Symphony No. 3 in E-flat, Opus 97, Rhenish
Composition and premiere: Robert Schumann began his Symphony No. 3 on November 2, 1850, and had completed the entire score by December 9. (This was actually his fourth symphony, but he’d withdrawn his D minor symphony following its premiere in 1841, publishing it only after a substantial revision in 1851.) Schumann led the first performance of the Third on February 6, 1851, in Düsseldorf. The first BSO performance was led by George Henschel in November 1883. The first Tanglewood performance was given by the Tanglewood Academy Orchestra (TMC Orchestra) on August 7, 1950, led by Howard Shanet. The first BSO performance at Tanglewood was led by Seiji Ozawa on July 5, 1985.
“I wished popular elements to prevail, and I think I succeeded,” Robert Schumann confided to his student and biographer Wilhelm von Wasielewski (1822-1896) about his new symphony, now known as the “Rhenish.” Schumann wrote the work in a matter of weeks soon after arriving in Düsseldorf in 1850 to take up posts conducting the city’s orchestra and choruses. The prosperous city on the Upper Rhine was delighted to welcome this famous musician and his even more celebrated wife, the pianist Clara Schumann (1819-1896). Buoyed by the fresh start in a new place, Schumann—so often beset by depression—found the work on his symphony unusually easy and untroubled.
The word Schumann actually used when he described his “popular” symphony to Wasielewski was volkstümlich. It is one of those German words with no perfect English equivalent. Wasielewski’s English translator chooses “national”; “folksy” would have been another plausible option. The German word carries a blend of all three: rooted in the people, colored by folk idioms, tinged with a broader national sentiment. It seemed natural that his new surroundings—picturesque Rhine landscapes, vine-covered slopes, castle-crowned hills, romantic old towns—would inspire a new symphony.
The nickname “Rhenish” is in fact not Schumann’s but Wasielewski’s. He had followed his teacher to Düsseldorf as the orchestra’s concertmaster, and his account stressed particularly the links with the Rhine setting. He reported that the third movement was inspired by the waves of the river, and that the majestic fourth movement depicted a “solemn ceremony” in Cologne cathedral, specifically the inauguration of Cardinal Johannes von Geissel on November 12, 1850. Schumann’s notebooks show that he did not actually attend the ceremony, but the association is undoubtedly right. He reserves the sonorous trombones, silent up to this point, to underscore the movement’s ecclesiastical grandeur.
When Schumann saw it, the mighty cathedral of Cologne, begun in 1248 as the shrine for the relics of the Three Magi and as the coronation site for the Holy Roman Emperor, was still unfinished. Its soaring twin towers, which now dominate the city’s skyline, had not yet been built. (When they were finally completed in 1880, in a feat of modern engineering, the Cathedral briefly became the tallest structure in the world, at 515 feet, a title it held until 1884, when it passed to the Washington Monument at 555 feet.)
At the symphony’s premiere on February 6, 1851, some of the movements still carried suggestive programmatic titles, but Schumann quietly removed these from the published score. He was often wary of programmatic labels, complaining that once the listener’s eye has been directed to a particular narrative, “the ear no longer judges independently.”
The vivacious opening movement launches immediately into action, without the slow introduction or motto theme that begins Schumann’s other symphonies. Its main theme is one of the most exuberant themes found in the repertoire. It first sounds like a buoyant march, with regular emphatic downbeats, yet the score is actually in triple time; the phrasing cuts across the bar lines to create the march effect. Only after several measures does the true lilting triple meter emerge clearly, with ever-wider leaps that seem to jump for joy. Commentators have long noted the affinities with Beethoven’s Eroica, another expansive, high-spirited opening movement in E-flat major and in triple time with an intricate rhythmic structure. Schumann’s forceful, tightly argued development section in particular seems to acknowledge Beethoven as a model.
The second movement, marked Scherzo, takes the form of a Ländler—a rustic waltz-like German folk dance radiating Gemütlichkeit, that characteristic sense of warmth and easy good cheer. Here the “Rhenish” character of the symphony, and presumably the volkstümlich quality that Schumann sought, come to the fore most clearly. Despite its more relaxed tone compared to the opening movement, Schumann forges subtle interrelationships across the work. The prominence of the interval of the fourth and the focus on the E-flat major triad are features that recur in various guises in all five movements, knitting the diverse episodes into a remarkably unified whole.
The slow movement, placed third instead of the more conventional second position, is a graceful intermezzo in which the soft woodwinds are especially prominent. Schumann, who is often accused of scoring his orchestral works too thickly, achieves here a particularly transparent balance of sonorities.
Clara Schumann confessed after the first performance that she understood everything in the symphony except for the fourth movement, with its commanding trombone polyphony, which remained a closed book to her. This remark is apt: everything about this movement, marked Feierlich (“solemn”), projects a sense of elevated mystery, from its archaic counterpoint to its extreme key of E-flat minor (with six flats). It is as if Schumann momentarily leaves the merry popular world of the Rhine towns and vineyards to step into the rarefied spiritual space of the Gothic cathedral.
If the lofty fourth movement seems to abandon the volkstümlich ideal, the finale brings us back decisively to the symphony’s original sphere of exuberant public life. Marked Lebhaft (“lively”), replacing the original Italianate marking Allegro vivace, its bustling energy recalls the first movement, but adds a sense of culmination. In the coda, Schumann recalls the chorale theme of the fourth movement, now swept up in the swirling jubilation of the conclusion. The effect is to reconcile the sacred solemnity of the cathedral with the bustling, worldly vitality of the Rhine.
In calling his symphony volkstümlich, Schumann was not simply aiming for something easy or “popular” in the modern sense. He created a work through which listeners—citizens of a still-imaginary nation, shaped by shared songs, language, landscapes, and legends—could recognize themselves. The “Rhenish” invites its audiences to hear local dances, cathedral processions, river views, and festive gatherings transformed into symphonic forms. Its blend of immediacy and complexity, of warmth and contrapuntal rigor, fashions the life of a region and its people into something that is both familiar and grand, both intimate and quietly monumental.
Alexander Rehding
Alexander Rehding is Fanny Peabody Professor of Music at Harvard University. A scholar focusing on sound media and 19th-century music, he has authored books including Music and Monumentality, Alien Listening: The Voyager Golden Record and Music from Earth, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.