The last of Schumann's large cycles for piano with poetic titles, concluding a series begun ten years earlier with the ABEGG Variations, Op. 1., the Faschingsschwank aus Wien is one of Schumann's most curious yet infectious works, a ‘sonata-in-disguise’ but one cast in a high-spirited rather than a profound vein, and what he called "a romantic showpiece" (letter to Clara Wieck, April 7, 1839). His sense of humour here comes vividly to life where in the first movement (out of five), Schumann introduces a quotation from the Marseillaise out of the blue. This symbol of Revolutionary France was banned in Vienna and Schumann obviously realized that his nice new Viennese publisher Pietro Mechetti could get into trouble when he eventually published the work in 1841. But by then Schumann had long left Vienna and returned to Leipzig.