Autograph Letter Signed concerning a concert performance of Robert Schumann's Piano Quartet.

ALS from one of the most influential pianists of the 19th century to the French violinist and composer Jules Armingaud, asking if he would join her for an upcoming concert performance during her third concert stay in Paris.  2 pp.  Paris, 1862.  She writes in part, translated from the French, "Saying a thousand thanks for the great pleasure you gave me at my concert, playing the Sonata with which you enchanted everyone, I once again call upon your kindness, for my last concert on Tuesday, 8 April.  Would you like to play my husband's quartet with me?  And speak on my behalf with your colleges, MM. Jacquart and Lalo?"  In fine condition.  4 x 5 inches (10.2 x 12.7 cm.).

After successful stays in 1832 and 1839, Clara Schumann returned to Paris in 1862.  An international star by this point in her life, the concerts repeatedly sold out and received glowing reviews.  While we have been unable to confirm that a performance of the Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 occurred during Mme. Schumann's residency, there are several period references to performances of the Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44.  In a review from the 23 March, 1862 issue of Revue, Adolphe Botte "describes the Piano Quintet as a work well-known to us thanks principally to MM. Armingaud, Jacquard, and Lalo, etc.; and from the stirring opening of the first Allegro brillante, replete with phrases as beautiful as they are original, Mme. Schumann was truly inspired.  'Grand, broad, sustained, elevated' are the words describing the performance." (Elaine Brody, "Schumann's Legacy in France, Studies in Romanticism, Summer, 1974, Vol. 13, No. 3)  Clara Schumann would return to Paris once more the following year.

Jules Armingaud and Édouard Lalo were active in the leftist Association des Artistes Musiciens during the 1848 revolution.  Seven years later, they formed a string quartet along with Joseph Mas and Léon Jacquard.  "The quartet enjoyed a great reputation for the works of Mendelssohn and Beethoven; many of their quartets had seldom been performed before.  Clara Schumann apparently played with the Armingaud quartet during visits to Paris in 1862 and 1863." (Grove Music Online)

Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet, composed in 1842, “the year of chamber music,” has never achieved the same degree of popularity as the famous Quintet that preceded it. Even in the composer’s own day it was far less often heard. While Clara Schumann immediately took the Quintet into her repertoire, and performed it perhaps more often than any other work of her husband’s, it was not until 1849 that she played the Quartet in public.  (19912)

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Classical Music

Autograph Letter

Autograph Document

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