The complete three-movement version was premiered in Dresden on 4 December 1845, again with Clara Schumann, and the dedicatee Ferdinand Hiller as the conductor.

After this concerto, Schumann wrote two other pieces for piano and orchestra: the Introduction and Allegro Appassionato in G major, Op.

The concerto is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings, and solo piano.

The melody begins with the notes C–H–A–A, which stand for the Italian spelling of the first name CHiArA of Schumann's wife Clara, who was the soloist at the world premiere of the piano concerto.

The orchestra and especially the clarinet is often used against the piano in this movement: while the solo instrument is dedicated to the main theme of the concerto, the strings begin to intone a Florestan-like, syncopated side thought (bar 41), which becomes more and more dominant, until a variation of the Eusebian main theme recurs quietly but urgently.

In the B section in the dominant the cellos and later the other strings and wind instruments display a singing theme which is derived from the piano flourish in bar 7.

The piece is cast in a hybrid sonata-rondo form with an extended and exciting coda, ending with a long timpani roll and a huge chord from the orchestra.

[4] The main theme of the first movement is similar to the melody of the Florestan aria from Ludwig van Beethoven's opera Fidelio.

In this way the concerto is, like many of his other compositions, based on Schumann's lifelong concern to fight against philistinism with musical means.

Clara Schumann wrote after the premiere: "... how rich in invention, how interesting from the beginning to the end, how fresh and what a beautiful coherent whole!

"[5] Special emphasis was placed on the skilful, colorful and independent orchestral treatment, that would leave room for piano and orchestra alike.

The Leipzig Allgemeine Musikzeitung praised the composition on December 31: "because, fortunately, it avoids the usual monotony of the genre, by giving, with great love and care, the obligatory room to orchestra without diminishing the role of the piano, and manages to beautifully link both independent parts together".

[6] The Dresdner Abendzeitung praised the "quite independent, beautiful and interesting orchestral treatment", and recognizes that the "receding of the piano part into the background" could certainly also be seen as progress.

Grieg's concerto, like Schumann's, employs a single powerful orchestral chord at its introduction before the piano's entrance with a similar descending flourish.

In popular music, the theme of Eusebius (together with Florestan one of Robert Schumann's two imaginary alter egos), which appears played by an oboe and other wind instruments soon into the first movement, might have been an original source of inspiration, possibly via the 1911 suite Goyescas by Spanish composer Enrique Granados, of the song Bésame mucho, whose worldwide success dates back to the 1930s.