ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors narrow an attention to two composers whose German art symbolizes what Schumann calls German sensibilities: Beethoven primarily, but also Mozart. Critics and audiences acclaimed Mozart's concertos in their new guise, but there was also a backlash, a call for a return to a purity supposedly contained in older editions. For Schumann, the classical concerto is part of a revered past. The few performances of concertos by Mozart or Beethoven in Leipzig during the 1820s were overwhelmed by the large number of performances of concertos by Hummel, Ries, Kalkbrenner, and Moscheles, the very concertos that Schumann knew best at the time. It is apparent that Beethoven's and Mozart's concertos began to be more widely heard by the mid-1820s, and took an even firmer hold in the concert repertory in the 1830s. Some critics defended the modern arrangements on aesthetic grounds.
