Composed 1842; 26 minutes 

Schumann composed all three quartets of his Op. 41 – his only string quartets – during an intense seven-week period in the summer of 1842. “The thought of the string quartet gives me pleasure,” he had written years earlier. “The piano is getting too constrictive for me. When composing now, I often hear a lot of things that I can barely suggest.”

To prepare, Schumann analyzed classical quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, often playing them in four-hand versions with his wife Clara, an acclaimed pianist. He also organized private ‘quartet mornings’ at his lodgings, where Gewandhaus Orchestra players read through new quartets. Schumann regarded the medium of the quartet as “a beautiful and, even, abstrusely woven conversation between four people” and set high expectations for the genre.

The A minor quartet is the first of the three he completed in 1842. Its plaintive, thoughtful, contrapuntally crafted Introduction —where, as Schumann himself put it, “everyone has something to say”—reflects his deepening engagement with Bach, particularly The Well-Tempered Clavier. The first movement then takes flight. Its two themes are closely related, recalling a favored technique of Haydn. The quartet’s taut structure and tightly woven musical arguments show Schumann’s keen awareness of the classical quartet tradition. “I love Mozart dearly,” he wrote in his diary around this time, “but Beethoven I worship like a god.”

The galloping Scherzo echoes the fleet-footed, mercurial scherzos of Mendelssohn. Schumann held Mendelssohn in the highest regard and dedicated all three quartets to him upon their publication in 1843. The luminous slow movement carries the noble character of a Beethoven Adagio. The finale then bursts in with a vigorous, scurrying theme, brimming with the exuberance of Schumann’s Spring Symphony. This single, driving idea gathers momentum, propelling the quartet to a 
fiery conclusion.