dismay that all of her more influential friends and colleagues—Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Paganini among them—were not there as she had expected. Having inherited not a little of her father’s obstinacy Clara stuck it out and, without conquering the French capital, broadened her experience in many ways, even to the extent of learning to cook, and cementing new and valuable friendships, such as one with the singer, Pauline Garcia, which was to endure for a lifetime.

Despite the machinations of Wieck Clara, back in Germany, found a means of making her feelings known to Robert. A devoted friend, Ernst Adolf Becker, suggested that she perform at a Leipzig concert one of Robert’s works. She chose the “Symphonic Studies” (the theme of which the composer had obtained from the Baron von Fricken, the adoptive father of Ernestine). Wieck approved. Tyrant as he was he still kept a soft spot in his heart for Schumann’s music. The composer came to the hall, sat inconspicuously at the rear, listened and—knew! In a flash he understood that when she had lately returned him a package of his letters un-opened she had been acting under duress.

They still had much to bear, but greatly as it revolted them they realized that the only solution of their difficulties lay in a legal decision. To law, accordingly, they went. Bit by bit Wieck’s case disintegrated. With the help of a friendly advocate Robert was able to show that his means were ample to support a family. Then Wieck played what he believed would be his trump card. He maintained that Schumann was a drunkard! Instantly Robert’s friends rallied to his support, Mendelssohn even declaring himself ready to testify in court that the accusation was outrageously false. On August 12, 1840, the decision was handed down in favor of the sorely tried couple and their marriage received judicial sanction.

On Sept. 5, she gave a concert in Weimar, “my last as Clara Wieck”. One week later (and a day before Clara’s twenty-first birthday), they were married at Schönefeld, a tiny suburb of Leipzig. On the previous evening Robert had brought her a bridal offering richer than fine gold—the song cycle, “Myrthen”, inclosing such deathless blooms as “Die Lotosblume”, “Der Nussbaum”, “Du bist wie eine Blume”, “Widmung”. And when they returned from church next morning Clara wrote in her diary: “A period of my life is now closed.... Now a new life is beginning, a beautiful life, a life in him whom I love above all, above myself. But grave duties rest with me, too...”.

* * *

The period through which we have passed witnessed the birth of many of Schumann’s greatest piano compositions—the “Davidsbündler Tänze”, the “Carnival”, the F sharp minor Sonata, the “Kinderscenen”, the “Symphonic Studies”, the “Kreisleriana”, the C major Fantasie, the “Fantasiestücke”—things which along with others scarcely less great, were to become what might be called daily bread of pianists. His circle of musical friends was steadily widening. Those he esteemed most highly, perhaps, were Mendelssohn and Chopin. Mendelssohn was to both Robert and Clara nothing less than a god. The strange thing about this friendship is that, much as the Schumanns worshipped Mendelssohn’s music, Mendelssohn, to the end of his days, had virtually nothing to say on the subject of Schumann’s. No doubt its novelty, its bold fantasy, its unprecedented imaginative qualities were in a measure alien to Mendelssohn’s ideals of formal logic, clarity, order. It was not in his artistic nature to enjoy the work of a composer who, like Schumann, “dreamed with the pedal down”. By the same token it was the fluency, technical ease and polished workmanship in Mendelssohn’s scores which Robert held in such envious admiration. Yet with all his skill it is certain that Mendelssohn could never, for one thing, have painted so unapproachable a portrait in tones of his friend Chopin as Schumann achieved in one of the most extraordinary pages of the “Carnival”.

Liszt was another master with whom Schumann’s relations were, to put it mildly, singular and paradoxical. For a long time both Robert and Clara were captivated by Liszt’s phenomenal virtuosity and amazing musicianship. Liszt preached Schumann’s greatness both in word and deed. He played his works inimitably and with an originality that brought to light beauties which Schumann, by his own admission, did not even suspect in his own creations. When Clara first played Liszt the “Carnival” he exclaimed that it was one of the greatest pieces of music he knew, vastly to Clara’s delight. Robert impulsively dedicated to Liszt the C major Fantasy (in later years Clara removed the dedication) but as time went on a coolness developed between the two masters, which led to at least one highly embarrassing scene when, on a certain occasion, Liszt, possibly in a spirit of irony, praised the arch-vulgarian, Meyerbeer, at the expense of the recently deceased Mendelssohn. Schumann left the room, fiercely slamming the door behind him. The breach was eventually healed and Liszt championed Schumann quite as he had done earlier. But the friendship had been troubled and, as Schumann’s mental condition worsened, the old relation was never quite restored. Clara, who developed into a good hater in the years of her widowhood, came to harbor an implacable enmity for Robert’s one time friend.

Yet in the early days of their married life things were on the whole, ideal. Robert aspired to deepen Clara’s musical understanding and the pair undertook a systematic study of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, he “pointing out the places where the fugue subject reappears” and giving her an insight into technical mysteries which she had hitherto lacked. He himself was inspired by his new found happiness to a perfect deluge of songs—master lyrics which rank with those of Schubert as among the greatest treasurers of song literature. The year 1840 was Schumann’s “song year”. Even before they were married Robert delighted his prospective bride with the information: “Since yesterday morning I have written nearly 27 pages of music, of which I can tell you no more than that I laughed and cried for joy of it.... All this music nearly kills me now, it could drown me completely. Oh, Clara, what bliss to write songs! Too long have I been a stranger to it”. And a little later: “I have again composed so much that it sometimes seems quite uncanny. Oh, I can’t help it, I should like to sing myself to death like a nightingale. Twelve Eichendorff songs! But I have already forgotten them and begun something new”! So it runs on, more extravagantly in letter after letter, as he enriches the world quite effortlessly with the “Lieder und Gesänge”, Op. 27, the Chamisso songs, Op. 31, the “Liederreihe”, Op. 35, the Eichendorff “Liederkreis”, Op. 39, the wonderfully psychological “Frauenliebe und Leben” cycle, the incomparable “Dichterliebe”, the Eichendorff and Heine “Romanzen und Balladen”, and so on—a lyric inundation, seemingly without end. And just because Schumann had developed in his piano works such an individuality of style, and such new phases of keyboard technic the accompaniments he supplied for many of these Lieder made the songs artistic creations of an entirely unprecedented order.

* * *

Robert and Clara found out before long, no doubt, that married people sometimes get in one another’s way. For instance, Robert needed hours and sometimes days and weeks of quiet for his creative work. On such occasions Clara had to put a stop to her practising. The two realized that they were rather more hampered than was agreeable and Robert felt keenly how needful it is for an