1841 was Robert Schumann's ‘symphonic year’. He composed the First (Spring) Symphony, op. 38; Overture, Scherzo and Finale, op. 52; a Phantasie for Piano and Orchestra (later revised to become the first movement of his Piano Concerto, op. 54); and the original version of his Fourth Symphony, op. 120. To this list we can add two other projects: extensive work on a symphony in C minor, whose third movement is a scherzo in G minor; a minuet movement in B♭ major titled Abendmusik, which Joachim Draheim believes was composed in conjunction with either the B♭ major Spring Symphony, or another symphonic fragment in F major. Both pieces, Abendmusik and G Minor Scherzo, later found their way into Schumann's Bunte Blätter, op. 99 (Nos. 12 and 13), published in late 1851.

The Scherzo is the only completed movement of the C minor symphonic fragment. For those who know it from Bunte Blätter, ‘the piano miniature follows the sketch almost measure for measure’.Footnote 1 Draheim derives his orchestration from notations in Schumann's short score.Footnote 2 His harmonization, I gather, is from the Bunte Blätter version, which Jon W. Finson hears as ‘appropriate for the piano’,Footnote 3 but which Draheim says ‘clearly bears the character of a piano reduction’ (Scherzo g-moll, preface).

Whether the Abendmusik was originally intended as an orchestra piece is a matter of speculation. No score from 1841 is extant. The assigned date is the composer's, given in the first edition of Bunte Blätter. Because ‘only two piano pieces … ascertainably date from this year’, and because for Draheim the Abendmusik is ‘less interesting as a piano piece and clearly bears the character of a piano reduction’, he assumes an association with one of Schumann's 1841 orchestra projects (Abendmusik preface).

The Abendmusik is ‘an enchanting three-part serenade in minuet form’ (Abendmusik, preface); the Scherzo, an energetic piece – a scherzo in two parts (the second beginning with a fughetta and developing motives from the first part), and a bright binary-form trio in G major. Draheim applies Schumann's instrumentation for the first movement of his C minor symphony fragment to both (2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings).

The Scherzo was first performed in Draheim's orchestration in 1994, in Karlsruhe. The version of the score reviewed here is a revision of a 1996 edition. The Abendmusik had its first performance, together with a first performance of the revised Scherzo, by the Staatskapelle Dresden in March 2010, on a concert entirely of Schumann's music that is reproduced on the DVD Homage to Robert Schumann (Arthaus Musik). Score and parts of both are ‘hire material’ from the publisher.

Both works are charming pieces. Draheim suggests that they should be performed as a pair, making a total of about eight minutes of music. While his speculations about and completions of Schumann's orchestrations (in the Abendmusik and Scherzo) are interesting, they seem to me little more than curiosities – good fodder for Schumann bicentennial programmes. Schumann's light, inner symphonic movements, which often take on the simple character of Hausmusik, come as places of repose or pleasant diversion from weightier matters taken up in his outer movements. Played alone they seem incomplete. The Dresden Staatskapelle Dresden performance is correct but not compelling.

Unlike Draheim, I think Schumann was right: without buttressing outer movements, the Scherzo and Abendmusik work far better as malleable piano pieces – for the amateur to play at home, or virtuosi to employ as they will. All the same, I admire Draheim's spirit of adventure in bringing forward his speculations, and his entrepreneurship in seeing those speculations realized in published score, carried out in live performance, and recorded on DVD.