Published only in 1956, this work has an unusual genesis and also poses performance problems even today. In fall 1853, Robert Schumann, Albert Dietrich, and Johannes Brahms decided to collaborate on a four-movement composition for violin and piano, which they called the F.A.E. Sonata. The letters in the title stand "frei aber einsam," or free but lonely. Schumann wrote the second and fourth movements, Dietrich the first, and Brahms the scherzo third. Shortly afterward, Schumann wrote two additional movements that, with the two he composed for the F.A.E. Sonata, formed his Sonata No. 3 for violin and piano. A few months later, he suffered a debilitating mental breakdown and was committed to an asylum in Enderich, Germany, where he died two years later. The problem he left for posterity regarding performance of his Sonata No. 3 is that the work exists in two manuscripts, each having two movements with no indication of the order the four movements are to be played in. The preferred choice for the first movement seems to be the "Ziemlich Langsam—Lebhaft" and the second the Scherzo ("Lebhaft"), these two being the movements Schumann composed after his F.A.E. collaboration. They are followed by the Intermezzo ("Bewegt, Doch Nicht zu Schnell") and finale ("Markiertes, Ziemlich Lebhaftes Tempo"), both from the earlier effort. The sonata's music is quite attractive and in Schumann's later Romantic style, from the dramatic and passionate first movement onto to the playful Scherzo and meltingly beautiful Intermezzo—probably the most memorable movement—and finally onto the lively, graceful finale.

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