Rather early in his life Robert Schumann developed the tendency to focus his compositional work on a specific genre for a certain period of time. Sometimes, for instance, he would compose almost nothing else but Lieder for a whole year. In 1845 it was the turn of the organ, an instrument that he might have occasionally played as a teenager, since his first piano teacher, J B Kuntsch, was the organist of Zwickau Cathedral.

Ludger Lohmann discusses the interpretation of Schumann's organ music in the context of the conventions of the time, and also with reference to Schumann's familiarity with the pedal piano, which, by 1840, had reached a state of perfection.

This article originally appeared in the RCO Journal of 2010.

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