Full of varied characteristics are the "Fantasie Pieces." Among these is the familiar "Warum," which one has but to hear to recognize at once that it is no ordinary Why, but a question upon the answer to which depends the happiness of a lifetime; "At Evening" (_Abends_), with its sense of perfect peace; the buoyant "Soaring" (_Aufschwung_); "Whims" (_Grillen_); "Night Scene," an echo of the legend of Hero and Leander; the fable, "Dream-Whirls" (_Traumeswirren_) and the "End of the Song," with its mingling of humor and sadness. These "Fantasie Pieces" and the aptly named "Novelettes" seem destined always to retain their popularity. And then there are the "Scenes from Childhood," to which belongs the "Träumerei"; the "Forest Scenes," the "Sonatas;" the heroic technical studies, based on the Paganini "Capriccios," and the "Études Symphoniques," and the "Fantasie," above the first movement of which he placed these lines from Schlegel:
"Through every tone there passes, To him who deigns to list, In varied earthly dreaming, A tone of gentleness."
Clara was the "tone," as he told her. It was largely through Madame Schumann's public playing of her husband's works that they won their way. Even so, owing to their lack of brilliancy and their introspection, they were long in coming to their own. But the best of them, including, of course, the admirable "A Minor Concerto," long will retain their hold on the modern pianist's repertoire. William Mason went to Leipzig in 1849. "Only a few years before I arrived at Leipzig," he says in his "Memories," "Schumann's genius was so little appreciated that when he entered the store of Breitkopf & Härtel with a new manuscript under his arm, the clerks would nudge one another and laugh. One of them told me that they regarded him as a crank and a failure because his pieces remained on the shelf and were in the way. * * * Shortly after my return from Germany (to New York) I went to Breusing's, then one of the principal music stores in the city,--the Schirmers are his successors,--and asking for certain compositions by Schumann, I was informed that they had his music in stock, but as there was no demand for it, it was packed away in a bundle, and kept in the basement." What a contrast now!