Macdonald - Schumann's Piano Practice

Schumann's Piano Practice: Technical Mastery and Artistic Ideal
Author(s): Claudia Macdonald

Source: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 19, No. 4, (Autumn, 2002), pp. 527-563
Published by: University of California Press
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Schumann's Piano Practice:
Technical Mastery and
Artistic Ideal
CLAUDIA MACDONALD
w v hen Robert Schumann wrote his Musikalische

Haus- und Lebensregelnin 1849, he explained that music came not
through well trained fingers but from the head and the heart.
So whatdoes it mean to be musical?Youare not musicalif, eyes glued
nervouslyto the notes, you play a piece painfullythrough to the end;
you are not musicalif you get stuckand cannot go on because some-
one happens to turn two pages at once for you. But you are, if with a
new piece you almostsense whatis coming, if with a familiarone, you 527
know it completely.In a word, if you have music not just in your fin-
gers, but in yourhead and yourheart.l
At first pass this does not seem an unusual statement. Schumann's earli-
est training was as a skilled amateur, a lover of music. Unlike the great
I would like to thank the National Endowment for the Humani-

ties for a grant that enabled me to do research for this article,
andJohn Daverio, for reading and commenting on it.
1 On the date of the MusikalischeHaus- und

Lebensregeln,see Bernhard R. Appel,
RobertSchumanns "Albumfur die Jugend." Einfiihrung und Kommentar(Zurich: Atlantis,
1998), 194-97. 1849 is the date Schumann wrote on a clean copy of the rules; they were
first published on 28 June 1850 in the Neue ZeitschriftfirMusik (Beilage No. 36). The text
I have translated is from an appendix to the second edition of the Albumfur dieJugend,
published by Schuberth in 1850. Bernhard R. Appel gives a facsimile of the entire edi-
tion; the citation (no. 44 of the rules) is on p. 297. "Was heiBt denn aber musikalisch
sein? Du bist es nicht, wenn du die Augen angstlich auf die Noten gerichtet, dein Stuck
muhsam zu Ende spielst; du bist es nicht, wenn du (es wendet dir Jemand etwa zwei
Seiten auf einmal um,) stecken bleibst, und nicht fortkannst. Du bist es aber, wenn du bei
einem neuem Stuck das, was kommt, ohngefahr ahnest, bei einem dir bekannten,
auswendig weiBt,-mit einem Worte, wenn du Musik nich allein in den Fingern, sondern
im Kopf und Herzen hast.-"
TheJournal Vol.XIX, Issue4, Fall2002, pp. 527-563, ISSN0277-9269, electronic ISSN

of Musicology,
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THE JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGY
pianists who were his immediate predecessors (Ludwig van Beethoven,

Johann Nepomuk Hummel, John Field, Fr6d6ric Kalkbrenner, Carl
Maria von Weber, Ignaz Moscheles, Henri Herz) and contemporaries
(Felix Mendelssohn, Fryderyk Chopin, Franz Liszt, Sigismond Thal-
berg, Clara Wieck), he was not a prodigy and was not involved in the
business of music from his youth. Rather, he enjoyed music among his
friends. Thus, it may seem natural that he carried through his adult life
and career as a professional musician the attitude that music is rooted
in the heart, an attitude reinforced for us today to the extent that we
still associate Schumann with music of a cozy Biedermeier style-some
of his most supremely virtuosic or most stunningly dramatic works (the
Violin Phantasie, or terrifying conclusion to the third act of Genoveva)
are rarely heard. We may take as natural, too, his identification with
Schubert, who was also comfortable in the world of amateur music
making, and who is more readily associated with the intimacy of many
of his Lieder than with the frightening Sanctus of his Mass in Ek.
This study will show that, more than a natural inclination, the pri-
ority Schumann gave his ideal music of the heart and mind over techni-
cal display was a conscious determination made in his young adulthood
528 at the time he decided to embark on a professional career as a pianist:
He demanded the submission of music's mechanical side to its spirit.
This may seem a trivial conclusion, but we must keep in mind that this
determination was made just as thundering virtuosity began dazzling
the European public, when hundreds of etudes promised the develop-
ment of steely fingers, and when Schumann himself was devoting hours
per day perfecting large works by Hummel, Chopin, and Herz, and to
mastery of hundreds of exercises from Hummel's massive Anweisung
zum Piano-Forte-Spiel.3 Like Liszt, he had come under the spell of the
devil's fiddler, Paganini. Moderation at the keyboard was certainly not
what he had in mind when he set out to rival all comers through skill
and technique topped off by imagination.
We shall begin with an overview of Schumann's musical activities
from 1828 to 1830, the time when he first came into contact with
2
On Schumann's love for Schubert, see Leon B. Plantinga, Schumannas Critic(New
Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1967), 219-26. On the importance of Vienna's musical
salons to Schubert, see Otto Biba, "Schubert's Position in Viennese Musical Life," Igth-
CenturyMusic 3 (1979-80): 108-9.
3 Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ausfiihrlichetheoretischpractische Anweisung zum Piano-
Forte-Spielvom ersten Elementar-Unterrichtean bis zur Ausbildung, 2nd ed.
volkommensten
(Vienna: Haslinger, 1838; repr. Straubenhardt: Zimmermann, 1989), 468 pp. Schumann,
of course, used the first edition, which was published in 1828.
On the rise of technical method books in the early 19th century, see Leslie David
Blasius, "The Mechanics of Sensation and the Construction of the Romantic Musical Ex-
perience," in Music Theoryin theAge of Romanticism,ed. Ian Bent (Cambridge: Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1996), io-18.
MACDONALD
Friedrich Wieck-whose obsession with the mechanical production of

music was at odds with Schumann's love and, as an amateur, habit of
spontaneous music making-up to the time when he decided, under
Wieck's guidance and following his prescriptions, to become a profes-
sional musician. We will then follow Schumann's progress under Wieck
during a three-month period when he kept a detailed diary, from early
May through mid August 1831. We will explore not only the ups and
downs of his daily practice, but also his introduction to the entire mi-
lieu of the professional musician-compulsory theory lessons with
Heinrich Dorn, gatherings of musicians at Wieck's home, and day-to-
day contact with the already-turned-professional, eleven-and-one-half-
year-old child prodigy Clara Wieck. What emerges is the story of a tug
of war between the reality of roaring double octaves and passagework
speed merchants on the one hand and Schubert-inspired, idealistic
Schongeisteron the other, a pull between what Schumann often saw as
the jaded world of the professional musician, and the enthusiastic and
spontaneous response to music that had been nurtured in him as an
amateur.
This division of music into technical and expressive components is
an invention of the romantic generation, related to the division of the 529
world into the noumenal and the phenomenal by Immanuel Kant, the
elevation of music to the highest of arts, even to a spiritual plane by
Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroeder, and, in the early 19th century, the
philosophy of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Arthur
Schopenhauer, which identified music with the underlying essence of
the world. The 19th century was the first to proclaim music the highest
art; at the same time it was the first to produce, in the works of Beetho-
ven and J. B. Cramer, and in Muzio Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum,
a variety of technical problems unheard of in the works of earlier
composers-Domenico Scarlatti, C. P. E. Bach, or Mozart-and for an
instrument unknown by them. Purling passagework, a relatively easy
matter on 18th-century pianos, was more problematic on a Graf, and
became increasingly so year by year, as Clara Wieck's struggles with
Parisian pianos in 1839 attest.4
The duality of music, its simultaneous physical (it is, after all, the
movement of physical objects that produces sound) and spiritual exis-
tence, is the crux of our discussion. As an amateur Schumann had the
luxury of avoiding devotion to the mechanical altogether. On deciding
to become a professional, he deemed perfection of his mechanical
skills a necessary phase through which he must pass in order to reach
4 See, for
example, her letter to Schumann of 15 February 1839 in Clara und
Robert Schumann, Briefwechsel. KritischeGesamtausgabe,
vol. 2, ed. Eva Weissweiler (Frank-
furt am Main: Stroemfeld/Roter Stern, 1987): 388 (no. 123).
the highest artistic plane of musical expression. His efforts proved frus-
trating, and, as his repeated blocks against practicing-whether an avoid-
ance of working out mechanical problems, or a compulsion to linger on
them overlong-suggest, the obstacle was to prove insurmountable; his
goal, though twice previously achieved, was ultimately to elude him. He
discovered that it was simply not possible for him to sustain his artistic
ends by passing, Tamino-like, through the trials of perfecting his tech-
nique. He realized that for him music's noumenal world existed apart
from its phenomenal or mechanical aspect; there could be no passage
through its ordinary side to a more rarefied place. The only possibility
for uniting the mundane and the extraordinary in music lay instead in
the conversion of the mechanical to the artistic.
The process by which Schumann came to this realization is detailed
in his diary entries of mid May through August 1831. These show the
workings of the young artist's mind (or at least, as near a look as we can
hope to have of it), as he grappled with a dilemma basic to his time,
namely, how to embrace the newest athletic developments in music
while still claiming music as an expressive language reaching into inner
depths that are supposedly immune to its power to dazzle. In July 1831,
530 after reaching the lowest point of his square-off with the piano, Schu-
mann finally worked through the impasse to his practice. He concen-
trated on Chopin's Variations, op. 2, diligently perfecting his technical
presentation and obsessively taking stock of his progress toward a fin-
ished, ideal performance. His efforts are recorded in an Uebungstage-
buch, a series of exercises based on passages from the Variations. As we
shall see, these have little to do with any mechanical problems in the set
(for example, the fourth, staccato, Con bravuravariation), but instead
give a glimpse into how Schumann hoped to realize physically his imag-
ined, ideal sound world.
Gentleman Amateur, 828-30: The Mechanics and Substance of Music

Schumann decided to become a professional pianist in July 1830.
Up to that time he was known as an accomplished pianist in his native
Zwickau by a small public and smaller circle of amateur musicians who
invited him to participate in their intimate gatherings. His renown as
an amateur pianist continued during his years as a law student in Leip-
zig from spring 1828 to spring 1829. In spring 1828 he was introduced
to Friedrich Wieck, then began lessons with him in August. These ran
concurrently, were even intertwined with his activities as an amateur:
For his lessons he prepared the Hummel Concerto in A Minor, op. 85
and Moscheles AlexanderVariations, op. 32, which he then played at a
public concert in his hometown in spring 1829, and Wieck was part of
MACDONALD
the small circle that gathered regularly to hear him play chamber music
with a group of fellow students.5 Under Wieck's tutelage Schumann
also received his first heavy dose of technical studies. He began practic-
ing from Cramer's Etudes in December 1828, then Hummel's Clavier-
schule in February 1829.6
Schumann's local fame as a gentleman amateur of some accomplish-
ment continued during a year and four months in Heidelberg (late May
1829 through late September 1830)-he was welcomed into the homes
of music loving amateurs, accompanied Lieder, played piano solo (often
improvisatory), four-hands, and chamber music.7 He set himself apart as
the best player in the city, no doubt because of his natural talent and
obvious accomplishment, but by his own estimation, also because of his
cultivation of technique. In a letter to Wieck of 6 November 1829, he
berated the local players as unmusical, based solely on their indiffer-
ence to technical method.
You have no idea of the carelessness and crudity of execution, of the

stabbing, moaning and blustering, and altogether frightful dullness of
their playing; they do not consider attack and tone and singing, and
never in their lives have they heard of practice-finger exercises and 531
scales, etc.8
5 These were the philology studentJohann Friedrich Taglichsbeck (violin), theol-

ogy student Christoph Soergel (viola), and medical student Christian Glock (cello); the
listeners were, aside from Wieck, Dr. Ernst August Carus and Heinrich Albert Probst
(Schumann, Tagebiicher, vol. 1 [1827-1838], ed. Georg Eismann [Leipzig: Breitkopf &
Hartel, 1971]: 447ni 12). Schumann recorded the dates of the meetings and repertory
i: 138-39, 144, 147, 150, 152,
played in his diary and in a separate document (Tagebiicher,
166, 168, 170, 171, 172, 175, 177, 179, 180-81, 182, 184 [14, 18, 22, 30 November, 7 De-
cember 1828; 1o, 19, 25, 31 January, 7, 21, 28 February, 7, 13, 15, 21, 28 March 1829];
"Leipziger Quartettabende" [Archiv des Robert-Schumann-Hauses Zwickau, 4871 VII,
C1 A3]). See also Bodo Bischoff, Monumentfur Beethoven.Die Entwicklungder Beethoven-
RezeptionRobertSchumanns(Cologne: Christoph Dohr, 1994), 67-68, 69-71 (table 3).
6 Schumann,
Tagebiicher1: 153, 174, 315 (11 December 1828; 13, 17, 18 February
1829). What Schumann refers to as Hummel's Clavierschuleis his Anweisung zum Piano-
Forte-Spiel,cited in n3; the Cramer is presumably his Etudes en 42 exercicesdoigtesdans les
differents Tons, 2 vols. (1804-10).
7 Schumann played piano four-hands with Theodor T6pken, chamber music with
the cellistsJulius Klughist and J. August Lemke, and violinist Hermann Wolff (Schumann,
Tagebiicher, : 207, 208, 209, 221, 223 [24July, 13, 14 August 1829; 21, 3oJanuary 1830]);
he accompanied the singer Friedrich Weber (Tagebiicher, 1: 215, 223 [13, 30 January
1830]); and was a guest in the homes of Dr. A. Wuistenfeldand the Englishman J. Mitchell
where he played (and heard) solo and chamber music, and improvised (Tagebiicher,1:
212, 215, 216, 223, 226, 233 [25 December 1829; 13, 16, 29January, 7 February, 7 March
1830]).
8 "Sie haben keine Idee von der Liederlichkeit und Rohheit des Vortrags und von
dem Stechen, Wimmern und Poltern und der ganzen ungeheuren Mattigkeit ihres
Spiels; an Anschlag und Ton und Gesang ist nicht zu denken und von Einstudieren: Fin-
geriubungen und Tonleitern etc. haben sie in ihrem Leben nichts geh6rt." Robert Schu-
mann, Jugendbriefe,2nd ed., ed. Clara Schumann (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1886),
79-8o.
As an example Schumann points to a fellow student who came to him

with the Hummel Concerto in A minor. His playing was "true, without
mistakes and primitively precise and in a scrupulously rhythmical
march time." But when Schumann in turn played the piece, the student
inquired, "Where does the violin tone come from?" To achieve a similar
result Schumann recommended he practice an hour each day from
Herz's finger exercises.9 The student did as prescribed and upon his re-
turn a week later Schumann judged his performance ten times better-
as no doubt he did his own after a similar regimen just a few months
earlier when he spent hours working away at scales and finger exercises
from Hummel's Clavierschuleto steel himself for a performance of the
same Hummel concerto.'0
However, Schumann confessed to Wieck in the same letter of 6 No-
vember that he was not himself heeding his own advice. He reported
that his general habit was to do much improvising and play little from
score. In forte passages, he said, his touch had become much richer, and
in piano ones much freer and more spirited, but he conceded that he
may have lost "finish and precision" in his playing." This changed only
when he decided to give up his law studies and pursue a career in mu-
532 sic, a course that may have been encouraged after he heard Nicolo
Paganini perform in Frankfurt on 11 April 1830. Though he had reser-
vations about the concert, Schumann also wrote of his rapture (Entziick-
ung) and later recalled that Paganini excited him to work to extremes
(reizteaufs Aeufierstezum Fleifi).12 Around this time he also heard the vio-
lin virtuoso and acclaimed student of Paganini, Heinrich Wilhelm
Ernst. Eduard R6ller, a fellow student, reports that when Ernst came
to Heidelberg in 1830, Schumann associated with him assiduously, and
9 ". . . er trug es treu, fehlerfrei und altvaterisch-pracis und in gewissenhaft-

rhythmischem March-takt vor ... wie ich es ihm aber sodann vorspielte so meinte er ...
woher denn der Violinenton kame . . ." Schumann, Jugendbriefe,8o. Herz, Exerciceset
preludesdans tous les tons majeuret mineurs,op. 21. In a later overview of piano etudes Schu-
mann wrote that the value of Herz's exercises lay in the composer's knowledge of the
instrument. He singled out special features of nos. 2, 7, and 19 ("Die Pianoforteetiuden,
ihren Zwecken nach geordnet," Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik4, no. 11 [6 February 1836]: 45-
46).
o0See my article, "Schumann's Earliest Compositions and Performances," Journal of
MusicologicalResearch7 (1987): 263-64.
11 "... doch fuihl' ich, daB mein Anschlag im Forte viel reicher und im Piano viel
freier und schwungvoller geworden ist, an Fertigkeit und Prizision mag ich jedoch ver-
loren haben." Schumann, Jugendbriefe,79.
12 Lilia Nitschkova-Goleminova, "Schumann - Moscheles - Paganini. Berichtigungen
zur Biographie Robert Schumanns," Die Musikforschung31(1978): 24-28. See also, Schu-
mann, Tagebiicher,1: 282-83 (Easter, 1830); and Georg Eismann, RobertSchumann:Ein
Quellenwerkiibersein Lebenund Schaffen(Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1956), 1: 77 (Schu-
mann, "Selbstaufzeichnung 'Musikalischer Lebenslauf' "). In his edition, Martin Schoppe
calls the "Musikalischer Lebenslauf bis 1834 reichend" instead "Selbstbiographische Noti-
zen" (RobertSchumann Selbstbiographische Notizen, Faksimile, [Zwickau: Robert-Schumann-
Gesellschaft, n. d.]). He dates the "Notizen" to after 1840.
MACDONALD
that the 16-year-old professional likely had a strong and decisive influ-
ence on him.l3 And no wonder, since, despite the advanced level of
Schumann's playing, Paganini and his prodigy were the first world-class
performers he heard on any instrument; hearing Paganini perform was
his first indication, beyond the method books that had heretofore been
his guide, of the irresistible power of supreme technique combined
with consummate artistry.
Schumann first proposed forsaking his law studies in a letter to his
mother of 30 July, which she forwarded to Wieck. Wieck's response to
the proposal was positive: He agreed to take Schumann as a student
and promised to make him a greater pianist than Hummel or Moscheles
within three years. It was also conditional: Wieck was well aware of
Schumann's propensities and demanded that he follow a carefully out-
lined five-point program. Above all was a requirement that Schumann
apply himself relentlessly to the mechanics of playing.
Robert very wrongly supposes "that the whole of piano playing consists
of pure mechanics;" what a one-sided judgment! . . . But it is true, for
Robert the greatest difficulty lies in the quiet, cold, thoughtful and
persistent conquering of mechanics as the first element of all piano 533
playing. I confess frankly that when, after difficult struggles and huge
disagreements on his part, I was successful ... in convincing him of
the importance of a pure, precise, equal, clear and rhythmicallymarked
and elegant touch, by the next lesson it had often borne little fruit-
and I began ... again to take up the old theme and again to explain
the difference with respect to music studied with me, etc. etc., and
forcibly to persevere in my point.'4
'3 "DerVirtuosErnstkamauch 1830 nach Heidelbergund mit ihm verkehrteSchu-

mann emsig,daheres moglichist, daBstarkenund vielleichtentscheidendenEinfluBauf
[Leipzig:Breitkopf& Hartel, 1887],
Schumanniana
ihn geiibt hat"(W.J. von Wasielewski,
79). In 1840 Schumannrecalledthat Ernstalwaysgave concertsin the same cites where
Paganini had played shortly before. "Mit Freuden erinnere ich mich jener Konzerte in
einigen Rheinstadten, wo er wie ein Apoll die Heidelberger Musenschaft in die nahen
Stadte sich nachzog." "H. W. Ernst," Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik 12, no. 8 (24 January 1840):
30. Schumann also met up with Ernst on 5 August 1830 in Baden-Baden (Tagebiicher,i:
290).
4 ". . . Robert meint sehr irrig 'das das ganze Klavierspiel in reiner Mechanik
bestiinde'; welch einseitiges Urtheil! . . . Aber das ist wahr, fur Robert liegt die groBte
Schwierigkeit in der ruhigen, kalten, besonnenen und anhaltenden Besiegung der
Mechanik, als der erste Urstoff alles Klavierspiels. Ich gesteh offen, daB wenn es mir ...
gelang, nach harten kampfen und groBem Widerspruch von seiner Seite ... ihn von der
Wichtigkeit eines reinlichen, pracisen, egalen, deutlichen u. rhythmisch bezeichnenden
u. endlich eleganten Spieles zu uberzeugen, es doch fur die nachste Lektion oft wenig
Frichte getragen hatte - u. fing ich an ... das alte Thema wieder vorzunehmen u. auf
den Unterschied der bei mir einstudirten Musik etc. etc. wieder zu kommen u. ernstlich
auf meinem Satz zu beharren . ." Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann.Ein Kiinstlerleben
(Leipzig, 1923-25; repr. edition, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1971), 1 ("Madchenjahre,
1819-1840"): 21-2 2 (letter to Christiane Schumann of 9 August 1830).
Wieck quotes from Schumann's original request to his mother, where

he had written, "With application and patience, and under a good
teacher, within six years I will be able to compete with any pianist, since
the whole of piano playing consists of pure mechanics and execution;
every now and then I also have imagination. .. ."5 Dr. Ernst August
Carus had also seen the letter, and to him, not Wieck, Schumann ex-
plained that his words had been misunderstood. What he really meant,
he said, was "that greater power over the mechanics also results in
greater power over the substance, and then I can control the substance,
twist and turn it in whatever direction I wish."'6
Presumably the substance is the essence of the piece found in the
imagination which, Schumann wrote his mother, "every now and then"
he had. Just how to gain mastery over the substance remained a bone
of contention. Years later Schumann was to recall his "frequent quarrels
with Wieck," beginning as early as 1829 and revolving around the
"insipid virtuosity" he associated with Herz and Czerny (and which he
contrasted to the spellbinding virtuosity of Paganini).'7 Though his rec-
ollection is that he rejected this school, when he received Wieck's letter
in August 1830 he agreed to the program it outlined with alacrity.l8Al-
534 ready he had put down earnest money on the promise: By 25 Septem-
ber 1830 he wrote Dr. Carus that for the past 12 weeks he had been
regularly practicing three to four hours every day "welland profitably."19
Piano and Theory Student, 83 1: Psychological Blocks
When Schumann returned to Leipzig on 20 October 1830, he be-

gan on a professional track: For the first time in his life he was sub-
jected to a rigorous training program whose object was the attainment
5 ". . . daB ich bei FleiB und Geduld und unter gutem Lehrer binnen sechsJahren
mit jedem Klavierspielerwetteifernwill, da das ganze Klavierspielreine Mechanikund
Fertigkeitist;hier und da hab'ichauch Phantasie..." Schumann,Jugendbriefe, 118.
6 ".. .. das die hohere Gewaltuiber die Mechanikauch die hohere fiber den Stoff
mit sich bringt und daB ich dann den Stoff beherrsche,wenden und drehen kann, wie
und wohin ich will." Briefe und Notizen Robertund Clara Schumanns, 2nd, rev. ed., ed.
SiegfriedKross(Bonn:Bouvier,1982), 28 (letterto Dr.Carusfrom Robert).
'7 "Anfange des seichten Virtuosenthums (Herz, Czerny). Dagegen auch Paganinis
Erscheinung. (Spaiterin Frankfurt a/m gehort). Mein Verwerfen dieser Schule u. ofterer
Streit mit F. Wieck" (Schumann, "Materialien [-1829]," Archiv des Robert-Schumann-
Hauses Zwickau, 4871 VII B,3 A3, p. 3). The archive also has an annotated typescript of
the "Materialien"prepared by Georg Eismann. Bischoff dates the document to ca. 1846
(Monumentfur Beethoven,36, n26). In the chronological sequence of the "Materialien"the
cited entry falls into summer or possibly autumn 1828.
18 Schumann, Briefe. Neue Folge, 2nd ed., ed. F. GustavJansen (Leipzig: Breitkopf &
Hartel, 1904), 25 (letter to Wieck of 21 August 1830).
'9 ". .. habe mich die letzten zw6lf Wochen hindurch jeden TagregelmaBig drey-vier
Stunden gut und mit Nutzen geibt." Briefeund NotizenRobertund ClaraSchumanns,28.
MACDONALD
of the two hallmarks of professionalism, technical facility and control of

the practical aspects of theory. The change, from cordially received
gentleman performer to closely watched professional, though of his
own volition, was not easy-Schumann rebelled against every aspect of
his new schooling. At times he found it inimical to the expressive art he
cherished. He continued the strict practice regimen he had begun in
Heidelberg, attempting to subordinate hours of technical study to his
artistic ends, but despaired at the fitfulness of his progress.20
Schumann left no diary record of his first six months in the city,
but later recalled, "In 1830 I went back to Leipzig. Diligent, constant
studies: I played over 6-7 hours daily."21 The diary entries begin anew
in May 1831. Over the spring and summer months they show Schu-
mann's steady practice under a program designed to improve his tech-
nical prowess while at the same time maintaining an even, purling
touch. To this end he worked on a repertory that if not entirely pre-
scribed by Wieck, reflects his method and Schumann's own philosophy
of the time, to "combine the study of etudes with the study of composi-
tions so that the cultivation of a feeling for interpretation and perfor-
mance goes hand in hand with the study of technic."22 The composi-
tions he studied included Chopin, Variations, op. 2; John Field, "third 535
Rondo," that is, the rondo to his Third Piano Concerto; Henri Herz,
Variationsbrillantessur la Cavatinefavorite de la Violettede Carafa,op. 48;
Hummel, Sonata in F-sharp Minor, op. 81; the first movement of his
own Concerto in F Major, and a Mittelsatz(presumably of his Concerto,
though such a movement is no longer extant). For technique he prac-
ticed Carl Czerny, GrandsExercicesde toutes les manieresde tremblements
("Trillerfibungen"), op. 151; Hummel, Anweisung zum Pianofortespiel
("Fingerfibungen"); Moscheles, Studien fur das Pianoforte ("Etuden"),
20 On
3 June 1830 Schumann wrote his brother Carl that he was playing the piano
daily from eight to ten o'clock every morning, and by 25 September he reported to Dr.
Ernst August Carus that he had practiced three to four hours every day for the last twelve
weeks. See Schumann, Jugendbriefe,111 (letter to Carl), also 114 (1 July 1830 letter to his
mother); Briefe und Notizen Robertund Clara Schumanns, 28 (letter to Dr. Carus from
Robert).
21
"1830 ging ich nach Leipzig zurfick. FleiBige, fortgesetzte Studien; ich spielte
taglich fiber 6-7 Stunden." Georg Eismann, Quellenwerk,1: 77 (Schumann, "Selbstaufze-
ichnung 'Musikalischer Lebenslauf' "). On the date of the Lebenslauf, see n 2.
22 Friedrich Wieck, Piano and
Song (Didacticand Polemical):The CollectedWritingsof
Clara Schumann'sFatherand Only Teacher,trans. and ed. Henry Pleasants (Stuyvesant, New
York: Pendragon, 1988), 23 ("Conversation and Dinner with Herr and Frau Zach"). See
also p. 40 ("SECRETS:A Paper on the Study of the Piano Presented to a Circle of Piano
Playing Ladies"). Pleasants translates the first edition of Wieck's book, Clavierund Gesang.
Dadaktischesund Polemisches,from 1853. In the third edition (Leipzig: F. E. C. Leuckart,
1878), this passage reads: "Verbinden Sie nicht mit dem Studium der Etuden auch das
Studium von Tonstuicken, damit die Ausbildung des Gefiihls ffir Vortrag und feine
Darstellung immer Hand in Hand gehe mit dem Studium der Mecanik?"
op. 70, nos. 3 and 19; his own Exercice[s] (modeled after the exercises of
Hummel); and scales.23
Practice was not always smooth going for Schumann. His moods
from May through August were variable, ranging from deep depression
and withdrawal into drinking or lethargy to joy in his own accomplish-
ments, and his work at the piano was a barometer of these swings.24
When he began his diary anew on 11 May it was with the determination
to diligently write something every day. He also reports satisfaction with
his playing:
11 May Practiced and played beautifully in the morning -

Field's Third Rondo - it sparkled and flashed ...
12 May Played a lot of piano. Field's Rondo, Moscheles's Third
Etude, my middle movement - the scales very relaxed
13 May Up early - my sobriety repaid itself; played very beautifully
- delicate purling attack and purling improvisation.25
23 See tables 6 and 7 in Bodo Bischoff,Monument Beethoven,

536 fur 115-18. They list
Schumann'srepertorybasedon dated entriesin his diaryand his Uebungstagebuch, a series
of short musicalexcerptsin "SkizzenbuchI" (Universitits-und LandesbibliothekBonn,
Handschriftenabteilung, Schumann 13), pp. 91-94. Two Herz pieces listed by Bischoff,
the Rondopourlepianoforte surun choeurfavori de l'opera
MoisedeRossini,Op. 37, and Varia-
tionsdebravoure surla romance del'opera'Joseph"deE. Mehul("Bravourvariationen"), op. 20
were heard ratherthan playedby Schumann,the latterin a performanceby ClaraWieck
(Tagebiicher,i: 337, 344 [6June, i July]);a rondo by CarlA. von Winkhlerwasapparently
sight-read,not practicedby Schumann (Tagebiicher 1: 344 [1 July]). Bischoffalso lists
Beethoven,Sonatain C Minor,op. io, no. 1. This is the only repertorypiece identifiable
in the Uebungstagebuch thatis not also entered in Schumann'sdiary.
Generally,Bischoff'sreluctanceto give precise titles for the Czerny,Hummel, and
Moschelesstudies seems overcautious.On the Field Rondo (also not preciselytitled by
Bischoff), see Cecil Hopkinson, A Bibliographical ThematicCatalogueof the WorksofJohn
Field,I782-I837 (London:the author, 1961), 80-81. The second, rondo movementof
the Third Concertowaspublishedseparatelyin Leipzigby Petersin 1818 under the title
"No. 3 de Rondeaux."On Schumann'sown works,see his Tagebiicher, : 329, 330, 333,
336, 360-62 (11, 12, 24, 25 May;4 June; 14 August).In his index to the Tagebiicher Eis-
mann listsSchumann'sMittelsatz under "Klavierkonzert (F-Dur)"(vol. 1, p. 478). Though
the assumptionseems logical,it is not verifiableas no middlemovementfor the Concerto
is extant. On the Exercice[s]see MatthiasWendt,"ZuRobertSchumannsSkizzenbuchern,"
in SchumannsWerke - Textund Interpretation.6 Studien,ed. Akio Mayedaand KlausWolf-
gang Niem6ller (Mainz:Schott, 1987), 102-8. Schumannrecords practicingscales on
12 Mayand 19 August(Tagebiicher 1: 330, 363).
24 For a summary, see Peter Ostwald,Schumann: TheInnerVoices of a MusicalGenius
(Boston:NortheasternUniv.Press,1985), 74-79.
25 "Des Morgenssch6n geubt u. gespielt - Field's drittes Rondeau-es funkelt u.
blitzt .. ."; "Viel Clavier gespielt. Field's Rondeau, Moscheles dritte Etuide, mein Mittlesatz
- sehr locker die Tonleitern - "; "Frfihauf-mein Niichternh[ei]t belohnt sich; sehr schon
gespielt - weicher Perlenanschlag u. Perlenfantasie." Schumann, Tagebiicher,i: 329, 330,
331.
MACDONALD
But by 25 May he writes, "Piano badly - I am to study the Variations by

Herz, op. 48 - the Moscheles Etude nervous and insecure - how come?
played it two weeks, studied attentively and persistently."26
The Moscheles Etude no. 3 is a long exercise in 16th-note chro-
matic scales played, in either hand, by the first, second, and third fin-
gers while the fourth or fifth finger adds thirds or other intervals on the
first 16th of each beat. The etude (comparable to Chopin's Etude in A
Minor, op. o1 no. 2) can be played smoothly and at the marked tempo,
Allegrobrillante,only if the hand is kept close to the keyboard and the
wrist is still (excerpts from the Etude are given in Ex. 1, pp. 550-51).
However, Schumann diagnoses his problem with the Moscheles Etude
as not just a physical, but also a psychological block.
It seems as if in the first [week] the mere life, fresh spiritand charm
elevate the mechanics above themselves; later, when [the spirit] fades
and [the charm] weakens,only the dry,cold keys remain for a long
time. But shouldn'tthe time come when the piece plays [the spirit?].
It ought to be so complete. To be sure, I have an ideal, and it is also
attainable.If I continue like this I won'ttremble.27
537
In Schumann's view the performer works through a natural process __
whereby after a first stage infatuation with a work fades, in a second stage
concentration on its mechanics takes priority. Only then, in a final, third
stage, are the two approaches united in an ideal, artistic presentation.
On days when his practice went well, Schumann conceded that in
the long-standing argument between them perhaps his teacher knew
best concerning at which stage he should center his efforts. On 13 May
he wrote, "Yesterdaypiano playing really satisfying and real improve-
ments. Could Wieck be right about studying? The old business."28 But
when things did not go well, Schumann returned to mocking his
teacher's emphasis on technique and display. On 27 May he writes:
In the morningeverythingwent miserably- completelymiserablinsky -

In the afternoon at Wieck's- very sympathetictowardme - he said I
26
"Claiver schlecht-Var.[iationen] v. Herz. Op. 48 mir zum Einstudieren - die
Moschelessche Etude angstlich u. unsicher - Woher kommt das? vierzehn Tage daran
gespielt, aufmerksam u. beharrlich [.]" Schumann, Tagebiicher,: 333.
27 "- es scheint, als ob in der ersten das bloBe Leben u. der frische Geist u. Reiz die
Mechanik uber sich selbst hinaushobe; spater wo dieser verlischt u. jener schwacher wird,
bleibt dann Zeit lange die trokne, kalte Taste; Aber sollte dann nicht die Zeit kommen,
wo dann das Stiik ihn spielt, so ganz muilte es seyn. Ich habe wohl ein Ideal u. es ist auch
1: 333.
zu erreichen. Fahr' ich so fort, so zittre ich nicht." Schumann, Tagebiicher,
28
"Clavierspiel gestern recht zufrieden u. Fortschritte. Sollte Wieck mit dem
Studiren recht haben? Die alten Sachen." Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 332.
tossed out the Herz Variations like a dog - properly characterized -

I cannot possibly dissemble or people will notice the pretense in a
moment. 29
Though just what Wieck had in mind when he said Schumann "tossed
out the Herz Variations like a dog" is unclear, I take it to mean that
Schumann gave his teacher the brilliant performance he desired, but at
the sacrifice of artistic quality. This was no triumph for Schumann-his
unhappiness continued through the next days. "Piano nothing, entirely
bad - also no strength to study further," he reports on 29 May, and on
4 June, "No mood to play." Even the purchase of a Melzer piano on
15 June does not improve his disposition. His only comment, "Piano
bad."3o
The crisis came to a head just four days later, on 19 June. Schu-
mann was "reveling in Chopin," that is, Chopin's Variations, op. 2,
which had come into his hands soon after his return to Leipzig in fall
1830.31 At his lesson Wieck reprimanded him for not applying himself
to his practice to the point of producing a finished performance of
something. He issued an ultimatum: "Dear Robert, I beg you - get
538 something finished finally. Before your eyes I'll tear it to pieces."32 Of
course, in order to produce a finished performance, dedication to the
mundane task of overcoming any mechanical difficulties that stand in
the way is necessary. In Schumann's three-stage study scheme this trans-
lates to considerable time at the second stage. Instead, he preferred to
29 "Des Morgens ging Alles miserabel - ganz miserablinsky - Nachmittag bey Wieck -
sehr theilnehmend gegen mich-ich wirfe die Herzischen Variationen wie einen Hund
hin - charakterisirt richtig - ich kann ohnmoglich heucheln oder die Leute merken die
Verstellung im Augenblicke -" Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 334.
30 "Clavier nichts,
g[an]z schlecht - auch keine Kraft zum Fortstudiren - "";"Keine
Lust zum Spielen."; "KlavierSchlecht- " Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 335, 336, 342. Wieck's
sympathetic attitude toward the malaise Schumann was experiencing was later a subject
for a revised edition of his Piano and Song. Asked how many hours per day his daughters
practice he replies, "Einen Tag gar nicht, - den zweiten Tag wenig, - den dritten Tag mehr,
- den vierten viel und manchmal sehr viel, - den fiinften blos vom Blatt, - den sechsten
eine Stunde in Gesellschaft .... Alles richtet sich nach der Zeit, Neigung, Stimmung,
Wohlbefinden und selbst - nach mehr oder weniger Lust derselben, wenn es nicht
Eigensinn oder Faulheit ist. Es giebt Tage, wo die Natur des Menschen sich gegen das
Spiel straubt und fur Musik weniger emfanglich ist, da lasse man aussetzen" (Klavierund
Gesang. Didaktisches und Polemisches,3rd rev. ed. with aphorisms from Wieck's diary
[Leipzig: F. E. C. Leuckart, 1878], 189 ["Anhang: Aphorismen aus Friedrich Wieck's
Tagebuch"]).
31 Jansen, Die Davidsbiindler.Aus RobertSchumann'sSturm-und Drangperiode(Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Hartel, 1883), 7, 71. Jansen's source is a report from Schumann's friend
Theodor T6pken. Further on Schumann's practice of the Chopin, op. 2, see Joachim
Draheim, "Schumann und Chopin," in Schumann-Studien3/4, ed. Gerd Nauhaus
(Cologne: Gisela Schewe, 1994), 225-31.
32
"Schwelgen im Chopin. - Lieber Robert, ich bitte dich - bring endlich etwas raus
und fertig. Vor ihren Augen zerreiB ich's, sagte Wieck." Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 344.
MACDONALD
indulge himself in the less polished playing that is associated in this

case with sight-reading, or the first stage, but also with improvising or
composing at the piano. All were types of playing that attracted him
from a young age. Indeed, of his earliest studies in Zwickau he recalls,
"Complete lack of technique."33 In Heidelberg his impatience with
technique led him to experiments that, according his friend T6pken,
were eventually to prove his ruin. "He would like to have obtained his
object more rapidly than was possible through natural means. We stud-
ied ways and means to shorten the process."34 In other words, Schu-
mann would like to have decreased the interval of, or even skipped al-
together, the second stage of his study scheme.
In Leipzig Wieck's emphasis on technique turned Schumann from
music itself, or at the very least from the piano playing that, perhaps
more flippantly than he was willing to admit to Carus, he had declared
was nothing but mechanics. A diary entry of 5 June 1831 reads, "Music
you are disgusting to me and odious to death." But the very next line
declares, "One must hear music from inward out." Not music, but its
outward trappings are abhorrent to Schumann. A few lines later he
returns to these, culminating a list of technical feats on the piano with
a slur on the virtuosic Parisian school. "Attack is finding the richest, 539
fullest tone. Mechanics - touch - execution - technique - expression -
presence - moment - preparation - purpose - study - on the musical
dregs of Paris."35
Later when his piano playing is again on the upswing, Schumann
contrasts the judgments of Wieck and the publisher Heinrich Probst,
who like Wieck advises him on his piano studies, with his own "silent
art." "Now I want to go away into my silent art: because I know where it
is, it must therefore also be attainable; if I only had no fingers, and
could play with my heart on other hearts."36 As before, Schumann
again expresses a desire to retreat from the outward, physical produc-
tion of music, from the technique necessary for the realization of mu-
sic, into music's essential inner, expressive core. Not surprisingly, at this
33 "Ganzlicher Mangel am Technik." Schumann, "Materialien,"p. 1.

34 ". . . er hatte m6gen noch rascher, als es auf dem natirlichen Wege m6glich war,
zum ziele gelangen. Wir sannen auch nach uber Mittel und Wege zur Kurzung des
Prozesses . . ." Eismann, Quellenwerk,1: 55 ("Studienfreund T6pken an Wasielewski," 30
September 1856).
35 "Musick,wie bist Du mir ekelhaft und in dem Tod zuwider! 'Man muBte die Mu-
sick von innen heraus horen.' . . . Anschlag ist Auffindung des vollkommensten Tones.
Mechanick - Taste - Fertigkeit - Technick - Ausdruck - Gegenwart - Augenblick - Vorbereitung
- Absicht - Studium - uber musikalische cul de Paris-" Schumann, Tagebiicher,: 336-37.
236"Nun will ich denn fortgehn in meiner stillen Kunst; da ich weiB, wo sie ist, so
muB sie auch zu erreichen seyn; hatt' ich nur keine Finger und k6nnte mit meinen
Herzen spielen auf anderen!" Schumann, Tagebiicher,: 360, 361 (14 August 1831).
time he invented two characters, Florestan and Eusebius, who as music

critics work together to give voice to the split Schumann felt in his art.37
"Florestan,"writes John Daverio, "the rambunctious improviser, his per-
sona a mixture of Paganinian virtuosity and Schumann's inclinations in
the same direction . . . finds a striking complement in Eusebius the
pensive cleric."38
In addition to the first point of Wieck's program requiring that he
diligently study technique, Schumann also chafed under a further
point, namely that he must study two years of "dry, cold theory."39Al-
ready from Heidelberg he had written Wieck in November 1829, "You
know, I can barely stand absolute theory." Still, by August 1830 he
promised, "Several buckets of really, really cold theory also cannot hurt
me, and I will endure it without a whimper."4oBut in May 1831 as he
studied Gottfried Weber's Versucheiner geordnetenTheorieder Tonkunst
Schumann despaired. "Oh this theory, all this theory! If only I could be
a genius and kill all the scoundrels with it, wouldn't I like to load them
all in a cannon and shoot something dead with it."41 In July 1831 he
got up his courage and began lessons with Heinrich Dorn, though with
considerable reservation. After only one lesson he wrote, "I would
540 hardly like to know more than I already know. The mystery of the imag-
ination, or its unknowableness remains its poetry." Two weeks later he
admits his deficiencies: "One knows a lot that one has to learn yet six
more times, especially in music theory."42 Indeed, Dorn remembered
Schumann as an indefatigable worker who multiplied his teacher's re-
quirements. "If I assigned him an example, then he always delivered
several."43All the same, in yet another two weeks (and on the heels of
37 Schumann, i: 344 ( July 1831). On 8June (his 21 st birthday), Schu-

Tagebiicher,
mann wrote, "Mir ist's manchmal, als wolle sich mein objectiver Mensch vom subjectiven
ganz trennen oder als stand' ich zwischen meiner Erscheinung u. meinen Syn, zwischen
Gestalt und Schatten." Tagebiicher,: 339.
38 John Daverio, RobertSchumann: Herald of a "NewPoetic Age" (New York: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1997), 75. Daverio notes that Florestan appeared some two weeks before Eu-
sebius (p. 74). See Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 315 (15June 1831).
39 " . .. Kann Robert sich entschlieBen, die trocken kalte Theorie ... zu studiren?"
Litzmann, ClaraSchumann, 1: 23.
4? "Sie wissen, ich mag die absolute Theorie wenig leiden ..." Schumann, Jugend-
briefe,79; "Etliche Eimer recht, recht kalter Theorie k6nnen mir auch nichts schaden,
und ich will ohne Mucksen hinhalten." Briefe.NeueFolge,26.
41 "Ach diese Theorie, diese ganze Theorie! K6nnt' ich nur ein Genie seyn, um alle
Lumpen damit todt zu machen, mochte ich sie nicht alle in eine Kanone laden u. irgend
Etwas damit todtschieBen!" Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 331 (23 May 1831).
42 Schumann,
Tagebiicher,1: 336, 346, 349-50 ("Ich m6chte kaum mehr wissen, als
ich weil. Das Dunkel der Fantasie oder Ihr UnbewuBtes bleibt ihre Poesie."), 355
(... man wuBte vieles, was man aber doch noch sechsmal lernen miiBte, nametl. [ich] in
der musikalischen Theorie."), 358 (4June; 5, 13, 25, 30July 1831).
43 "Schumann war wahrend seiner Lehrzeit ein unverdrossner Arbeiter, und wenn
ich ihm Ein Beispiel aufgab, lieferte er dann immer mehrere." Eismann, Quellenwerk,i:
74 (letter toJ. W. Wasielewki of 7 September 1856).
MACDONALD
an encounter with his tutors in technique, Wieck and Probst) Schu-

mann again disparaged the limitations of theory, setting it, like tech-
nique, in opposition to his own Fantasie."To theory everything is veiled,
to imagination, nothing."44
Professionals and Prodigies

Schumann's musical struggles had to do further with a change in
venue for his art. Whereas in Zwickau and Heidelberg, and even during
his first year in Leipzig, he had been praised for his performances as an
amateur, upon his return to Leipzig he found himself competing with
and compared to professionals who expected he would soon join their
ranks.45 He continued to improvise, play four-hand piano works, and
on at least one occasion, accompany songs with his friends.46 But by
spring 1831 his primary arena for musical activitywas no longer among
student friends, or at the home of the music lover Dr. Carus. Rather, it
was at Wieck's home, where he roomed and where his main contacts
were professional musicians, among them Ludwig Berger, a composer
and teacher from Berlin; Dorn, music director of the court theater in
Leipzig; Friedrich Hofmeister, a music publisher and dealer in Leipzig; 541
Carl Kragen, a pianist and teacher from Dresden; Friedrich Kummer, a
composer and virtuoso cellist from Dresden; Christian Gottlieb Muller,
a violinist in the Leipzig theater orchestra; Probst, another music dealer
in Leipzig; Charlotte Veltheim, a court singer in Dresden; and Christian
Theodor Weinlig, music director and cantor of the Thomasschule in Leip-
zig.47 Schumann was not inclined to perform or improvise for these mu-
sicians. When Wieck did host a musical soiree at which many of them
were present, he was not on the program. It was rather Wieck's young
daughter who was the star. The event, on 6 June 1831, came during a
downturn in Schumann's mood which could only have been aggravated
by the reproaches he records from those present.
44 ". .. der Theorie ist Alles verhillt, der Fantasie nichts .. ." Schumann, Tagebiicher,
i: 364 (20 August1831).
4. On Schumann'sperformancesas an amateurin Zwickauand Leipzig,see my
"Schumann'sEarliestCompositionsand Performances,"
260-64.
4t; See tables 6 and 7 in Bischoff, Monumentfur Beethoven,115-18. Schumann's part-
ner for Schubert'sfour-handpolonaisesand marcheswasWillibaldvon der Luhe,for the
Schubert'sDivertissmenta I'hongroiseand a four-handarrangementof Moscheles Sym-
phony in C Major,op. 81 (the latter not listed in Bischoff'stables), ClaraWieck (7age-
biicher,i: 333, 334, 335; 363-64 [25, 27, 31 May;20 August 1831]). On 29 May 1831
Schumannreports,"Mit[Christian]Glock etliche zwanzigHefte Schubert'scherLieder
abgeschrien!"(Tagebiicheri: 335). Improvisation,either alone or for friends,is recorded
on 13 and 31 May,and 1July 1831 (Tagebiicher,1: 331, 335, 344).
47 Schumann, Tagebicher,i: 332 (23 May 1831 Kummer), 337 (6 June-Dorn,
Hofmeister,Kummer,Muller,Veltheim,Weinlich),344 (1 July-Berger), 359 (8 August
-Kragen, about whom see also the "Personenregister,"
p. 507), 360-32 (14 August-
Probst).
Dorn: I don't like your behavior ...

Wieck to Kummer: I wish you knew him [Schumann] better, born to
and for music [but] how I [recte,he, that is, Schumann] could come to
nothing because of all this hypochondria.48
Aside from Schumann's mood swings, the hypochondria may refer to

the old battle between Wieck, who pushed his pupil to get through lots
of repertory, and Schumann, who refused to sacrifice artistic integrity.
Only the music lover, Schumann's friend Willibald von der Lihe, came
to his defense. "'Believe me there is something in him'," Schumann
quotes him as saying, adding his own comment, "but no one notices."49
Schumann was not eager to display himself as a professional and
avoided even his old friends when they decided to show him off to help
further his career. Soon after arriving in Leipzig he wrote his mother,
"The Caruses want to introduce me to innumerable families-'it would
be good for my career,' they think-I think so, too-and yet I don't go
out and on the whole seldom leave my room."5? Dorn suggests that ne-
glect of his piano playing perhaps combined with a lack of courage pre-
vented Schumann from making a public appearance: "He gave the im-
542 pression of a shy young man."51 So he probably seemed to a group of
professional artists, including the cellist Kummer, singer Veltheim, and
improviser and declaimer Maximilian Leopold Langenschwarz, gath-
ered at Wieck's home in late May 1831. Afterward Schumann wrote of
his uneasiness in such company, but added this could be oversensitive
vanity.52 On 8 August he summarized his position to his mother, "My
private life has changed; here and there people recognize my talent, let
slip something about the future, and whoever knows me enjoys being
with me, it seems. I cannot fully conceal a certain timidity in society."53
His discomfort may be one reason that many entries in his diary at this
time show him fleeing from music to literature and to philosophical
48 "Dorn: Ihr Treiben

gefallt mir nicht . . . Wieck zu Kummer: ich wunschte, Sie
kennten ihn naher, in u. zur Musick geboren wie ich k6nnte vor lauter Hypochondrie zu
Nichts kommen." Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 337.
49 "Lihe: glauben Sie, es stekt Etwas in ihm: 'ja' - es merkt's aber Niemand - " Schu-
mann, Tagebiicher, i: 337.
.5 "Dr.Carussens wollen mich durchaus in unzahlige Familien bringen - 'es ware fur
mein Carriere gut,' meinen sie - ich meine es auch - und komm doch nicht hin und uber-
haupt wenig aus der Stube." Schumann, Jugendbriefe,128 (15 November 1830).
5l ". . .er machte jederzeit den Eindruck eins schuchternen jungen Mannes .. ."
Eismann, Quellenwerk,1: 74.
5 "Mein MiBlbehagen in Gesellschaften der Art, was woll auch gekrankte Eitelkeit
seyn mag." Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 332 (23 May 1831).
53 "Auch mein Privatleben hat sich anders
gestaltet; man erkennt hier und da mein
Talent an, verspricht sich Etwas von der Zukunft und wer mich kennt, is auch gern
bei mir, wie es scheint. Eine gewisse Schuchternheit vor der Welt kann ich nicht ganz
verbergen. . ." Schumann, Jugendbriefe,147.
MACDONALD
discussions of literature with his friends von der Luhe (a writer), Jean
Baptist Taillefer (a French teacher), and Christian Glock (a medical
but also onetime theology and philosophy student).54 With Wieck
Schumann reports talk of Chopin, Viennese piano teachers and instru-
ments, that is, primarily the business as opposed to the art of music.55
As an aspiring professional Schumann continually found himself in
the shadow of Wieck's daughter and star pupil, Clara. The child was
held up to Christiane Schumann as a model student in Wieck's reply to
her inquiry about a change of career for her son.56 For Schumann him-
self, comparison with the girl only showed that her accomplishments
outstripped his own. Thus, even as Wieck was preparing for Clara's first
extended European tour he predicted -that a similar undertaking on
Schumann's part was yet two years distant, though Schumann himself
hoped to achieve this in half the time.57 Further, Wieck exaggerated
the distance between Schumann and Clara by swearing his daughter
was ten and one-half years old when in fact she was nearly twelve.58Of-
ten Wieck assigned the two pupils the same or similar repertory, and no
doubt this too served to aggravate competition between them. On
23 May Schumann played his F Major Concerto for Wieck; the same
day Clara began work on Moscheles's Concerto in Eb Major. Then on 543
25 May Schumann was given the Herz Variations, op. 48 that Clara had
already performed in Dresden on 25 January. Similarly, by 1 July, when
Schumann began serious practice on the Chopin Variations, they had
already been performed by Clara on 6 June.59 She learned them in
eight days, in contrast to Schumann, whose progress on the set turned
out to be slow and fitful.6o
At least in her technical proficiency, Schumann admitted that Clara
outpaced him. After the mockery of his own performance of the Herz
54 Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 329-3o, 333, 338 (1 , 25 May; 7 June 1831); Daverio,

RobertSchumann,71-72.
55 Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 347.
56 Litzmann, ClaraSchumann,i:
23-24 (letter of 9 August 1830).
r7 "Wasich in zweyJahren seyn wurde, wolle er mir bey meiner Abreise v. hier auf-
schreiben, von mir versiegeln lassen u. dann zuruckgeben." Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 333
(24 May 1831). "Wie sind meine Vorsatze stark u. rothe Jinglinge geworden! rundwie will
ich Ihnen truben treu bleiben, daB noch etwas wird. Jetzt ist noch Zeit; in einem Jahre
vielleicht nicht mehr." Tagebiicher,
1: 350 (13 July 1831).
58 Schumann, Tagebiicheri: 337-38 (7June 1831).
r5 Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 333, 337, 344 (24, 25 May; 6June; 1 July 1831). Clara
Schumann, "Konzertprogramm-Sammlung," no. 4. Clara also had in her repertory the
two pieces on whose performance Schumann prided himself the most, the Hummel A
Minor Concerto and Moscheles AlexanderVariations. See Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3
("Clara Schumann und ihre Freunde, 1856-1896"): 616 ("Studienwerke und Reper-
toire"); Anna v. Meichsner, FriedrichWieck und seine beiden Tochter (Leipzig: Matthes,
1875), 64-66 (report of Heinrich Dorn from 1864).
") Litzmann, ClaraSchumann, 1: 27.
Variations, which he said he tossed out "like a dog," he observed, "with

Clara it flows out naturally."6' He viewed Wieck and Clara as the em-
bodiment of technique, in this case seen in her unaffectedly facile pre-
sentation of the scales and arpeggios with which Herz surrounds each
new presentation of Rossini's cavatina. More generally, Schumann
called father and daughter "very romantic figures" with something of
Paganini in them.62 In a quick sketch for a projected novel, "Wunder-
kindern," Schumann characterizes Paganini as combining the ideal of
fluency and expression to which Clara aspires.63 The story concerns
the violinist's miraculous influence on her, and in real life Schumann
at times grants that she plays beautifully. He is more prone to doubt
Wieck's musicality. On 17 August he writes:
Yesterday Zilia [Clara] played the E-flat Concerto of Moscheles, but

singularly beautifully. At times it could be really heartfelt. I don't be-
lieve Meister Raro [Wieck] truly has a love of art as regards such things;
even in his enthusiasm over Zilia there is something Jewish, that in his
mind already counts the Thalers the concerts will bring in, which I
don't doubt they do amply.64
544
4__ After a horrifying scene in which Wieck lost his temper and physi-
cally abused his son Alwin for not properly playing his violin, Schumann
again concluded that Wieck's only interest in music was monetary.
Meister Raro! I recognize you - your carrying on is nothing but a

Jewish demeanor, your enthusiasm nothing if it can't turn a four-
Groschen piece in your pocket, your fiery eye is never still, and squints
at the money box, your love for Zilia itself is not pure - You would be
the most pitiable scoundrel if she had no talent.65
6 "....
bey Claren [Wieck] kommt es von innen heraus ..." Schumann, Tagebiicher,
1:334 (27 May 1831).
62 "Wiek und Clara sind sehr romantische
Figuren. Etwas Paganinisches mufite mit
einflieBen." Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 339 (8June 1831).
63
"Paganini muB wunderbar mit auf Cilia [Clara] einwirken . . . Ideal der Fertigkeit
- Ideal des Ausdruk's - Verbindung beyder in Paganini - das Streben Clara's -" Schumann,
Tagebiicher, 1: 342-43 (14June 1831).
64 "Zilia spielte gestern das Es dur Conz.[ert] von Moscheles, aber einzig schon.
Manchmal konnte es wohl inniger seyn. Ob Meister Raro wirklich Liebe zur Kunst qua
[?] solche hat, glaub ich nicht; auch in seiner Begeisterung uber Zilia stickt etwas Ju-
disches, das im Geiste schon die Thaler zahlt, die die Conzerte einmal bringen, woran ich
nicht zweifle, daB es reichlich geschieht." Schumann, Tagebiicher,1: 362 (17 August 1831).
65 "Meister Raro! ich erkenne dich - dein Treiben ist weiter nichts als ein jiidisches
Benehmen, deine Begeisterung nichts, wenn sie kein Viergroschenstiick in der Tasche
herumdrehen kann, dein feuriges Auge ist nicht ruhig u. schielt nach der Geldkasse, sel-
ber deine Liebe zu Zilia ist nicht rein - Du warst der erbarmlichste der Schurken, hatte
Zilia kein Talent." Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 364 (21 August 1831).
MACDONALD
The something of Paganini Schumann saw in Wieck turned out to be

mere charlatanry, involving outward imitation of Paganini's mien or
stance, or a desire to outdo the astonishing success of his two-year tour
through Germany in 1829-30.66 Yet, while Schumann may have put
down as mere laughable braggadocio Wieck's claim that through his
daughter he would upstage Paganini, he found truly troubling Wieck's
exploitation of Clara's creative inclinations, his exhibition of the imma-
ture playing of a young girl whose development he felt was being
rushed.
This hither and thither improvising that he wants to tease out of Zilia
is fine for the practical future, but it ruins the flow of the imagination;
the welling up and the wing beat of genius do not murmur here.
Youth can spew forth without being embarrassed before old age.67
By Schumann's account foremost in Wieck's plan for him, too, was

development of the extravagant technique represented by Paganini,
with insufficient attention to Paganini's captivating artistry. In a letter to
Hummel of 20 August he summarized his teacher's attempts to counter
his standstill at the second stage of study, where he remained stuck wor- 545
rying over problems of mechanical production, and his rush to force
him to perform before he had attained his goal of the third stage, as
happened in the case of the Herz Variations that he tossed off like a
dog rather than with any of the artistry of a human.
Contrary to his former method of weighing each note critically and

studying each movement conscientiously page by page, he let me
scramble through good and bad alike, neglecting both touch and fin-
gering. His one idea was to secure a brilliant, Paganini-like perfor-
mance, and I could hardly play splashily enough to please him. My
master wished to rid me of a certain cautious, mechanical, studied
manner of playing, and I can imagine that this method might succeed
better with his daughter, who indeed shows wonderful promise, but I
am not ripe for such bold treatment.";
66 Schumann, 1: 333, 363 (23 May; 19 August 1831).

Tagebiicher,
67 "Und dieses An- u. hineinfantasiren, das er aus des Zilia herausfantasiren will, ist
wohl ffir die praktische Zukunft, verdirbt aber den FluB der Fantasie; das Ueberwallen
und der Fliigelschlag des Genius rauscht hier nicht. Die Jugend kann schaumen, ohne
vor dem Alter zu errothen." Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 363 (19 August 1831). On 17 Au-
gust Schumann writes, "Jedenfalls wirde man den Meister [Raro] auslachen, wenn er
Zilia nicht hatte" (Tagebucher,1: 362).
68 "Statt daB
sonstjeder Ton wie auf die Goldwage gelegt, jeder Satz Seite fiurSeite
auf das Gewissenhafteste studiert ward, lieB er mich jetzt Gutes und Schlechtes bunt
durcheinander spielen, bekummerte sich weder um Anschlag, noch Applikatur - da sollte
alles geistreich und Paganinisch vorgetragen werden, da konnt' ich nicht lebhaft und
Chopin
After a period from 21-30 June of what he called bad days, Schu-
mann set himself to long hours of practice on the Chopin, reporting
steady progress with only minor setbacks at least up to midJuly.69 Even
so, on 18 July he found himself at an impasse, the same point he had
reached in his practice of the Moscheles Etude no. 3 when, after a week,
he said, "[the spirit] fades and [the charm] weakens, only the dry, cold
keys remain for a long time." Just as he did then, he puts this down to
the natural course of achieving mastery over a piece, namely that in-
spired playing of the initial stage of study must for a time give way to
uninspired practice of the second.
For the second time I have got through my Chopin tolerably. If I don't
learn it now, I'll never learn it. I think there are three periods for
artists who are already of a certain rank: in the first period of study the
spirit and the recent fascination of the object keep one fresh and vig-
orous and lift the fingers beyond themselves; in the second the imagi-
nation's flowering gradually falls off, the notes are written there, they
must be reckoned with, the keys are depressed, sounds fail to come
out. Many things don't work; that is the period of doubt, which now
twice in my life I have overcome, with the A Minor Concerto [by Hum-
mel] and with the AlexanderVariations[by Moscheles].
What should I say about the third, where spirit and form, mechanics
and imagination flow into each other, that a person is corporeal music?
Let me see your paradise!70
The Hummel Concerto and Moscheles Variations are the two pieces
Schumann performed publicly for large audiences after he first began
study with Wieck in late summer 1828. The performance of the first
huschelig [?] genug spielen. Mein Lehrer wollte mich dadurch fiber ein gewisses
angstliches, fast [?] mechanisches und herausstudiertes Spiel heben; ich sah auch, das
seine Methode bei seiner Tochter die in der Tat AuBergewohnliches verspricht, besser an-
schlagen muBte als bei mir, da ich mir eine so freie Behandlung noch nicht zutrauen
durfte." Schumanns Briefe in Auswahl, ed. Karl Storck (Stuttgart: Greiner und Pfeiffer,
n.d.), 53.
6(9 Schumann, Tagebiicher i: 344, 346, 348-49 (21-30June; 1, 5, 9, 13, 17July 1831).
7" "Mit meinem Chopin bin ich zum zweitenmal ziemlich durch. Lern' ich ihnjetzt,
lern' ich ihn nie. Mir daucht' es giebt drey Perioden bey Kiinstlern, die schon auf einer
Stufe stehen: in der ersten des Studium's halt einen der Geist u. der neue Reiz des Ob-
jects frisch u. mun[ter] u. hebt die Finger fiber sich selber, in der zweiten fallen nach u.
nach die Fantasieblumen weg, es stehen Noten da, es muB gegriffen werden, die Tasten
fallen, es bleiben Tone aus, Vieles paBt nicht; das ist die Periode zum Verzweifeln, die ich
nun zweimal in meinem Leben uberwunder habe, beym A moll Conzert u. bey den
Alexandervariationen.
"Wassoil ich aber von der dritten sagen, wo Geist u. Form, Mechanik u Fantasie in-
einander flielen, das man leibhafte Musick ist? LaB mich deine Paradiese sehen!" Schu-
mann, Tagebiiche,1: 353-54.
MACDONALD
movement of the Hummel, in Zwickau on 28 April 1829, represents

the culmination of his first year of study with Wieck.71 On that same
program he played the AlexanderVariations,which he performed again
at a Museum concert in Heidelberg on 24 January 1830.72 By his own
assessments of the time, he played the Hummel "calmly,with assurance,
and technically without fault" and the Moscheles "reallywell."73He re-
membered these performances as a perfect synthesis of the physical
and spiritual aspects of his music production, a time when his practice
had led him to a paradise where music's dull, dry mechanics were ecsta-
tically united with its spirit, when he had become music incarnate. Now
he separates out the Chopin as the only piece he is practicing with a
similar end in view. Perhaps in answer to Wieck's taunt of a month ear-
lier over his merely reveling in Chopin, he resolves, "But you, Meister
Raro, who are now so sympathetic toward me, I will offer you as a
reward nothing but the Chopin in its noblest perfection."74
Schumann's program for achieving perfection in his performance
of the Chopin is to continue working out the technical problems it pre-
sents. In the morning he divides his practice time between finger exer-
cises and deliberate drill on the Chopin itself. Afterward he allows him-
self time to play other works under less strict control. He sets down his 547
normal program on July.
71 See Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 189, 191, 192 (14, 15, 23, 28 April 1829) on his re-
hearsals and performance in Zwickau. Later he wrote Hummel, "Die Fortschritte die ich
machte, gaben mir Muth, das Studium ward strenger, so daB ich nach einemJahre [from
the time he began lessons with Wieck in late summer 1828] das A moll-concert (es gibt
nur eines) ruhig, sicher, technisch-fehlerlos vortragen konnte." Briefe.Neue Folge,31 (let-
ter of 20 August 1831).
72 On Schumann's preparation for and performance in this concert, see his Tage-
biicher,1: 209, 210, 213, 221-22 (27, 30 November, 1, 29-30 December 1829; 4, 24Janu-
ary 1830). The entry for the day of the concert reads, "Glorreicher Tag . . . meine
Variat[ionen]. - mein Stolpern am Anfang - die letzte Variat[ion]. vollendet gespielt -
unendlicher Applaus, Gratulation pp [praeterpassim]." Topken writes of Schumann, "Er
hatte diese Komposition [der Alexander-Marsch von Moscheles] langst und mit der
groBten Sorgfalt einstudiert und mir haufig vorgespielt. Die sichere und vollendete Aus-
fiuhrung konnte daher nicht zweifelhaft sein . . . Schumann spielte mit voller Be-
herrschung seiner Aufgabe und erntete einen Beifallssturm, wie ihn nur ein Kunstler sich
wunschen mag" (Eismann, Quellenwerk, 1: 55 ["Studienfreund Topken an Wasielewski"]).
See also Schumann, Jugendbriefe,104 (letter to his brother, Julius, of 11 February 1830).
The Museumwas a society for social intercourse and cultural activities whose members,
primarily students, put on regular concerts of instrumental music, including symphonies
by Beethoven and Haydn, but also instrumental solos, of works mostly forgotten by now.
See Schumann, Tagebicher,1: 221-22, 231-32 (24January, 3 March 1830).
73 "....so daB ich nach einemJahre das A moll-Concert ... ruhig, sicher, technisch-
fehlerlos vortragen konnte . . ." Schumann, Briefe.Neue Folge, 31 (letter to Hummel of
20 August 1831); "Ich hatte ... wirklich gut gespielt . ." Jugendbriefe,104 (letter to his
brotherJulius of 11 February 1830).
74 "Dir aber, Meister Raro, derjetzt so theilnehmend gegen [mich] ist, will ich zum
Lohn weiter nichts darbringen, als den Chopin in seiner hochsten Vollendung!" Schu-
mann, Tagebiicher,: 344, 349 (19June; 9July 1831).
From 7-10 exclusive study of Chopin with the greatest possible stillness
of the hand; I pursue my plan from page to page, but then choose
from among them places for practice. At 11 o'clock I usually begin
with Czerny's trill studies, which cannot be played relaxed, quietly and
lightly enough. Then come the Hummel finger exercises in the 4
classes according to the compass of their intervals, to each of which
I add every day five new ones. The afternoon I give over entirely to the
inclination of my mood, but all the same, I always continue with the F#
Minor Sonata by Hummel.75
Schumann's aim is to achieve an even and controlled touch by keeping

his hand still, a method possible with the Viennese instruments on
which he played and advocated by his teacher Wieck.76 "Do not let
yourself be discouraged, dear Robert," he tells himself, "if for once it
doesn't purl and dart as during the last week; be patient, lift your fin-
gers quietly, hold your hand still and play slowly: and everything is
bound to get back on track."77 The manner of playing is the same rec-
ommended by Hummel in a short paragraph preceding the group of
finger exercises Schumann was repeating from day to day.
548 At the same time remember especially the rule, to hold the hands very
quietly, to move the fingers lightly (without lifting them high from the
keys), and not let them stay on the keys longer than is necessary.78
75 "Von 7-10
alleiniges Studium im Chopin mit m6glichster Ruhe d. Hand; meinen
Plan verfolg' ich von Seite zu Seite, nehm' aber dan[n] Stellen zur Uebung mitten her-
aus. Um 11 Uhr fing ich gewohnlich mit Czerny's Trillerubung [an], die nicht loker, leise
u. leicht genug gespielt werden kann. Dann kamen die Hummelschen Fingerubungen in
den 4 Classen ihren Intervallenumfang nach, denen ich jeder an jeden Tage ffinf neue
hinzugab. Den Nachmittag hab' ich ganz zur Disposition meiner Laune bestimmt, fahre
aber doch sicher u. regelmaBsig in der Fis moll Sonate von Hummel fort." Schumann,
Tagebiicher, : 348-49. Each Hummel exercise places the hand in one position within
which the fingers play various combinations. The four interval classes are the fifth (171
exercises); sixth (145 exercises); seventh (60 exercises); and octave (241 exercises). A
number of Hummel's exercises and their transpositions are copied into "Skizzenbuch I,"
pp. 51-52/77 (a single bifolio), 63-64. See Wendt, "Zu Robert Schumanns Skizzenbuch-
ern," 102-6.
76 In
1853 Wieck wrote, "The fingers must learn to rest on the keys and play into
the keys with a certain firmness, decisiveness, speed and strength" (Piano and Song, 102
["Aphorisms about Piano Playing"]).
77 "LaBdich's nicht
entmuthigen, lieber Robert, wenn es nicht einmal so perlen u.
schnellen sollte, wie wahrend der letzten acht Tage; ube dich in Geduld, hebe die Finger
leise, halte die Hand ruhig u. spiele langsam: und alles muB wieder in's Gleis kommen."
Schumann, Tagebiicher1: 349.
7s "Besonders erinnere man sich dabei der Regel, die Hande ganz ruhig zu halten,
die Finger leicht (ohne sie hoch von den Tasten zu erheben) fortzubewegen, und sie
nicht langer auf denselben liegen zu lassen . ." Hummel, Anweisungzum Pianofortespiel,
27.
MACDONALD
A month later, on 14 August, Schumann's alter ego Eusebius coaches

him on the preferred hand position, one that follows Hummel's rule.
Now, to give a few observations about you. ... If you could only be-
come master of your manner of playing, of your attack; don't you have
a different one every day? yesterday you had the one that I also like:
I'll describe it, your hand lies down unforced on the keys, the front
section somewhat curved, your fingers meet the key like a little ham-
mer that moves on its own power, your arm and hand remain quiet,
your finger hardly lifts itself for the attack and presses the key com-
pletely down.79
The chronicle of Schumann's practice on the Chopin Variations

in his diary is confirmed by a parallel document, a practice diary (Ue-
bungstagebuch) he began keeping on 30 May.80 Its four pages (one ob-
long bifolio) are crowded with short musical excerpts from Chopin,
Hummel's F# Minor Sonata, Moscheles's Etudes, and Herz's Variations,
the same pieces Schumann recorded work on in his diary. The entries
for Chopin confirm Schumann's plan as outlined in his diary, to go from
page to page and choose places for practice.81 By far the greatest num-
ber of identifiable excerpts are from the first variation and the Alla Po- 549
lacca finale. The first variation stands out as the one requiring the inde-
pendent finger action Schumann wished to achieve. In it a single hand
must play two different lines-one figural, the other melodic or quasi
melodic-just as in the Moscheles Etude that had so frustrated him.
Excerpts from the Moscheles Etude, in Schumann's version and
the original, are shown in Examples la, ib, and ic (mm. 37, 64-65,
and 87).82
79 "Um nun etliche Betrachtungen uber Dich an zu stellen . . . K6nntest du nur

Herr Deiner Spielart, Deines Anschlages werden; hast Du nicht jeden Tag eine andere?
gestern hattest Du die, die auch ich gern leide: ich beschreibe sie, die Hand liegt
ungezwungen auf den Tasten nieder, die vordersten Glieder ziemlich eingebogen, der
Finger trifft die Taste wie ein Huammerchen, der sich durch eigne Kraft bewegt, der Arm
u. Hand bleiben ruhig, der Finger hebt sich kaum zum Anschlag u. drukt fest die Taste
nur nieder[.]" Schumann, Tagebiicheri: 363 (19 August 1831).
8o See
n23.
81 Schumann, Tagebiicher,1: 355 (25 July 1831). For a listing of the Chopin and the
other identifiable excerpts, see Bischoff, Monumentfiir Beethoven,117-18 (table 7). This
type of practice was also advocated by Wieck. "Playand practice your bass parts much and
often, faster or slower, for one or two weeks with the left hand alone, in order to give your
full attention to a clean, correct and secure execution.... And practice previously and of-
ten at least the more difficult passages for the right hand, particularly the heavy and bold
close, in order that it will not sound bumpy, fidgety, hesitant and faint" (Piano and Song,
1o6 ["Aphorisms about Piano Playing"]).
82 My identification of these excerpts differs somewhat from that given by Bischoff
in his table 7. In Ex. i, the Moscheles excerpts are from his revised version of the Studies
published ca. 1845.
EXAMPLE 1. Moscheles, Studien fur das Pianoforte, op. 70, no. 3, and
Schumann, Uebungstagebuch
(Sketchbook I, p. 91)*
a. Moscheles, m. 37
1 2 3 4 2 3 1 4
Schuma, n. 2 2
Schumann, no. 2
f9:
550
b. Moscheles, mm. 64-65
8gva_______ _
44
( - - - 2- _2- _-- - --- - - --- 2-
3 2 1 2 3 2 2 2 1 w1
3; X32 2 11 2 43]
fteAi^s^'^^^^ 9 2
r f 212 4
Schumann, no. 7
*All examples from Schumann's Sketchbook are used by permission of the Universitats-
und Landesbibliothek Bonn.
MACDONALD
EXAMPLE 1. (continued)
c. Moscheles, m. 87
(cresc.) --------------------------------
5 4 3
Schumann, no. 3
551
Two excerpts from the first variation of the Chopin, measures 1-4
and 9-12, together with Schumann's versions of measure 4, beats 2 and
3 and measure 11, are given in Examples 2a and 2b.83
In Chopin's variation the original theme, with some alteration, is
heard above right-hand triplets and left-hand accompaniment. Schu-
mann may have been interested in keeping this melody in clear relief at
places where it gives way to cadential tags, as in Example 2a, where his
added 32nd-note upbeat gives a further flourish to the sf fourth-beat
cadence. In Example 2b, his repetition in measure 11 of beats i and 2
on beats 3 and 4, while perhaps only a practice strategy, has a clear dra-
matic effect-it heightens the peak of Chopin's crescendoat a point
where the harmony has become static over the dominant, and creates a
more striking diminuendo,beginning on the first beat of measure 12
where the tonic is sounded.84
Examples 3a and 3b are from the Alla Polacca.In these, Schumann
emphasizes the duality of the right-hand line, or even adds to it a second
part.
83 The Chopin examples are copied from the Vienna edition of his opus 2 pub-
lished by Tobias Haslinger in 1830.
84 For Chopin's first variation, Schumann also wrote practice versions of right-hand
parts from m. 8a, m. 10, m. 14, and m. 15 (Uebungstagebuch, Sketchbook I, p. 91, no. 16,
no. 15, no. 18, and no. 19). Again, these identifications and those given in n86 below dif-
fer somewhat from those given by Bischoff (see n8 , and cf. n82).
EXAMPLE 2. Chopin, Variations, op. 2, variation i, and Schumann, Ue-

bungstagebuch(Sketchbook I, p. 91)
a. Chopin, mm. 1-4
8va____________
Var.l.
552
Schumann, no. 14
5 3 5 4 2 4
In Example 3a, measure 32, though the triplet 16ths of each half
beat in the right hand are of equal value, the player is apt to hold the
first of each group slightly over while striking the second, an octave
higher, thus giving a clear continuity to the inner line and conforming
to Chopin's molto legatodirection. In fact, Schumann's fingering is de-
signed to achieve this legato holdover in the inner voice.85 Functionally,
measure 32 is one of four measures that repeat the cadence on the
dominant before a return to the opening melody of the theme. Schu-
mann may have singled it out for practice precisely because of his inter-
85 The one Beethoven

excerpt in the practice diary, from op. o1, no. i, second
movement, measure 83, seems to be included for the same reason. The player will hold
over the second triplet-16th of each half-beat as a melodic top voice, even though rhyth-
mically it is not notated differently than the other, accompanimental notes.
MACDONALD
EXAMPLE 2. (continued)
b. Chopin, mm. 9-12
8va . . 9.......
crc.--------------------------------
r WA r
(Sb b i i & l
Schumann, no. 17 553
5 4 5 4 5 4 5
est in giving this filler material a clearer melodic profile. Seemingly, for
that same reason he also rewrote Chopin's measures 51-52 (Ex. 3b),
dividing the right-hand part into two lines. While his added top notes
may have been for practice purposes only, they lend greater melodic
definition to the ongoing triplet motion just at the point where
Chopin's expanded, alla polaccaversion of the theme gives way to fanci-
ful and modulatory passagework.86
Schumann knew that the conception of Chopin's Variations he was
slowly working out differed from the showy performance Wieck's
coaching had elicited from Clara. "With Chopin it always goes well, as
86 For the Alla Polacca, Schumann also wrote

practice versions for m. 21 (right
hand), m. 22 (left hand) m. 23 (right hand), m. 26 (left hand), 32 (left hand), mm. 33-
34 (right hand), m. 51 (both hands), and mm. 54-55 (both hands) (Uebungstagebuch,
Sketchbook I, pp. 91-92, nos. 29 and 31, no. 30, no. 32, no. 33, no. 34, no. 37, no. 22,
and nos. 42 and 43).
EXAMPLE 3. Chopin, Variations, op. 2, Alla Polacca, and Schumann,

(Sketchbook I, pp. 91-92)
a. Chopin, mm. 32-34
8va loco
. -
Schumann, no. 36
5
4 2 ~15
2 3 1
5\
1
2
1 :3
554
b. Chopin, mm. 51-53
I
ben attaccato
if^jTijfljjn^^~~~~~~~~~~~~
Schumann, no. 21
= 2j43 52
^
. l* T_ sB - l
'ES_SiP
MACDONALD
with everything," he writes on 17 July. "But I cannot readily attain the

ideal I carry inside myself of its performance. Zilia plays them childishly
and too brilliantly."He gave literal expression to his ideal by describing
each variation in terms of characters or events from Mozart's opera Don
Giovanni, the source of Chopin's theme and a work he had seen per-
formed on stage as recently as 24 May. He concedes, "So subjective as I
believe all this to be, and certainly so little as it was Chopin's intention,
so I nevertheless bow my head to his genius, to his steadfast ambition,
his industry and his imagination."87 The concession is in regard only
to the specifics of his own interpretation. If these differ from Chopin's
vision of the work, the essential piece of evidence bearing witness to
Chopin's genius and artistry remains, namely his very ability to conjure
up, for Schumann and for the listener, the illusion. As it happens,
Chopin was to scoff at such an interpretation of his Variations, but that
was in a letter laying out his plans to establish professional contacts and
begin his career as a pianist in Paris; Schumann retained a vision that
belonged to the amateur.88
Ideal Sound
Charles Rosen has written eloquently on the imagined, as opposed
to actual sounding, musical line, its importance for the romantic gener-
ation, and its link not just to pitch and rhythm but to sonority and dy-
namics.89 Clearly, as Schumann struggled with problems of technique
while preparing the Chopin, foremost in his mind was the realization of
an ideal, imagined performance. Even his technical problems center
87 "Mit
Chopin ist's immer gut gegangen, wie mit Allen. Aber das Ideal, das ich zu
seiner Darstellung in mir trage, kann ich nicht so bald erreichen. Zilia spielt sie kindisch
u. zu brillant. ... So subjectiv, meint' ich, dies alles sey u. so wenig Absicht gewiB der
Chopin gehabt hatte, so beug' ich doch mein Haupt seinem Genius, seinem festen
Streben, seinen FleiB und seiner Fantasie!" Schumann, Tagebiicher,1: 332, 350-51. The
sketch, including the concession as to its subjectivity, was later used as a basis for Schu-
mann's famous first review, "Ein Opus II," that appeared in the Allgemeinemusikalische
Zeitung33, no. 49 (7 December 1831): cols. 805-8.
88
Chopin received from Eduard Fechner, the brother of Friedrich Wieck's wife
Clementine, a copy of a review written by Wieck, modeled on Schumann's fanciful inter-
pretation. Concerning it Chopin wrote, "I could die of laughing at this German's imagi-
nation. He insisted that his brother-in-law should offer the article to [Francois-Joseph]
Fetis for the RevueMusicale,and [Ferdinand] Hiller... only just managed to protect me
by telling Mr. Brother-in-law that, far from being clever, the idea is very stupid" (Frydryk
Chopin, SelectedCorrespondence, ed. Bronislaw Edward Sydow, trans. Arthur Hedley (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 99 (letter to Titus Woyciechowski of 12 December 1831). The
review was published by Gottfried Weber in Caecilia,eine Zeitschrift fiir die musikalischeWelt
14 (1832), no. 55: 219-23. Further, see Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and
the Woman,revised ed. (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001), 191-92.
89 Charles Rosen, The RomanticGeneration
(Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995),
1-40 (chapter i, "Musicand Sound").
not on the production of accurate pitch and rhythm, or up-to-speed

tempo, but on the creation of a special sound world. Repeatedly he
writes of coaxing from the piano an even, purling sound, not for the
sake of brilliance alone but as a means of exciting the imagination,
whether in the Heidelberg student who heard a violin tone in the
Hummel Concerto or in his own mind which called forth characters
and events of Don Giovannifrom the Chopin Variations. The purpose of
technical facility is to stimulate fantasy, just as Schumann, in his first
published review, described his alter-ego Eusebius's performance of the
Chopin: "He played as if enraptured, and brought countless figures to
vivid life; it's as if the rapture of the moment carries his fingers beyond
the usual measure of their ability."9sIt is true that the excerpts Schu-
mann copied from Chopin into his practice diary may have been in-
tended for use as finger exercises only, an extension of the Hummel
finger exercises he worked through so diligently. But the independent
finger action he hoped to achieve served to turn passagework areas into
melody, or at the very least make any distinction between the two am-
biguous. In Rosen's words, his interest was in an "elegant play of sonori-
ties," in a music that, as Rosen shows with respect to "Des Abends" of
556 the Fantasiestiicke,is defined as much by "certain aspects of piano tech-
nique" as by its motifs, harmony and texture.9'
Schumann chose the "La ci darem" Variations not just because
Chopin's imaginative music takes him far beyond figural variations of
the type Herz composed, but because successful performance of Chopin's
passagework requires control beyond steely fingers. The same is true of
Schumann's own Concerto in F major, which he prepared alongside the
Chopin; as he proceeded with his practice in summer 1831, he also
completed composition of the solo parts of the first movement of this
concerto. On 21 July Wieck left him alone for nearly three weeks, and
Schumann reports his practice is again going badly. "With the piano it
went heartily miserable for a few days; yesterday I cried from rage."92
Then on 25 July he says he is driven to fill the emptiness by composing,
though he is also unwilling to let his work on the Chopin go. After a
three-day "quiet fit of debauchery" he renewed his practice on 30 July,
this time under the eye of his friend and advocate, von der Liihe. Un-
der a new title, Claviercursus,his studies proceeded much as before.
90 "Eusebius spielte wie begeistert und fuhrte unzahlige Gestalten des lebendigsten
Lebens voriiber; es ist, als wenn der frische Geist des Augenblicks die Finger uiber ihre
Mechanik hinaushebt." Schumann, "Ein Opus II," AllgemeinemusikalischeZeitung33, no.
49 (7 December 1831): col. 806.
91 Rosen, TheRomanticGeneration,30-35.
92 "Mit dem Clavier
ging's ein Paar Tage herzlich miserabel; gestern weint' ich vor
Wuth!" Schumann, Tagebiicher 1: 354 (21, 22 July 1831).
MACDONALD
I could perhaps call my attack wholly rich or wholly soft. And how op-
ulent I was yesterday! . . . From the first until today, at least I studied
and played continuously. Today I will be completely done with Hum-
mel's finger exercises. I have begun the Chopin for the third time. It
goes and it doesn't - I myself don't know; to me it seems it should
sound differently; or could it perhaps be the spirit that doesn't sound
any more. With the [Hummel] F-sharp Minor Sonata I have trouble
and glimpses of the sun.s9
By 14 August Schumann says he and von der Luhe are about to begin
the third week of their Claviercursus. He maps out a schedule of practice
that includes the Chopin finale, first movement of the Hummel Sonata,
complete Hummel finger exercises, and his own Concerto, that is, what
must be the first movement in a form newly revised and completed
since he played it for Wieck in May.94 It is probably this piece he had in
mind on 8 August when he wrote his mother about "the happiness of a
young composer," of "what sort of feeling it is to be able to call some-
thing entirely one's own."95 Soon after Wieck's return on 9 August he
presented the Concerto's complete first movement (minus the tuttis) to
a group of his friends-Wieck, Clara, Dorn, Probst, von der Luhe, an
unknown student, Julius Knorr, and Glock.96 557
After he performed the Concerto, Schumann declared it the first
piece in his style that inclines toward the romantic.97 Just what he
93 ". .. den
Anschlag k6nnt' ich vielleicht vollgroB oder vollweich nennen. Und wie
reich war ich gestern! . ..Von ersten bis heute spielt' ich und studirt' ich wenigsten an-
haltend. Heute werd' ich mit Hummel's Fingerfibungen ganz fertig. Mit Chopin hab' ich
zum dritten mal angefangen. Es geht u. geht nicht - ich weiB selbst nicht; mir ist's als
muBte es anders klingen; oder sollte das vielleicht der Geist seyn, der nicht mehr klingt.
Mit der Fis moll Sonate hab' ich Noth und Sonnenblicke." Schumann, Tagebiicher,: 358.
94 Schumann,
Tagebiicher,: 360, 361.
95 "Ich schrieb auch uiber das Gluck einesjungen Componisten ungefthr: Wenn du
das wuBtest, was das fur din Geffihl ist, etwas ganz sein Eigenthum nennen zu dfirfen."
Schumann, Tagebiicher,: 361 (14 August 1831); Jugendbriefe,146. At the same time he
was revising the Concerto, Schumann may also have been putting finishing touches
on the Abegg Variations which he had ready to send to the publisher Kistner on 12 Sep-
tember (Schumann, Briefe.NeueFolge,415). The two works share several leaves in his first
sketchbook (Schumann, "Skizzenbuch I," bifolia pp. 25-26/29-30; 53-54/75-76; 55-
56/73-74; 65-66/87-88). But Schumann had performed a version of the Variations as
early as 22 February 1830 in Heidelberg (Tagebiicher,1: 228, here called Abegg waltzes).
Dorn remembers hearing a performance of them in connection with his first meeting
with Schumann in fall 1830, and Richard Wagner also recalls a performance, perhaps
from the same time (Eismann, Quellenwerke,1: 74 [letter from Dorn to Wasielewski of
7 September 1856]; Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebiicher vol. 2 [1878-1883], ed. Martin Gregor-
Dellin and Dietrich Mack [Munich and Zurich: Piper, 1977], 227 [12 November 1878]).
Already in January 1831 Schumann had written J. August Lemke that he was ready to
publish the Abegg set (Briefeund NotizenRobertund ClaraSchumanns,32 [letter of 11 Janu-
ary]). More likely the work that excited Schumann in summer 1831 was the Concerto.
96 Schumann, 1: 361-62 (14 August 1831).
Tagebiicher,
97 Schumann, 1: 361 (14 August 1831).
Tagebiicher,
would define as romantic in the Concerto cannot be said with certainty.

I would surmise that it is an assessment in marked contrast to an earlier
one by Wieck, when he heard the Concerto on 23 May. Although he
said it was Schumann's best work, he also told him that he played it
"too monotonously, and the passages were too much one like the
other.'"8 As I have shown in another study, Schumann concentrated his
compositional efforts over the summer on the passagework areas of the
Concerto, not on the thematic ones which remained unchanged.99 He
had no interest in filling out the passagework with the conventional
patterns of solo display,just as he had no interest in a performance of
Chopin that was merely brilliant. This may be one reason he rejected
a comparison by Dorn and Wieck of his Concerto to Field.100 While
Field's themes have a rare and appealing charm, his passagework falls
back on traditional formulae. With regard to the latter, closer to Schu-
mann's own conception was Chopin, though he could not have known
either of Chopin's concertos at this time. Perhaps he equated romantic
with the scene-evoking artistry of the "La ci darem" Variations he was
practicing. In later years, the other early piece he dubbed romantic was
the trio from the scherzo of his Piano Quartet in C minor (1829). l1 To
558 this listener the Quartet's lilting rhythms (in triple meter), full, mid-
register chords for the piano, singing string melody, and gentle chro-
maticism bring to mind the sixth of Schubert's Moments musicaux.102
Could it be that in his Concerto, too, he heard something of the
Schubertian Schingeist?
Conclusion
Schumann never became a professional pianist. An injury to his
right hand in fall 1831 precluded this career.l03 Whether he would
have become a professional had this not happened is an open question.
What we do know is that during the brief time he trained to join the
98 Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 333.

99 Macdonald, "The Models for Schumann's F-Major Piano Concerto of 1831,"
Studi Musicali 21 (1992): 170-87.
loo Schumann, Tagebiicher,i: 361.
101 Schumann, Tagebiicher,vol. 2 (1836-1854), ed. Gerd Nauhaus (Leipzig:
Deutscher Verlag fir Musik, 1987), 402 (1846).
102John Daverio, CrossingPaths: Schubert,Schumann and Brahms, (Oxford: Oxford
Univ. Press, 2002), 20-33.
1'3 Schumann injured his third finger. John Daverio writes, "The cause of Schu-
mann's complaint remains something of a mystery ... [but] at least one thing is certain:
the condition cannot have been ameliorated by Schumann's use of a chiroplast .... Play-
ers who wished to strengthen their fingers were required to insert them into this odd ma-
chine and pull them sharply toward the back of the hand" (RobertSchumann, 77-79).
Schumann dates the injury to October 1831; by summer 1832 he was undergoing various
cures (Eismann, Quellenwerk,1: 78 [Projektenbuch entry]; Jugendbriefe,184, 188-89, 210-11
MACDONALD
ranks of professional performers, he was uncomfortable with his

teacher's demands. At times he steeled himself to work at keyboard
technique as a means of achieving an ideal performance, but he would
recoil when he felt pressure to learn technique for its own sake. His
goal was a technique that flowed into the spirit of the music, not only in
a finished performance, such as Eusebius gave of the Chopin Varia-
tions, but also in his practice, even of that very piece. He worked to-
ward this end by concentrating on an even, purling touch, for the pur-
pose, I believe, of making every note an integral part of the musical
"spirit and form," rather than, like a dog, merely tossing them off. This
is evident in the types of exercises he created for practicing Chopin's
op. 2, where he seems intent on turning each bit of filler into a little
melody with accompaniment. For Schumann, technique must be meta-
morphosed into an expressive vehicle; it cannot in itself lead to artistic
performance.
In later years Schumann never denied the importance of mechani-
cal perfection at the piano. In September 1839 he explained that from
its founding (in 1834), his journal the Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik had "al-
ways given special attention to the piano etude, since it points most
quickly to advancements of the art of piano playing, even if more of the 559
mechanical sort."'14Apart from numerous reviews of piano etudes, be-
ginning already with the journal's first volume, in 1836 he ran an arti-
cle classifying according to their objectives etudes by 20 composers,
from Bach (Clavieriibungparts 1 and 2)-whom he took as the starting
point of an introductory historical overview of the genre-through
Clementi (Gradus ad Parnassum), Cramer, Hummel, Carl Czerny, and
Moscheles, up to his own Etudespour le pianoforted'apresles capricesde Pa-
ganini, and Etudes de concertpour le pianofortecomposeesd'apresdes caprices
de Paganini, opp. 3 and o1. By March 1839 he was sure the production
of piano etudes had peaked.
[letters to his mother of 14 June, 9 August 1832; 28 June 1833]). Soon thereafter it be-
came clear to him that he would not have a career as a pianist (Schumann, Briefe.Neue
Folge,40-41 [letter to Topken of 5 April 1833]). Seemingly, the worst damage was done
during the time Wieck was away with Clara on a tour to Paris, from 25 September 1831 to
1 May 1832. Schumann may have been following the advice of Hummel who writes, "Hi-
erbei kann Logier'sFinger- und Handgelenkffihrer angewandt werden, und ist dem
Schiiler, besonders in Abwesenheit des Lehrers, der richtigen und ruhigen Haltung der
Hande wegen zu empfehlen" (Anweisungzum Pianofortespiel,39). Schumann left few diary
entries for this time, but Dorn, with whom he continued his counterpoint lessons, re-
called that he practiced little (Eismann, Quellenwerk,1: 74 [letter from Dorn to
Wasielewski of 7 September 1856]).
"'4 "Die Zeitschrift hat seit ihrer Entstehung der Clavieretude immer besondere
Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt, weil sich in ihr die Fortschritte der Kunst des Clavierspiels,
wenn auch mehr der Mechanik, am schnellsten zeigen .. ." Schumann, "Etuden fur das
Pianoforte," Neue ZeitschriftfirMusik 11, no. 25 (24 September 1839): 97.
As to the piano etude we have somewhat more grounds than our fore-
fathers to suppose that it has reached its greatest height. Scales are di-
vided up in all directions, combined in all conceivable figures, the fin-
gers and hands are arranged in every possible position, etc.105
Only a few months later, in September 1839, he had to correct his

thinking.
In the course of the year around 30 collections [of etudes] were dis-
cussed. In our last etude review (this past March) we expressed the
hope that, as great as the energy put into the etude, there would set in
accordingly as great a cessation [of production]. We were mistaken.
"Notre malheur, le voici, nous avons trop d'esprit," said a member of
the French Chamber of Deputies lately, although in the political
sense. In our case it is, "Our misfortune is, we don't know whither we
are going with our fluency and cannot leave etude writing alone."1o6
Ultimately Schumann's preference was for what we today call the

concert etude, a study that combines "the utility of a technical exercise
with musical invention equivalent to that of other genres in the concert
560 repertory."l07 This was the model for his etudes after Paganini, partic-
ularly op. 1o, which he said were suitable for public performance.
Though he described them as being of the "greatest difficulty," he
noted that they contain much of genius (Genialisches), meaning as
much Paganini's as his own.1?8 Other etudes of this type cited by Schu-
105 ". . . von der Clavieretude kann man indeB mit

einigem Grund mehr, als unsere
Vorfahren annehmen, sie habe die h6chste Hohe erreicht. Die Tonleitern sind nach
allen Richtungen hin zerlegt, zu alien erdenkliche Figuren verknfupft, die Finger und
Hande in alle m6gliche Lagen gebracht etc...." Schumann, "Etuden fur das Pianoforte,"
Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik o, no. 19 (5 March 1839): 73.
106 ". .. so sind in Verlauf derJahre
gegen 30 Sammlungen besprochen worden. In
unserer letzten Etudenschau (im vorigen Marz) auBerten wir die Hoffnung, es werde
nach so vielem Kraftaufwand, wie man an die Etude gesetzt, einmal ein langerer Still-
stand eintreten. Wir irrten; 'notre malheur, le voice, nous avons trop d'esprit' sagte
neulich ein Mann der franz6sischen Deputirtenkammer, obwohl im polititsche Sinne; in
unserm heiBt es: 'unser Ungluck ist, wir wissen mit unserer Fertigkeit nicht wohin und
k6nnen's nicht lassen, das Etudenschreiben'." Schumann, "Etuden fiir das Pianoforte,"
Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik 11, no. 25 (24 September 1839): 97.
107 Howard Ferguson and Kenneth L. Hamilton, www.grovemusic.com, s. v. "Study."
108
Schumann, "Pianoforte," review of his own VI Etudes de Concertcomp. d'apres
capricesde Paganini, Op. X, Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik 4, no. 32 (19 April 1836): 135. John
Daverio says the etudes represent "an attempt on Schumann's part to enhance the poetic
nature of their models" ("The Magic Circle: Schumann and the Music of Paganini," pre-
sentation at the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei convegno internazionale, "Schumann,
Brahms e l'Italia," Rome, November 1999; published under the title "Schumann e la mu-
sica di Paganini," in Atti dei convegni Lincei No. 165 [Rome: Academia Nazionale dei
Lincei, 2001], where see page 49; I would like to thank Professor Daverio for sharing the
English-language manuscript of his presentation with me).
MACDONALD
mann are Johann Peter Pixis, Exercises en forme de valse, op. 80, or
Charles Mayer, Six Exercices, op. 31, which he calls "graces, with charm-
ing form and bright countenance."1?9 But he believed the concert
etude reached its greatest development in Chopin, whose studies dis-
play supreme virtuosity subordinated to Phantasie, the goal he set not
just in his published etudes, but in his own, earlier practice regimen.
No one will dispute how much Clementi and Cramer [in his Etudesen
42 exercicesdoigtes dans les differentsTons, 2 volumes] derived from
[Bach]. From that time up to Moscheles [Studien, Op. 70] came a
break. Perhaps it was the influence of Beethoven, who, hostile to
everything mechanical, inclined more to pure poetic creation. With
Moscheles and to an even greater degree in Chopin [12 Etudes, Op.
1o], from then on, along with an interest in the technical one in unre-
strained imagination also ruled. 1o
What could never be reconciled, however, was the old world of the
amateur in which Schumann grew up and the world of the new profes-
sional. The oxymoronic concert etude embodies the very predicament
in which Schumann found himself and out of which he never found his
way, namely how to combine the amateur's sheer joy in making music 561
with a perfection, and in the case of an ideal performer like Paganini,
artistry, that comes only with professionalism. Initially unwilling to en-
ter into the second, mechanical stage of piano practicing, Schumann
was then frustrated and unable to leave it for the third, whose promise
of return to the first, naive stage of music making he found, like the
promise of a return to the prelapsarian state of man, unattainable. His
technical studies left him, like Faust, unable to earn his way into par-
adise through spectacular engineering feats. In the end, he remained
an amateur performer; several witnesses have described his playing as
unique, his improvisations as unforgettable."' He delegated to Clara
"'9 Schumann, "Pianoforte. Etuden," Neue Zeitschriftfur Musik 4, nos. 4 and 6 (12
and 9gJanuary 1836): 16 (on Pixis), 24 (on Mayer).
-o "Wie viel Clementi und Cramer aus ihm [Bach] sch6pften, wird Niemand in
Abrede stellen. Von da bis Moscheles trat eine Pause ein. Vielleicht daB es der EinfluB-
Beethovens war, der, allem Mechanischen feind, mehr zum rein-poetischen Schaffen auf-
forderte. In Moscheles und noch in h6herem Grad in Chopin waltet daher neben dem
technischen Interesse auch das phantastische." The brackets in the translation indicate
works cited by Schumann in his footnotes. Schumann, "Die Pianoforte-Etuden, ihren
Zwecken nach geordnet," Neue ZeitschriftfiirMusik 4, no. 11 (6 February 1836): 45. The
Chopin Etudes, op. io were published by Kistner in Leipzig in 1833. Schumann calls
them 12 GrandEtudes. Oe. 12. 2 Livraisons.
I1 Jansen, Die Davidsbiindler,69-76 ("Schumann als Clavierspieler"). Witnesses who
describe Schumann's piano playing include his student friend Theodor Topken, and,
from the later 183os, Oswald Lorenz, Alfred D6rffel, Hieronymus Truhn, Franz Brendel,
andJulius Knorr. In 1838 Schumann also played for Louis Spohr and Moritz Hauptmann.
Wieck the task of playing his works in public, but this meant acquiesc-
12
ing in programming choices governed by professional considerations.
His own solution to the dilemma, destroying the very fingers that tied
his music to the physical world, is as bizarre as any tale by E. T. A. Hoff-
mann; in this way he found a path to the paradise he had earlier
longed for where, without fingers, he "could play with [his] heart on
other hearts." In his compositions, the solutions Schumann presents to
his dilemma can be just as desperately, if gorgeously, farfetched, for ex-
ample in the Symphonic Etudes, op. 13: here is the most difficult piano
piece he ever wrote, yet its spirit is exactly that of his whimsical, for the
amateur more easily sightreadable sets, for example Papillons or Carni-
val."l3 But what amateur could approach the Etudes? As Clara Wieck
reports, even a group of specially selected professionals were befud-
dled. 14 This falling between two stools perhaps explains why the Etudes
are seldom brought to the concert hall; in 1994 I heard, in my opinion,
an exquisite performance by Andras Schiff at the Dusseldorf Tonhalle
that was panned by a local reviewer as too refined. What he wanted to
hear was more brilliance; perhaps of more interest to Schumann was,
rather than any brilliance associated with the generic title he gave the
562 set, a suggestion of the colorful and complex world of the orchestra
the player is invited to summon up, using his hands to create an entire
symphony of sound.
Oberlin College
112
Reich, Clara Schumann, 257-66 ("Clara Schumann and the Music of Robert
Schumann").
113 In fact, the set is based on a theme
by the amateur flutist Baron Ignaz von
Fricken, father of Schumann's onetime fiancee, Ernestine. See Eismann, Quellenwerk,1:
124 ("Aus dem Projektenbuch").
114 At different times Wieck played some of the Etudes for Pierre Zimmermann,
professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire; the Belgian violinist Alexandre Art6t;
young pianist Charles Halle; and pianist and composer Valentin Alkan (Schumann,
Briefwechsel,2: 454, 537 [nos. 138 and 165, letters to Robert of 21 March and 27 May
1831 from Paris]).
ABSTRACT
From the summer of 1830 through the fall of 1831, Schumann
worked diligently at the piano with the intention of becoming a profes-
sional performer. Beginning in May 1831 he regularly recorded his
progress in his diary, describing his repertory, hand position, his aes-
thetic and technical goals, his frustrations and triumphs. Repeatedly he
MACDONALD
wrote of the clash between a cherished ideal, nurtured in him as an am-

ateur, of music as an expression from the heart, and what he deemed
the routine music making of professionalism-a clash played out in his
piano practice until it reached an impasse he was unable to resolve in
his performance.
The conflict Schumann experienced was related to a larger one in
the world of European concert music, namely the demand for ever
more dazzling exploits just as music was elevated to the highest position
among the arts. This essay presents the nearest possible look into a
young artist's mind as he grappled with a dilemma basic to his genera-
tion: how to embrace the newest athletic developments while still claim-
ing music as an expressive language reaching into inner depths that are
supposedly immune to its power to dazzle. As one example it shows
Schumann's progress toward a finished, ideal performance of Chopin's
Variations, opus 2, as this is documented in a series of exercises
recorded in his practice diary. These deal little with any mechanical
problems in the set but instead give a glimpse of how Schumann hoped
to realize physically his imagined, ideal sound world.
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Schumann's Piano Practice: Technical Mastery and Artistic Ideal

Author(s): Claudia Macdonald

w v hen Robert Schumann wrote his Musikalische

I would like to thank the National Endowment for the Humani-

1 On the date of the MusikalischeHaus- und

TheJournal Vol.XIX, Issue4, Fall2002, pp. 527-563, ISSN0277-9269, electronic ISSN

pianists who were his immediate predecessors (Ludwig van Beethoven,

Friedrich Wieck-whose obsession with the mechanical production of

Gentleman Amateur, 828-30: The Mechanics and Substance of Music

You have no idea of the carelessness and crudity of execution, of the

5 These were the philology studentJohann Friedrich Taglichsbeck (violin), theol-

As an example Schumann points to a fellow student who came to him

9 ". . . er trug es treu, fehlerfrei und altvaterisch-pracis und in gewissenhaft-

'3 "DerVirtuosErnstkamauch 1830 nach Heidelbergund mit ihm verkehrteSchu-

Wieck quotes from Schumann's original request to his mother, where

Piano and Theory Student, 83 1: Psychological Blocks

When Schumann returned to Leipzig on 20 October 1830, he be-

of the two hallmarks of professionalism, technical facility and control of

11 May Practiced and played beautifully in the morning -

23 See tables 6 and 7 in Bodo Bischoff,Monument Beethoven,

But by 25 May he writes, "Piano badly - I am to study the Variations by

In the morningeverythingwent miserably- completelymiserablinsky -

tossed out the Herz Variations like a dog - properly characterized -

indulge himself in the less polished playing that is associated in this

33 "Ganzlicher Mangel am Technik." Schumann, "Materialien,"p. 1.

time he invented two characters, Florestan and Eusebius, who as music

37 Schumann, i: 344 ( July 1831). On 8June (his 21 st birthday), Schu-

an encounter with his tutors in technique, Wieck and Probst) Schu-

Professionals and Prodigies

Dorn: I don't like your behavior ...

Aside from Schumann's mood swings, the hypochondria may refer to

48 "Dorn: Ihr Treiben

54 Schumann, Tagebiicher, i: 329-3o, 333, 338 (1 , 25 May; 7 June 1831); Daverio,

Variations, which he said he tossed out "like a dog," he observed, "with

Yesterday Zilia [Clara] played the E-flat Concerto of Moscheles, but

Meister Raro! I recognize you - your carrying on is nothing but a

The something of Paganini Schumann saw in Wieck turned out to be

By Schumann's account foremost in Wieck's plan for him, too, was

Contrary to his former method of weighing each note critically and

66 Schumann, 1: 333, 363 (23 May; 19 August 1831).

movement of the Hummel, in Zwickau on 28 April 1829, represents

Schumann's aim is to achieve an even and controlled touch by keeping

A month later, on 14 August, Schumann's alter ego Eusebius coaches

The chronicle of Schumann's practice on the Chopin Variations

79 "Um nun etliche Betrachtungen uber Dich an zu stellen . . . K6nntest du nur

EXAMPLE 2. Chopin, Variations, op. 2, variation i, and Schumann, Ue-

85 The one Beethoven

Schumann, no. 17 553

86 For the Alla Polacca, Schumann also wrote

EXAMPLE 3. Chopin, Variations, op. 2, Alla Polacca, and Schumann,

with everything," he writes on 17 July. "But I cannot readily attain the

not on the production of accurate pitch and rhythm, or up-to-speed

would define as romantic in the Concerto cannot be said with certainty.

98 Schumann, Tagebiicher, 1: 333.

ranks of professional performers, he was uncomfortable with his

Only a few months later, in September 1839, he had to correct his

Ultimately Schumann's preference was for what we today call the

105 ". . . von der Clavieretude kann man indeB mit

wrote of the clash between a cherished ideal, nurtured in him as an am-

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Macdonald - Schumann's Piano Practice

Macdonald - Schumann's Piano Practice