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, 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 _Concertstueck, opus 92_, the second _Album for
the Young_, the _Three Fantasy Pieces, opus 111_, the _Bunte
Blaetter_--do you recall the one in F-sharp minor so miraculously varied
by Brahms, or that appealing one in A-flat? The _Albumblaetter, opus
124_, the seven pieces in fughetta form, the never-played _Concert
allegro in D-minor, opus 134_, or the two posthumous works, the
_Scherzo_ and the _Presto Passionata_.

Have I forgotten any? No doubt. I am growing weary, weary of all this
music, opiate music, prismatic music, "dreary music"--as Schumann
himself called his early stuff--and the somber peristaltic music of his
"lonesome, latter years." Schumann is now for the very young, for the
self-illuded. We care more--being sturdy realists--for architecture
today. These crepuscular visions, these adventures of the timid soul on
sad white nights, these soft croonings of love and sentiment are out of
joint with the days of electricity and the worship of the golden calf.
Do not ask yourself with cynical airs if Schumann is not, after all,
second-rate, but rather, when you are in the mood, enter his house of
dreams, his home beautiful, and rest your nerves. Robert Schumann may
not sip ambrosial nectar with the gods in highest Valhall, but he served
his generation; above all, he made happy one noble woman. When his music
is shelved and forgotten, the name of the Schumanns will stand for that
rarest of blessings, conjugal felicity.

XII

"WHEN I PLAYED FOR LISZT"

To write from Bayreuth in the spring-time as Wagner sleeps calmly in the
backyard of _Wahnfried_, without a hint of his music in the air, is
giving me one of the deepest satisfactions of my existence. How came you
in Bayreuth, and, of all seasons in the year, the spring? The answer may
astonish you; indeed, I am astonished myself when I think of it. Liszt,
Franz Liszt, greatest of pianists--after Thalberg--greatest of modern
composers--after no one--Liszt lies out here in the cemetery on the
Erlangerstrasse, and to visit that forlorn pagoda designed by his
grandson Siegfried Wagner, I left my comfortable lodgings in Munich and
trav