Symphony No. 2 played by BBC Scottish Orchestra
Leader, J. Mouland Begbie Guest conductor,
Warwick Braithwaite
According to Schumann's biographer, Wasielewsky, Schumann said he sketched his Second Symphony at a time when he was going through great physical suffering. Thus the music portrays the struggle between the mental and the physical: the first movement is full of this contest and is therefore freakish and restless in character.
An important departure from classical custom is the use of certain themes of the first movement later in the work and the introduction of a recurring motive which is heard at the beginning on the horns, trumpets, and trombones.