7/20–Robert Schumann: Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 47

Last week, the first of two Rush Hour all-Schumann concerts presented “Scenes from Childhood,” one of the many suites for piano the composer created at the start of his career. Many of them were inspired by and intended for his beloved Clara Wieck, one of the great pianists of the 19th century. Their conflict-ridden courtship ended in marriage, over her father’s objections, in 1840, at which point Schumann turned to expressing his triumphant love through writing songs. With his bride’s enthusiastic encouragement, he then turned to the writing of orchestral and chamber music.

Blissfully happy in their marriage, in their artistic communion, and in their new role as parents, the Schumanns still had to deal with difficulties during the decade of the 1840s. Robert was often plagued with sleeplessness and moodiness, harbingers of the mental illness that would eventually overcome him, and which he dreaded even though its full onset was still years away. More immediately, there was the unpleasant fact that Clara the concert pianist was more admired–and earned more money–than Robert the composer and music journalist. Traveling with Clara on tour in 1842, Robert felt decidedly left out. He returned alone to their home in Leipzig, where, with typical intensity and concentration, he began studying the string quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The result, in just a few months of 1842, was the creation of three string quartets, a Quintet for piano and strings, and a Quartet for piano and strings.

The “Quartet in E-Flat Major Op. 47” for piano, violin, viola, and cello received a gala public premiere in December 1844 in Leipzig’s Gewandhaus concert hall, with Clara at the piano. The violinist was Ferdinand David, a friend of the Schumanns and of Felix Mendelssohn (Mendelssohn wrote his famous Violin Concerto for David). The quartet gives major attention to the keyboard instrument, always Schumann’s favorite, but without neglecting the string players. Its first movement has a slow, sustained introduction, whose theme is later recalled to vary the pace and mood of the rest of the movement. The main tempo marking is allegro ma non troppo: lively, but not to excess. One of the main themes features the cello.

The molto vivace (very fast) second movement has often reminded listeners of parallel movements in Mendelssohn’s chamber music: light, ethereal, fleetly flying. Providing a complete change of pace is the third movement, andante cantabile (moderate, singing)–this is a lyrical interlude in which both the viola and the cello have important solo passages. The vivace (fast) finale shows Schumann’s interest in counterpoint: there are constantly evolving interrelationships among all four instrumental lines. The movement also reveals a technique he used called thematic transformation: his method of unifying a piece by bringing back fragments of earlier motives, and re-combining them.

program notes by Andrea Lamoreaux