Reception
Clara Schumann, the composer's wife and a noted pianist, gave the first public performance of the work on 8 January 1843, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and often played the work throughout her life, despite criticism of her performance from her husband late in his life and a statement that only a man could understand it (it is said, though, that Schumann said this in a moment of jealousy, as it is well known that he sometimes had problems with being "Mr. Clara Schumann", husband of the renowned virtuoso). Despite its popularity, Franz Liszt heard the piece at the Schumanns' home and was distinctly unimpressed by it, dismissing it as being "too Leipzigerisch", a reference to the conservative musical style of composers from Leipzig, especially Felix Mendelssohn.
Read more about this topic: Piano Quintet (Schumann)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)