Humoreske in B‑Flat Major

After a lilting, tentative opening, Robert Schumann's Humoreske for solo piano launches into a virtuosic rampage across the keyboard, as though the composer had half-remembered a different piece mid-composition. This multifaceted style is heard throughout the five-movement work, which is a piano cycle in all but name. It was created in 1839, at the peak of his courtship with soon-to-be wife Clara, whose own prowess at the piano was uppermost in Schumann's mind. Naming this in-depth exploration of Romanticism a “humoreske”—the term used to describe short character pieces that were popular as encores—was a typical Schumann move, like dubbing an epic fantasy a short story. The penultimate movement begins as a caressing “song without words”, shortly followed by a declamatory section pumped with pomp and swagger. This, like the ill-fated composer's confidence, ebbs away into a sparse and poetic reflection that is brought to an abrupt close.