What Beethoven wanted and achieved in the works of his last period of creativity works which open up a distant future to music Schumann was the first artist after him to succeed in imparting the corresponding expression to it. (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 1849, on Robert Schumanns Second Symphony)

Schumanns Second Symphony was given its first performance in Leipzig on 5 November 1846 under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.

The present new edition is based on the first printing...