rick Schneider's
"_Weltgericht_." At home, with the aid of some musical companions he
got up performances of musical compositions, and had a small
orchestra. He entered at the Leipsic University as a student of law,
but devoted the most of his time to playing the piano, and to reading
Jean Paul, for whom he had a great fondness. He immediately attached
himself to the musical circles, entering himself as a pupil with
Wieck, the father of his future wife. A year later he transferred his
attendance to the University of Heidelberg, attracted thither by the
lectures of the famous teacher Thibaut, the same whose work upon the
"Purity of Musical Art," had only recently been published. Here, as in
Leipsic, his principal occupation was practicing upon the piano, which
he did to the extent of six or seven hours a day. Notwithstanding his
fondness for music, his mother was violently opposed to his entering
the musical profession, and as his father was now dead, her wishes
naturally had much weight. He had already commenced to write songs,
quite a number of which belong to the year 1830, when he was living in
Heidelberg.

He made a tour to the north of Italy, and heard the Italian musician
Paganini, which fired him with so much ardor, that he immediately set
himself to transcribe his Caprices for the piano, and to accomplish
upon this instrument similar effects to those which Paganini produced
upon the violin. At length, after much difficulty with his guardian
and his mother, it was agreed that he might fit himself for a
musician, so in 1830 he was back again in Leipsic studying diligently
with Master Wieck. In his ardor for great results in a short time, he
undertook some kind of mechanical discipline for the fourth finger of
his right hand, the effect of which was that the tendons became
overstrained, the finger crippled, and for a long time he was utterly
unable to use it in piano playing. In composition he now entered upon
regular instruction with Heinrich Dorn, at that time conductor of the
opera in Leipsic. Dorn recognized the greatness of Schumann's genius,
and devoted himself with much interest to his improvement. In 1832 a
symphony of his was produced in Zwickau, but apparently with little
success, for the work was never heard of afterward. At this same
concert Wieck's daughter, Clara, who was then thirteen years of age,
appeared as a pianist, and Zwickau, Schumann says, "was fired with
enthusiasm for the first time in it