Schumann loved to devote himself at certain times to one branch of composition only. After writing 23 works for piano, he made 1840 a year of Lieder, followed by a phase in chamber music. His yearning to compose chamber music began in the year 1838 when he published his reviews of contemporary string quartets in the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik.

In the third of six articles he writes: "If I think now of the highest kind of music, such as we find in individual works of Bach and Beethoven, if I speak of the rare spiritual experiences the composer should open up for me, if I demand that with each of his works he lead me one stage farther into the spiritual domain of art, if I ask for poetic depth, and innovation, in the details as in the whole, I should have to search for a long time, and none of the works I have mentioned, none of the works being published now, would satisfy me."

These phrases illuminate his ideas of composition as well as his and others’ views of chamber music in the mid to late 19th century. The striking phrase on innovation finds relevance in the music of today.

The sad tale of Schumann’s later life is well-known; his fits of melancholy, his hearing of imaginary voices, his split personality, his desperate attempt at suicide by throwing himself in the Rhine River and his eventual death in an asylum.

At the time of Märchenerzählungen, or Fairy Tales, Op. 132, 1853, his bouts of sleeplessness, hesitancy of speech and movement, and deepening depression were getting worse. However, a temporary ray of light, in the form of a visit by the 20-year-old Johannes Brahms, gave him one last creative outburst. The Fairy Tales were composed during this all-too brief Indian summer.

Clearly, none of Schumann’s difficulties with larger forces are evident here. In the Fairy Tales, he draws closer and closer to his solo pianist roots (he was to have been a concert pianist, but in 1833 crippled himself in a device meant to widen his reach). Schumann cleverly links each movement, unifying them with subtle thematic references.

The more intimate Trio setting throws his subtle harmonies, such as passing augmented sixth chords, and intricate melodic passages into high relief. These figurations do not lose their effect, even when the clarinet or the viola double the piano line, which is far from the case in the crowded over-orchestrations of his symphonic works and concertos.