Toccata in C major, Op.7

Schumann thought that his Toccata was the most difficult piano piece ever written - until, that is, a young friend called Ludwig Schunke played it at sight and promptly won for himself the dedication of the piece. Fortunately, Schumann was interested in more than mere virtuosity even in his student days when the Toccata was first conceived and, far from making it even more difficult as it passed through various stages of revision, he progressively refined its construction and its texture. In its finished form, it retains the technical challenge represented by its rapidly undulating chains of parallel fourths and sixths or thirds but incorporates them in a perfectly proportioned sonata-form structure.

Schumann thought that his Toccata was the most difficult piano piece ever written - until, that is, a young friend called Ludwig Schunke played it at sight and promptly won for himself the dedication of the piece. Fortunately, Schumann was interested in more than mere virtuosity even in his student days when the Toccata was first conceived and, far from making it even more difficult as it passed through various stages of revision, he progressively refined its construction and its texture. In its finished form, as it was published in 1834, it retains the technical challenge represented by its rapidly undulating chains of parallel fourths and sixths or thirds. It incorporates them, however, in a perfectly proportioned sonata-form structure alongside a more expressive second subject introduced by the left hand as the semiquaver figuration continues above it. A short, contrapuntally adventurous development section confirms that, for all the romantic ardour around it, J.S. Bach was an important source of inspiration for the work.