Schumann, R.: Piano Concerto In A Minor / Introduction And Allegro, Op. 92 And Op. 134

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Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54Introduction and Allegro appassionato, Op. 92 Introduction and Allegro, Op. 134As a young man Schumann had diffuse interests, but inmusic his ambitions centred chiefly on the piano. Afterleaving school he had enrolled as a law student at theUniversity of Leipzig, moving the following year toHeidelberg, which seemed more to his social andmusical taste. Here he continued to try his hand as acomposer, and it was in these years that he attemptedthe composition of his first piano concertos, which werenever finished. His teacher and future reluctant fatherin-law Friedrich Wieck, however, promisedSchumann's widowed mother that her son couldbecome one of the foremost pianists of the day, if hewere to apply himself assiduously to technical practiceand to the kind of theoretical study that seemed foreignto the young man's temperament, a course of action thathe attempted to pursue, before abandoning performancefor composition.It was only after his marriage to Clara Wieck in1840, an alliance that had been the subject of protractedlitigation on the part of her father, that he seemed tofind that degree of security and encouragement thatenabled him to tackle larger instrumental forms. Muchof his music in the 1830s had been for the piano, oftenin those smaller forms of which he was such a master.While 1840 itself was a year of song, with manycompositions in this form, the encouragement of hiswife, by now established as a pianist, led, much to herdelight, to Schumann's first symphony, followed by hisOverture, Scherzo and Finale that he was to describelater as a symphonette. In the spring of the same year hecompleted a Fantasie in A minor for piano andorchestra, which Clara was able to play in rehearsalwith the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig in August,shortly before the birth of the first of the Schumannchildren. The Fantasie found no favour with publishers,and it was not until 1845 that Schumann added anIntermezzo and a Finale to make of it a completeconcerto, a work that Clara Schumann immediatelytook into her repertoire, playing it on New Year's Day1846 in a Gewandhaus concert.The concerto opens with a flourish from the pianist,followed by the principal theme, entering like a lamb,but to assume greater proportions as the workprogresses. Clara Schumann perceptively remarked, ofthe first movement, that the piano part is skilfullyinterwoven with the orchestra, so that it is impossible tothink of one without the other. The Allegro affettuoso isin traditional sonata form, but handled withconsiderable freedom, particularly in the centraldevelopment. The Intermezzo must remind us ofSchumann's mastery of those shorter forms which hehad used to such effect in his earlier piano music, whilethe Finale, originally conceived as a separate ConcertoRondo, has all the excitement that we expect of avirtuoso concerto, and a clear thematic connection withthe first movement.In 1844 the Schumanns moved from Leipzig to