Schumann wrote the Cello Concerto in A minor, op. 129, in two weeks of October 1850, shortly after taking up his post in Düsseldorf. It was never performed in his lifetime: publishers hesitated, and by the time it reached print he was ill. The premiere came in 1860, four years after his death. Schumann himself prepared a version for violin in 1853, transposing and adapting the solo part, and that arrangement has been taken up occasionally since. The three movements run without a break, and the soloist is placed inside the orchestral texture rather than in front of it.