String Quartet No. 2 in F Major

In spring 1842, with his pianist wife Clara on a concert tour of north Germany, Schumann occupied himself with a concentrated immersion in the string quartets of Haydn and Mozart. The effect such intense study had upon his own music quickly became evident, with the production that summer of three quartets of his own, during a miraculous “year of chamber music” that was crowned in the autumn with the Piano Quintet, the Piano Quartet and the Phantasiestücke for piano trio. Beethoven’s exploratory late music also had an influence on Schumann’s creations of this time, although he adhered in his large-scale chamber works to the well-established four-movement structure. Thus, the lyrical opening movement of the String Quartet No. 2 gives way to a slow set of variations based on a liltingly syncopated theme, then the “Scherzo” baffles the listener as to where its beat actually falls and has its legs kicked from beneath it by the whimsical trio before the witty, vivacious finale.