Program Notes by Paul Shore

Robert Schumann’s Fantasie in C Major is dedicated to Franz Liszt and also has a connection to Beethoven, order since it was written in part to raise money for a monument to that composer. Years after Robert’s death in 1856 his widow Clara gave concert performances of the work, sovaldi which is regarded as one of the most demanding of the Romantic repertoire, here remaining a favourite of audiences ever since. Robert Schumann borrowed the words of the philosopher Friedrich Schlegel for the work’s epigraph, suggesting both the unity of the composition and its mystical and intimate qualities:

In all the notes

A faint, extended note

Sounds through the

Bright painted

Dream of the earth

For the one

Who in secret is

Listening…

By Paul Shore