Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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350 1832- SCHUMANN -1834
ciicumstances he was justified in learning in
his own way.
In the winter of 1832- 33, he lived at
Zwickau, and for a time also with his brothers
at Sohneeberg. Besides « pianoforte-concerto,
which still remains a fragment, he was working
at a symphony in G minor, of which the first
movement was publicly performed in the course
of the winter both at Sohneeberg and Zwickau.
If we may trust the evidence of the Musikalisches
WocheTiMaM, Leipzig, 1875, p. 180, the
whole symphony was performed at Zwickau in
1885, under Schumann's own direction, and the
last movement was almost a failure.
At all events the symphony was finished, and
Schumann expected it to be a great success ; in
this he must have been disappointed, for it has
never been published. The first performance of
the first movement at Zwickau took place at a
concert given there on Nov. 18, 1832, byWieok's
daughter Clara, who was then thirteen years of
age. Even then the performances of this gifted
girl, who was so soon to take her place as the
greatest female pianist of Germany, were astonishing,
and by them, as Schumann puts it,
'Zwickau was fired with enthusiasm for the
first time in its life. ' It is easily conceivable
that Schumann himself was enthusiastically
delighted with Clara, adorned as she was with
the twofold charm of childlike sweetness and
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artistic genius. Think of perfection, ' he writes
to a friend about her on April 5, 1833, 'and
I will agree to it.' And many expressions in
his letters seem even to betray a deeper feeling,
of which he himself did not become fully aware
until several years later.
Schumann's circumstances allowed him to
revisit Leipzig in March 1833, and even to live
there for a time without any definite occupation.
He was not exactly well off, but he had
enough to enable him to live as a single man
of moderate means. The poverty from which
so many of the greatest musicians have
suffered, never formed part of Schumann's
experience. He occupied himself with studiesin
composition chiefly in the contrapuntal style,
in which he had taken the liveliest interest
since makiug the acquaintance of Bach's works ;
besides this his imagination, asserting itself
more and more strongly, impelled him to the
creation of free compositions. From this year
date the impromptus for piano on a romance
by Clara Wieck, which Schumann dedicated to
her father, and published in August 1833, as
op. 5. In June he wrote the first and third
movements of the G minor Sonata (op. 22),
and at the same time began the FJt minor Sonata
(op. 11) and completed the Toccata (op. 7),
which had been begun in 1829. He also
arranged a second set of Paganini's violin caprices
for the piano (op. 10), having made a first
attempt of the same kind (op. 3) in the previous
Meanwhile he lived a quiet and almost
year.
monotonous life. Of family acquaintances h«
had few, nor did he seek them. He found a
faithful friend in Frau Henriette Voigt, who
was as excellent a pianist as she was noble and
sympathetic in soul. She was a pupil of
Ludwig Berger, of Berlin, and died young in
the year 1839. Schumann was wont as a rule
to spend his evenings with a small number of
intimate friends in a restaurant. These gatherings
generally took place at the Kaffeebaum
'
(Kleine Fleischergasse, No. 3). He himself,
however, generally remained silent by preference,
even in this confidential circle of friends. Readily
as he could express himself with his pen, he
had but little power of speech. Even in affairs
of no importance, which could have been transacted
most readily and simply by word of
mouth, he usually preferred to write. It was,
moreover, a kind of enjoyment to him to muse
in dreamy silence. Henriette Voigt told W.
Taubert that one lovely summer evening, after
making music with Schumann, they both felt inclined
to go on the water. They sat side by side
in the boat for an hour in silence. At parting
Schumann pressed her hand and said,
' To-day
we have perfectly understood one another.'
It was at these evening gatherings at the
restaurant in the winter of 1833-34 that the
plan of starting a new musical paper was
matured. It was the protest of youth, feeling
itself impelled to new things in art, against
the existing state of music. Although Weber,
Beethoven, and Schubert had only been dead a
few years, though Spohr and Marsohner were
still in their prime, and Mendelssohn was
beginning to be celebrated, the general characteristic
of the music of about the year 1830 was
either superficiality or else vulgar mediocrity.
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On the stage Eossini still reigned supreme,
and on the pianoforte scarcely anything was
heard but Herz and Hiinten.' Under these
conditions the war might have been more
suitably carried on by means of important
works of art than by a periodical about music.
Musical criticism, however, was itself in a bad
way at this time. The periodical called
GcecUia, published by Sohott, which had been
in existence since 1824, was unfitted for the
general reader, both by its contents and by the
fact of its publication in parts. The Berliner
allgermine rmmJcaliscJie Zeitung, conducted by
Marx, had come to an end in 1830. The only
periodical of influence and importance in 1833
was the AUgememe musikalische Zeitung, published
by Breitkopf & Hartel of Leipzig, and at
that time edited by G. W. Fink. But the
narrow view taken of criticism in that periodical,
its inane mildness ofjudgment—Schumann used
to call it Honigpinselei ' or Honey-daubing
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—its lenity towards the reigning insipidity and
superficiality, could not but provoke contradiction
from young people of high aims. And the
idea of first bringing the lever to bear on the