Chapter 24

SYMPHONY IN D

MINOR.

This Symphony is selected from Schumann’s four, both for the
peculiar romantic beauty of its themes and because the form
in which it is cast makes it an important connecting link be-
tween the freedom of structure, instituted by Beethoven, and
the Symphonic Poem of Liszt and other modern composers. All
of Schumann’s symphonies contain genuine beauties and should
be familiar to the cultivated musician. Perhaps the first in B-
flat major is the most sustained, and it has a freshness and
buoyancy summed up in its title, theSpring, by which it is pop-
ularly known. The exuberance of the Finale is pure Schumann
and is expressed with an orchestral eloquence in which he was
frequently lacking.[197] The Second Symphony is notable for its
sublime Adagio, Schumann’s love-song—comparable to the slow
movement of Beethoven’s Fourth. At some future day, conduc-
tors will have the courage to play this movement by itself like
a magnificent Torso, for indubitably the other movements have
aged beyond recall. The Third Symphony, known as theRhen-
ish(composed when Schumann was living at Düsseldorf on the
Rhine) is significant for its incorporation of popular melodies
from the Rhineland, and for the movement, scored chiefly for
trombones and other brass instruments, which gives a picture
of some ceremonial occasion in the Cologne Cathedral.

[Footnote 197: It is more than a matter of mere chronology to