- pression often seem extreme. Yet in spite of all drawbacks,
the affluence of ideas, the impetuosity of sentiment, the variety of imaginative suggestion, and the positive beauty of conception are on the whole most impressive, especially when considered in relation to the time in which they appeared. Into the circle of precisians and pedants Schumann came as a thorough revolutionist, but his purpose was not destructive or unsympathetic with the past. He simply sought to widen the range of musical utterance in the direction of vivid personal revelation. In this he resembled Beethoven, though he lacked Beethoven's instinct for style, depth of pathetic experience and ecstatic ideality. Schumann's strenuousness was not that born of pain, but the voice of restless mental energy. It is not strange that the full sense of his greatness came slowly and has not been universal among music-lovers. Yet he is a foremost illustration of the connection of modern music with the spirit of modern life—versatile, eager and full of vitality.
Schumann's compositions belong to almost every principal class except
church music. It is impossible to classify them briefly, since many of
the most characteristic are extremely varied and novel in form. For the
piano alone may be cited the Papillons (1831), a toccata (1833), the
Études symphoniques (1834), the Carnaval (1835), 3 sonatas (1835-8),
the Novelletten (1838), a concerto (1841-5), considerable 4-hand work,
including the Bilder aus Osten (1848), and a multitude of characteristic
pieces of every kind; for the piano with strings, the Fantasiestücke
(1842), a quartet and quintet (1842), 3 trios (1847-51), many pieces for
a solo instrument with piano (1849), 2 violin-sonatas (1851), and some
other chamber works; for orchestra, 4 symphonies, from the 'Spring'
(1841) to the 'Rhenish' (1850), one other symphonic work, and 4
concert-overtures (1850-3); the opera Genoveva (1848), and many
scenes for Faust (1844-50) and for Manfred (1848); the cantatas Das
Paradies und die Peri (1843), Adventlied (1848), Nachtlied (1849),
Neujahrslied (1850), Der Rose Pilgerfahrt (1851), and several choral
ballades; many part-songs and choruses; almost 250 songs, many of
them arranged in cycles of extreme interest (from 1840). He wrote
several series of pieces for children or about them, many that concern
nature, many full of the excitement and intrigue of society, many instinct
with the warmth of German patriotism, many charged with poetic mysticism—indeed,
the circle of sentiments represented is much too large
to be described.
In many of the earlier works for the piano there are fictitious names or cabalistic signs attached which are the same that were more freely used in the literary works (see sec. 192).
