× Upcoming Events Our Musicians Keeping You Safe Your At-Concert Guide Thank You to Our Donors Symphony Nova Scotia Foundation Land Acknowledgement Past Events
Home Our Musicians Keeping You Safe Your At-Concert Guide Thank You to Our Donors Symphony Nova Scotia Foundation Land Acknowledgement
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Piano Concerto in A Minor
Composed: 1841, 1845
Premiered: 1846, Leipzig
Duration: 31 minutes

Robert Schumann started his musical career with the intention of becoming a pianist, and eventually married one of the world’s foremost piano virtuosos, Clara Wieck. His ambitions to become a performer himself were thwarted by a mysterious paralysis of his right hand. The world has cause to be grateful for this apparent tragedy, for it allowed Schumann to devote all his energy to musical journalism and composition, with a background of deep understanding of the piano.

His Piano Concerto had its beginnings in 1841, when Schumann composed what was to become the first movement, calling it Phantasie in A Minor. Up to this point, his compositions had been mainly concise miniatures – songs and solo piano pieces. The Schumanns were married in September of 1840, and a period of tremendous musical creativity followed, which allowed Robert – for the first time – to find the confidence to take on larger forms and orchestral music.

By 1845, when Schumann came to add the other two movements of the concerto, his mood had changed. He complained of exhaustion and despair – a foretaste of the psychiatric illness which ultimately claimed him. He and Clara had undertaken a prolonged concert tour to Russia the previous year. Travel always upset him; he needed calm and silence to compose. As he put it, “the distractions and unsettled nature of the virtuoso life are opposed to and injure lofty research and productivity, which require happiness and complete isolation from the world.”

Despite the years which separated the first movement from the other two and the change in Schumann’s emotional state, he was able to recover his earlier, youthful mood, with the result that the Piano Concerto is a unified whole. It was first performed in 1846 in Leipzig (by Clara, of course), and later that year in Vienna. The public was unresponsive: they had memories of Clara as a young girl playing brilliant showpieces and were unprepared for the subtle, romantic musicality that has made this work a favourite since its premiere, particularly among younger pianists.

Program note by the late Dr. C.W. Helleiner.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Piano Concerto in A Minor
Composed: 1841, 1845
Premiered: 1846, Leipzig
Duration: 31 minutes

Robert Schumann started his musical career with the intention of becoming a pianist, and eventually married one of the world’s foremost piano virtuosos, Clara Wieck. His ambitions to become a performer himself were thwarted by a mysterious paralysis of his right hand. The world has cause to be grateful for this apparent tragedy, for it allowed Schumann to devote all his energy to musical journalism and composition, with a background of deep understanding of the piano.

His Piano Concerto had its beginnings in 1841, when Schumann composed what was to become the first movement, calling it Phantasie in A Minor. Up to this point, his compositions had been mainly concise miniatures – songs and solo piano pieces. The Schumanns were married in September of 1840, and a period of tremendous musical creativity followed, which allowed Robert – for the first time – to find the confidence to take on larger forms and orchestral music.

By 1845, when Schumann came to add the other two movements of the concerto, his mood had changed. He complained of exhaustion and despair – a foretaste of the psychiatric illness which ultimately claimed him. He and Clara had undertaken a prolonged concert tour to Russia the previous year. Travel always upset him; he needed calm and silence to compose. As he put it, “the distractions and unsettled nature of the virtuoso life are opposed to and injure lofty research and productivity, which require happiness and complete isolation from the world.”

Despite the years which separated the first movement from the other two and the change in Schumann’s emotional state, he was able to recover his earlier, youthful mood, with the result that the Piano Concerto is a unified whole. It was first performed in 1846 in Leipzig (by Clara, of course), and later that year in Vienna. The public was unresponsive: they had memories of Clara as a young girl playing brilliant showpieces and were unprepared for the subtle, romantic musicality that has made this work a favourite since its premiere, particularly among younger pianists.

Program note by the late Dr. C.W. Helleiner.