NOTATIO

As a harpsichord player, I can certainly relate to that.

Thank you for that David, indeed an amazing discovery for this topic.

Great point, David. In this case, rolling the chord would be a beautiful way to make it "blossom" as special moment, which is probably what the swell means.

Keyboard players have rolled chords for centuries to produce special effects. Much of this is even unconscious. In particular, dissonant intervals like ninths, are often softened through slight rolling. This is a tradition that started to be lost when musicians began thinking about music notation as an exact science.

In the case of the Schumann, slightly rolling the chords simultaneously and rapidly, not straight up from the bottom, would produce a beautiful effect. If Schumann had wanted a more obvious and slower roll bottom to top, he probably would have indicated that, as he often does.

I think the hairpin indicates what the player should feel, and it indicates (to me) the vocal expression if it were to be sung. It reveals inner meaning and would affect (influence) the performance.

David Ward wrote: ↑28 Mar 2016, 15:13 What does Schumann mean to indicate by the double hairpin on the long chord before the double bar? In 4/4 marked Langsam, mit innigem Ausdruck

(One sees this sort of thing in some piano reductions, as an indication of what the orchestra might be doing, but this is written for piano and voice from the beginning.)