’s greatest indoor spaces. While today the building is a bustling tourist destination and site for University events, I prefer to imagine it as a space where aspiring Jeffersons earnestly study and drift into utopian daydreams.
Located just outside Charlottesville, Monticello is Jefferson’s public showplace. Much bigger than Poplar Forest, the house is designed for conversation and study and is filled with whimsical gadgetry. At Monticello, Jefferson is both elegant Enlightenment philosophe and whimsical American inventor.
In many a sleepless night I behold a far-away picture, like a goal. –While writing down the Papillons I truly feel a certain independence trying to develop itself. This is, however, the sort of thing that the critics usually reject. –Now the Papillons flutter in the wide, glorious world of Spring. Spring itself stands outside the door and gazes at me—a child with heavenly blue eyes. –And now I begin to comprehend my own existence.
–Robert Schumann to his mother, May 3, 1832 (Trans. Robert Haven Schauffler)
Introduzione
I
As he walked out of the small chamber, he begged God that he would happily find it again; he felt as if he were a hero thirsty for glory who embarks on his first battle . . .
II
Due to the sort of wrong turn that plagued his life, he entered first into the punch room which he had mistaken for the dance hall . . . He did not see Wina, nor was there any sign of Vult . . . Following his inclination to examine the overflowing adjacent room, he came upon the correct hall, echoing, burning, full of seething figures . . .
III
What drew his attention and astonishment most was a giant boot skidding around, seemingly worn only by itself . . .
IV
Hope [as which the young maiden was dressed] quickly turned around: an unmasked sleeping woman approached as did a modest nun in a half mask and with a fragrant strand of auricula.
V
Now he stood alone for a second next to the peaceful young maiden, whose charm emanated from behind her half mask like the promise of a glimpse of a rose’s or a lily’s face from behind a sinking bud. As foreign spirits in distant twilit skies, they saw each other behind the dark masks, exactly like stars in a solar eclipse, and each soul saw the other in the distance.
VI
Don’t take it badly, but in this hall your waltzing so far counts only as a good mimicking imitation; your steps have the waggoner’s side-to-side and the miner’s up-and-down manner.
VII
He tossed his mask aside and a strange, hot desert dryness or dry feverishness broke into his mien and words. If you bear some love for your brother, he began in a dry voice and accepted the crown and loosened the housedress, if you value the quenching of an innermost desire for something and if your happiness is not indifferent as to whether he should have the smallest or greatest, if you will just hear one of his most beseeching requests—[connects with IX]
VIII
As a youth touches the hand of a great and famous author, so, like a butterfly’s wings, like auricula petals, he softly touched Wina’s back and lost himself in limitless distance in order to see her living, breathing face. Be there a harvest dance that is the harvest, a fire wheel of passionate enchantment; to Walt, the waggoner had both.
IX
[connects with VII] –then I can only answer you this: With joy. “Let’s get it over with,†replied Wult without thinking.
X
When he entered, it seemed to Walt as if everyone wanted to exchange masks with him; a few women noticed that, behind the flowers, Hope now had blonde hair (unlike earlier), and Walt’s steps were smaller and more ladylike, as would have been appropriate for Hope. But he soon forgot himself and the hall and everything, as the waggoner Vult, partnered at the dizzying peak of the English dance with Wina, broke off dancing without reason and, artfully casting her aside, began moving his feet—seemingly painting with the great decorative strokes of a painter.
. . .
Later, at the end of the dance, amongst hurriedly reaching hands making lines criss-crossed and up and down, Vult allowed himself to escape from the strains of the Polish guitar—now only breaths of talking, and now undulating at sea with the butterflies of a distant island. To Wina the talking around her resonated like the summer night’s song of a seldom-heard lark.
Papillon XI.
Papillon XII. Finale
Schumann did not indicate corresponding texts for numbers XI and XII.
The texts come from Jean-Paul’sFlegeljahre, a novel the author did not finish.
Source: Wolfgang Boetticher. Schumann. pp. 611-613. (My own translation.)
Our bounder thrummed on the table and hummed something, and asked the q-b if she knew the Rosencavalier. He always appealed to her. She said she did. And ah, he was passionately fond of music, said he. Then he warbled, in a head voice, a bit more. He only knew classical music, said he. And he mewed a bit of Moussorgsky. The q-b said Moussorgsky was her favourite musician, for opera. Ah, cried the bounder, if there were but a piano! —There is a piano, said his mate. –Yes, he replied, but it is locked up. –Then let us get the key, said his mate, with aplomb. . . .
It was quite a pleasant room, with deep divans upholstered in pale colours, and palm-trees standing behind little tables, and a black upright piano. Our bounder sat on the piano-stool and gave us an exhibition. He splashed out noise on the piano in splashes, like water splashing out of a pail. He lifted his head and shook his black mop of hair, and yelled out some fragments of opera. And he wriggled his large bounder’s back upon the piano-stool, wriggling upon his well-filled haunches. Evidently he had a great deal of feeling for music: but very little prowess. He yelped it out, and wriggled, and splashed the piano. His friend the other bounder, a quiet one in a pale suit, with stout limbs, older than the wriggler, stood by the piano whilst the young one exhibited. . . . The q-b sat next to me, asking for this and that music, none of which the wriggler could supply. He knew four scraps, and a few splashes—not more.
Located just west of Lynchburg, Poplar Forest is the small, octagonal house Thomas Jefferson built during his second term as President. He intended the house to be a private retreat from his public showpiece, Monticello. While staying at Poplar Forest, Jefferson wrote much of Notes on the State of Virginia, his only full-length book. In addition to reading and attending to farm matters, I like to imagine him playing his violin for an audience of only himself.
