PLAY! Festival 2026

Robert Schumann first met Clara Wieck when he was 18 and she was nine. A dozen years later, they were married. Few romances in music history have yielded as much important work. Schumann wrote his Piano Quintet in E flat for his talented wife to perform.

Unlike his friends Mendelssohn, Chopin and Brahms, all meticulous in their working habits, Schumann composed in white hot fits of inspiration. The year 1842 was his year of chamber music. He sketched the Piano Quintet in just five days. Before Schumann, Luigi Boccherini was the only composer of any consequence to write for piano and string quartet. Schumann changed that.

The first movement opens with a powerfully striding theme from which all other material is derived. The second movement is a menacing C minor march that would later strike responsive chords in Gustav Mahler. The Scherzo is built on a simple scale disrupted by misplaced accents. The finale ends with a fugal coda where the great theme from the first movement returns one final time.

Five days of furious sketching. Five players. One blazing Romantic classic.

Car parking

When you arrive for a College event at our Egham campus, please park in car parks 12 or 4.

Car park 12 can be accessed by turning right as you enter the main College gates and is located next to the tennis courts. If this car park is full, please drive further onto our campus to car park 4, which can be accessed by turning left at the mini-roundabout behind the Students’ Union. We would advise that you bring the College map to campus with you and give yourself plenty of time to park.

Blue Badge holders can find designated parking spaces in Car park 1W, as well as between Gardeners Lodge and the Williams Annexe. You can find these locations by looking at our campus map opposite. If you require any assistance on arrival, please contact our premises team in advance of your visit by emailing: premisesadmin@royalholloway.ac.uk and they will be happy to help.

Please note that we operate an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system on certain parts of our campus, however if you are here for an organised event, parking is unrestricted for event guests in car parks 12, 4 or 14 (or display your blue badge permit if parking in a disabled bay). If you have any questions about parking, please email: premisesadmin@royalholloway.ac.uk