Robert Schumann

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 edition. Excerpt: ... to freshen up your recollection of me. Please look on it kindly. It is not quite perfect as a likeness, though drawn by a great artist,1 a proof that even a master-hand 1 Kriehuber. COMPOSITION AND EDITORSHIP 139 is not infallible. Still, I think the general effect is good. Please do not hang me among a crowd of critical Leipzig and Stuttgart 'doctors, ' but put me next to Sebastian Bach (what would I not give to hear him play the organ ), then I shall begin to improvise.... 60. To Keferstein. Leipzig, February 19, 1840.... Do you know that I have written four hundred pages of music during the last two years? Most of it is published, too. When I consider that my music has nothing mechanical about it, but makes inconceivable demands on my heart, it seems only natural that the heart should need rest after such exertions. My editorial duties can only fill a secondary place, great as is my devotion to the paper. Is it not our most sacred duty to cultivate our talents? I remember your writing to me some years ago to this effect, and have plodded on bravely ever since. This by way of justification, my dear friend, for your last lines contained a certain reflection, as I gathered, on the way in which I fulfil my editorial duties. I really do not deserve this, for the very reason that I am so much occupied with other work, and because this other work is of greater importance, being, in fact, my life-work. Here I am at this moment, fresh from composing. I am doing nothing but vocal music of all sorts just now, including some quartets for male voices, which I should like to dedicate to the friend who reads these lines, if he will kindly promise to make no further attempt to distract me from composing. May I? I can hardly describe to you the..

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