ABSTRACT
The story of Robert Schumann and the piano concerto must begin very early in his life, with his growing up as a young, middle-class gentleman in a very small Saxon town. This chapter shows precisely what pieces Schumann played with his fellow amateurs and what ones he chose for the public arena. Naturally, the repertory Schumann knew impacted what he composed. If the even balance between Schumann's literary and musical pursuits reflects his education as a gentleman of the middle class who had leisure to become both an accomplished musician and writer, it also was determined by the fact that, even were he inclined to pursue a career as a professional pianist and composer, there was no available guidance nor model for this in Zwickau. Schumann's earliest compositions—songs, piano four-hand pieces, a piano quartet—grew out of shared music-making with a few friends.
