1,000 Days of Music - Day 24: Seismic Shift

Dark clouds rush to smother a garish orange sunset. Lightning briefly illuminates the woman on the back of a dark gray stallion racing across the moor, her dark hair and cloak streaming behind her. She casts a furtive glance over her shoulder and urges her mount to greater speed. Who is pursuing her? Where will she find refuge?

Some pieces clearly tell a story and are such fun to play because of it. Schumann’s The Wild Rider is one of them. I never played this piece as a child, but I heard it often in group lessons. I always thought of the rider to be a ruffian, a brigand, a villain. Under his cloak he hides a bag of gold, having left its owner lying slashed and bleeding in the woods. Such was the imagination of the shy schoolgirl I once was. Today, I’m playing with the story for my own amusement, turning the wild rider into a woman. I always knew the piece as The Wild Horseman, so I can be forgiven for thinking him to be a man. The Suzuki Book 3 translates the title from German as “rider,” so I am at liberty to imagine her as I please.
Does she look to the heavens and laugh as the storm opens upon her, rain streaming into her face? Or does she bow her head in determination to escape her cruel fate in such dangerous weather? As I haven’t mastered the next several measures, I will leave my readers with a cliffhanger.