Cello Concerto in A Minor

Schumann himself studied the cello during the 1830s and his affection for the instrument makes itself felt in the prominent role he granted it in a number of his chamber works. In 1849 he composed the Five Pieces in Folk Style for cello and piano; sadly, an 1853 sequence of five Romances was destroyed by his widow, who deemed it damning evidence of his declining mental state. Fortunately, his Cello Concerto was not condemned to the same fate, although Schumann was unable to persuade any cellists of his acquaintance to perform the work (it was premiered only in 1860, a decade after its composition and four years after his death). Newly installed as director of music in Düsseldorf in September 1850, he completed the concerto the following month, shortly before embarking upon his magnificent “Rhenish” Symphony No. 3. Whereas the symphony is an expansive, outgoing work, though, the concerto is inward and concentrated, the cello singing its lyrical melody almost continuously over an orchestration that is perhaps surprisingly restrained for a composer often criticised, rightly or wrongly, for a perceived insensitivity to orchestral colour. The work runs continuously, from an expansive, moderately paced opening movement into the ecstatic restfulness of a slow intermezzo, which then leads via a reminiscence of the cello’s arching theme from the opening of the work to an impish finale complete with accompanied cadenza and a race to the finish.