DESCRIPTION:
- Composer: Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 -- 29 July 1856)
- Performer: Vladimir Horowitz
- Year of recording: 1969

Kreisleriana Op. 16, subtitled 8 Phantasien für das Pianoforte {8 Fantasias for piano}, written in 1838.

00:00 - 1. Äußerst bewegt (Extremely animated), D minor
02:39 - 2. Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch (Very inwardly and not too quickly), B-flat major
09:41 - 3. Sehr aufgeregt (Very agitated), G minor
13:17 - 4. Sehr langsam (Very slowly), B-flat major/D minor
16:36 - 5. Sehr lebhaft (Very lively), G minor
19:57 - 6. Sehr langsam (Very slowly), B-flat major
23:52 - 7. Sehr rasch (Very fast), C minor/E-flat major
26:07 - 8. Schnell und spielend (Fast and playful), G minor

Dedicated to Frédéric Chopin in the score, but like most of Schumann's piano music from the late 1830s, it is really about Schumann's love for his wife Clara Wieck. It is a very dramatic work and is considered to be one of Schumann's finest compositions.

The work's programme, or at any rate the basis for a depiction of psychological music-drama, is based on the character Johannes Kreisler from works of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Like the kaleidoscopic Kreisler, each number has multiple contrasting sections, resembling the imaginary musician's manic-depression, and recalling Florestan and Eusebius, the two imaginary characters of Schumann's inner vision (representing his impulsive and dreamy sides, respectively). Johannes Kreisler appeared in three books by E. T. A. Hoffmann, most notably in Kreisleriana (a section of "Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier" published in 1814).

Schumann used material from the eighth movement, "Schnell und spielend", for the fourth movement of his first symphony.