Robert Schumann knew exactly who was listening in secret to his Fantasie in C major (Op.17) when he inscribed this verse by the poet and philosopher Friedrich Schlegel at the head of the published score in 1839. When he composed the magisterial work in 1836 Schumann was in a state of utter despair: he wanted marry the brilliant young pianist Clara Wieck with whom he was secretly engaged but who was nine years his junior. Although he’d known her as a little girl – and even lived in the same house in Leipzig when studying with her possessive father Friedrich – an innocent friendship gradually developed by November 1835 into a deep and passionate love. Herr Wieck was furious that such a dangerous and – to him – impossible liaison had developed right under his nose and now did everything in his power to keep the two apart. The full story of his desperate campaign is harrowing and often degrading for Schumann; it wasn’t until September 1840, after surmounting all sorts of legal obstacles, that the couple finally could marry – on the eve of Clara’s 21st birthday. But an unintended consequence of their enforced separation was that Schumann poured out his deepest feelings – from anguish and despair to ecstasy and hope – in a torrent of piano works which are effectively a series
of private letters to Clara.

She was thus enabled to follow his emotions, yearnings and exhortations as if reading a series of coded letters – and we are the lucky eavesdroppers perched on her shoulders as she scans the pages with rapture and excitement, recognising – in the Fantasy – quotations from Beethoven’s iconic song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved) as well as other private musical messages. Schumann told her that it was ‘the most passionate thing I have ever written – a profound lament for you’.