ABSTRACT
Schumann's most famous and self-admitted miscalculation conflating these two different perspectives was his initial reaction to Tannhauser in October 1845, after seeing the score. Hiller shows both a poverty of ideas and an indifference to their development. Schumann admires the main ideas of Hiller's first movement, including what he calls its “unusual” opening, but expresses frustration with their working out. The makeup of the thematic material contributes to the pastiche construction of the movement. Schumann traces the source of nearly every theme to a well-known piece. It is possible, when the people consider the reaction in Strasbourg to Kalkbrenner's Fourth Concerto, that a listening audience would agree with Schumann. The only solution would seem to be to find a new form for the concerto, which would either accommodate the new virtuosity or take the focus away from the new virtuosity altogether.
