Symphony no. 1 "Spring" in B-flat major, op. 38

Schumann sketched the Spring Symphony in four days in January 1841, a few months after finally marrying Clara Wieck, and finished the orchestration by 20 February; Mendelssohn conducted the first performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 31 March. Clara had pressed him towards orchestral writing, noting in her diary that his imagination could not find enough room at the piano. The title came from a poem by Adolf Böttger, and Schumann first planned headings for each movement before deleting them from the printed score, keeping only a private wish that the opening trumpet call should sound as if from above.