I rediscovered Robert Schumann’s Second Symphony while working out at the gym. I was listening to an Apple playlist of “Joyful Classical” music when the symphony’s scherzo movement played. I had heard this “tour de force for the strings” before but couldn’t have told you who wrote it.

Pieces like Schumann’s 2nd Symphony used to stump me and my parents when we played our own version of Name That Tune at dinnertime. Station WRR’s announcer withheld the title and composer of a work until it finished. While the music played, my parents and I would guess what it was and probably would have confused Schumann with someone else.

We might have guessed Brahams, whom Robert Schumann and his wife Clara championed as a young composer and practically adopted in the 1840s. Music historian Robert Greenberg devotes a blog post to what happened next, and the PBS series Now Hear This includes a digression about the Brahams/Schumann connection.

Getting back to Schumann’s Second Symphony, I love the ominous trumpet call at the beginning, which Leonard Bernstein analyzes in a 1953 recording that encompasses the entire symphony.

Unlike lesser composers who meander, Schumann has something definite to say. His statements stick in my ear and play in my head all night. To turn them off, I try to think of other music. I sang “Amazing Grace” at a service today; maybe that will do the trick.