Book contents
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- New Cambridge Music Handbooks
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Rethinking the Romantic Piano Concerto
- 2 The Genesis of Schumann’s Piano Concerto
- 3 Analysis (1): The First Movement
- 4 Analysis (2): The Slow Movement and Rondo Finale
- 5 Reception and Legacy
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Genesis of Schumann’s Piano Concerto
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 November 2023
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- New Cambridge Music Handbooks
- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Rethinking the Romantic Piano Concerto
- 2 The Genesis of Schumann’s Piano Concerto
- 3 Analysis (1): The First Movement
- 4 Analysis (2): The Slow Movement and Rondo Finale
- 5 Reception and Legacy
- Book part
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Ostensibly, Schumann’s Piano Concerto has its origins in the single-movement Phantasie in A minor for piano and orchestra composed in 1841, which later became the Concerto’s first movement. Broadly understood, however, the work’s genesis spans some fifteen years, encompassing both Schumann’s fledgling attempts to compose in the genre and his developing critical engagement with the concerto idea, expressed in a series of articles for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which documented his views on concerti of his time and set out his own generic agenda. Beginning with the unfinished F major Concerto of 1831, Op. 54’s prehistory takes in the aborted Konzertsatz in D minor of 1839 and also runs parallel with the genesis of Clara Wieck’s Concerto in A minor, Op. 7 of 1833–5, a work with which Schumann was closely involved. Chapter 2 narrates this prehistory, paying attention not only to the compositional genesis of Op. 54 and the process by which it absorbed the Phantasie of 1841 but also to Schumann’s critical relationship with his predecessors and evolution of an alternative concept of the genre, which emphasised the integration of soloist and orchestra and the features of the three-movement cycle into a single-movement sonata form.
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- Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto , pp. 45 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023