SOURCE: Daverio, John. “Music Criticism in a New Key.” Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age,” pp. 105-30. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

In the following excerpt, Daverio demonstrates how Schumann's criticism reflects his passionate desire to unite music and language.

A Barrier Against Convention

In March 1833 Schumann arrived in Leipzig after a four-month stay in Zwickau and nearby Schneeberg, the home of his brother Carl and sister-in-law Rosalie. As noted in the previous chapter, the first movement of his G-minor Symphony was performed at both locations: in Zwickau on 18 November 1832 and in Schneeberg in mid-February of the following year. On returning to Leipzig, Schumann took an apartment with Carl Günther, a law student, in Franz Riedel's Garten, an establishment on the outskirts of the city. He continued to work on his G-minor Symphony (certainly on the last movement, and perhaps also on the second and...