SOURCE: Plantinga, Leon B. “Introduction,” “Schumann's Style of Criticism,” and “Schumann's Aesthetics of Music.” In Schumann as Critic, pp. ix-xiii; 59-78; 111-34. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967.

In the following excerpts, Plantinga examines several facets of Schumann's criticism, with particular emphasis on his style and musical philosophy.

At the age of twenty, Robert Schumann, thoroughly bored with his law studies at the University of Heidelberg, decided to devote himself to music. This was in the autumn of 1830, and during the next year he plunged wholeheartedly into not one, but three kinds of musical activities: piano playing, composing, and writing music criticism. In the spring of 1832 a hand injury put an end to his ambitions as a pianist; but by that time he had already published his earliest compositions as well as his first essay on music, and the pattern of his life was set for some time to...