Reflections on a Timeless Love

It is not uncommon for the great composers—at least, those who laboured after the beginning of the classical era—to be judged on the strength of their symphonies. There is some good sense in this for, after all, the symphony is the instrumental form that is typically the grandest in scale and ambition and thereby affords the greatest range of expressive possibilities. I have always found it somewhat incongruous, however, that it is a form that generally does not feature the piano. The piano is the single most important tool of the composer and, arguably, the most expressive of all instruments. Although I love symphonies and other musical forms which exclude the piano, such as string quartets, I sometimes feel that piano music is the key that most directly unites us with the soul of the composer.

The piano, of course, is just one of the things that connects the lives and music of Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann (née Wieck) and Johannes Brahms. Love is the thing that binds them…