Old Fogy

Excerpt: ...was an ideal union, the woman a sympathetic artist, the composer writing for her, writing songs, piano music, even criticism for and about her. Decidedly one of the prettiest and most wholesome pictures in the history of any art. Then I attacked the F-sharp Minor Sonata, with its wondrous introduction like the vast, Pg 100 somber portals to some fantastic Gothic pile. The Fantasiestücke opus 12, still remain Schumann at his happiest, and easiest comprehended. The Symphonic Variations are the greatest of all, greater than the Concerto or the Fantasie in C. These almost persuade one that their author is a fit companion for Beethoven and Chopin. There is invention, workmanship, and a solidity that never for a moment clashes with the tide of romantic passion surging beneath. Here he strikes fire and the blaze is glorious. The F-minor Sonata-the so-called Concert sans orchestre-a truncated, unequal though interesting work; the Arabesque, the Blumenstück, the marvelous and too seldom played Humoreske, opus 20, every one throbbing with feeling; the eight Novelletten, almost, but not quite successful attempts at a new form; the genial but unsatisfactory G-minor Sonata, the Nachtstücke, and the Vienna Carnaval, opus 26, are not all of these the unpremeditated outpourings of a genuine poet, a poet of sensibility, of exquisite feeling? I must not forget those idylls of childhood, the Kinderscenen, the half-crazy Kreisleriana, true soul-states, nor the Fantasie, opus 17, which lacks a movement to make it an organic whole. Consider the little pieces, like the three romances, Pg 101 opus 28, the opus 32, the Album for the Young, opus 68, the four fugues, four marches, the Waldscenen-Oh, never-to-be-forgotten Vogel als Prophet and Trock'ne Blumen-the Concertstück, opus 92, the second Album for the Young, the Three Fantasy Pieces, opus 111, the Bunte Blätter-do you recall the one in F-sharp minor so...