Rarely does a work so thoroughly combine life and art. Schumann composed the first movement of his Fantasy in June 1836 during the depths of despair at being separated from his beloved Clara Wieck. He later wrote her, “You can understand the Fantasy only if you think back to the unhappy summer of 1836, when I had to renounce you,” and in another letter he called the first movement “a deep lament for you.”

Originally Schumann considered the first movement an independent piece, which he titled Ruines. Then in September of 1836 he hit upon the idea of adding two movements and donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the work toward the public fund for erecting a Beethoven monument in Bonn. Titled “Ruins. Trophies. Palms. Grand Sonata for the Pianoforte for Beethoven’s Monument,” the novel work failed to interest two publishers, so in May 1837 Schumann offered the work to Breitkopf & Härtel under the title “Fantasies,” with no mention of the Beethoven project. By the time it appeared in print in the spring of 1839, Schumann had considered a number of titles—Fantasy Pieces, Fata Morgana (referring to the optical illusions of the sorceress), Fantasy in Three Movements, and Poems: Ruins, Triumphal Arch, and Constellation—before finally settling on Fantasy.

The publication carried the following motto from a poem by Friedrich Schlegel: “Through all the tones there sounds / in this colorful earthly dream / a gentle tone, sustained / for the one who secretly hears.” Robert wrote to Clara in 1839: “Write and tell me what you think to yourself in the first movement of the Fantasy. Does it also conjure up many pictures for you? Are not you really the ‘tone’ in the motto?” Though adding Schlegel’s motto was something of an afterthought, it still brings up the important idea of allusion. Of the many references Schumann made in the work, one in particular stands out to many listeners: in his first-movement coda he alludes to the final song of Beethoven’s cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved), in particular the phrase “take them then, these songs.” In Beethoven’s setting the poet means that these songs will lessen the distance between the separated lovers, which would have held so much meaning for Robert and Clara that the reference can hardly have been accidental.

This and other allusions attest to the personal biographical significance of the work, but what of Schumann’s aesthetic desire, often expressed in his critical writings, to create something new out of old forms? His own indecision about what to call the piece and the widely divergent analyses with elements that “don’t fit” old forms lend weight to the idea that Schumann really created a unique form here. The first movement relies in part on sonata form but brings other elements into play. Most listeners hear three basic sections in the first movement, of which the second is an introspective character piece, “Im Legendenton” (In the style of a legend). But is this self-sufficient section the development section? Its main theme does, in fact, employ a transformed version of a motive from the first section, but this stable section does not behave like a development. Does it interrupt a development section already in progress? Does it interrupt a recapitulation? Cases have been presented for all these views.

It bears remembering that this movement was originally conceived as a one-movement fantasy, which in historic terms—the fantasies of Mozart and Haydn, for example—meant a piece with a number of connected sections that exhibited novel features. By adding two more movements, with various hidden connections among them, Schumann also incorporates the idea of a multimovement fantasy as in Beethoven’s Opus 27 Piano Sonatas, which are both labeled “Quasi una fantasia.” Thus with Schumann we have a fantasy within a fantasy.

Novel structure, however, would be nothing without great thematic ideas, such as the memorable opening, which begins as if one has just then “tuned in.” Liszt, to whom Schumann dedicated the Fantasy and who played it for the composer several times, warned that this theme should not be played too vigorously, but somewhat “dreamily.” Equally inspired is the second movement’s march theme. Clara particularly adored the second movement, which she learned to play first, saying she reveled in it and that “it makes me hot and cold all over.” This movement presents an original march-trio-march form in which the frequent returns of the march theme also lend the suggestion of a rondo. The thrilling coda strikes terror even into a virtuoso’s heart—each hand must execute extremely wide leaps simultaneously in opposite directions at full speed.

The final movement also offers an innovative form that might best be described as a kind of parallel structure: two similar sections followed by a contrasting episode, then a transposed return that is first shortened by omitting the first of the two similar sections and then lengthened by the addition of a coda. The most striking thing about the movement, however, is its poetic, improvisatory atmosphere—highly unusual in a closing movement. Thus Schumann boldly reversed the typical sequence of events by placing his virtuoso showpiece as the work’s centerpiece and a spacious, radiant meditation as its conclusion.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe