Schumann: Symphony No. 2 in C Major; Overture to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Schumann Symphony 2 Robert Schumann (1810-1856) by Louise Barbero

"For days my head has been a whirl of drums and trumpets (trombe in C). I don't know what will come of it." What came of it was the Symphony in C, Op. 61, numbered 2, but actually third in order of composition, since the D Minor Symphony, known as No. 4, actually preceded this one by five years. Op. 61 was written in Dresden (1845), where Schumann had moved late in 1844. Mendelssohn conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in its first performance, November 5, 1846. Regarding the background of the work Schumann wrote, in a letter to the director of the Hamburg Musical Society: I wrote my Symphony in December, 1845, and I sometimes fear my semi-invalid state can be divined from the music. I began to feel more myself when I wrote the last movement, and was certainly much better when I finished the whole work. All the same it reminds me of dark days . . . My mournful bassoon in the Adagio was not lost upon you, for I confess I wrote that part for it with peculiar pleasure.