Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61

Quick Facts

• Composed between 1845-46
• Premiered in 1846 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn
• Four movements – interestingly, the second movement is a scherzo, and the third is an adagio, which is the opposite of a traditional symphonic structure (slow second movement followed by a fast third).
• Dedicated to Oscar I (King of Sweden and Norway)¹

About the Piece

• Schumann began sketching Symphony No. 2 at the end of 1845, shortly after recovering from a nervous breakdown.
• For his C Major work, Schumann was inspired by Franz Schubert’s ninth symphony in C Major, “The Great,” which premiered posthumously in 1839 thanks to the efforts of Schumann and Mendelssohn.
  • Schumann wrote of the premiere of Schubert’s symphony:

“Here, apart from the consummate mastery of compositional technique, we find life in every vein, the finest shades of coloring, expressive significance in every detail, and the all-pervasive romanticism to which Schubert’s other works have already accustomed us.”

• In a letter from 1849, Schumann said the following of his own C Major work:

“I wrote the C major Symphony in Decem­ber 1845 while I was still half sick, and it seems to me that one can hear this in the music. Although I began to feel like myself while working on the last movement, I recovered totally only after completing the entire piece.”²

• Fun fact – Symphony No. 2 was actually the composer’s third symphony. The work became known as the second due to the subsequent publishing order. Symphony No. 4 was actually composed before the second in 1841.

1. “Symphony No.2, Op.61 (Schumann, Robert),” IMSLP, accessed July 12, 2023, https://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.2%2C_Op.61_(Schumann%2C_Robert).
2. John Daverio, “Symphony No. 2,” Boston Symphony Orchestra, accessed July 12, 2023, https://www.bso.org/works/symphony-no-2-schumann.