Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129

Program notes

About the Work

Schumann wrote his Cello Concerto in the autumn of 1850, very quickly, soon after he and his family had moved to Düsseldorf, where he had taken up the post of municipal music director. The first months there were productive ones. The “Rhenish” Symphony belongs to the same period.

He never heard the concerto. No performance could be arranged in his lifetime, and it was first played in 1860, four years after his death, with Ludwig Ebert as the soloist. For decades afterwards it remained little known. Part of the reason lies in what the piece declines to do. Schumann had no taste for display for its own sake, and although the solo part uses the whole instrument, it gives the cellist very little of the brilliant passagework that audiences of the time expected from a concerto. The music is inward and lyrical, and it asks to be listened to closely.

It is also unusual in shape. The three movements are short and run into one another without a break, so that the concerto unfolds as a single span of about twenty-five minutes. Ideas from the opening return later in new moods. The orchestra is modest in size, with pairs of woodwinds, horns and trumpets, timpani and strings, and it often plays like an enlarged chamber group around the soloist.

What to Listen For

Nicht zu schnell (Not too fast). There is no long orchestral introduction. A few quiet chords in the woodwinds, and the cello enters at once with the main theme, a long, rising and falling melody. Much of the movement has the feeling of an improvised fantasy, with the soloist leading and the orchestra answering.

Langsam (Slowly). The brief slow movement is the heart of the concerto. The soloist sings over plucked strings and occasionally plays two notes at once. Listen for a second cello voice: Schumann has the orchestra’s principal cellist join the soloist in a duet, an unusual and very tender touch.

Sehr lebhaft (Very lively). The finale is lighter and more resolute, with a march-like main theme. Near the end comes the concerto’s only cadenza, and it too is unconventional, because the orchestra goes on accompanying the soloist instead of falling silent. It leads straight into the coda, where the music turns from A minor to a bright A major.