Nevertheless, seven years later still, he once more returns to the attack, and declares that Wagner's music, "apart from the performance, is simply amateurish, void of contents, and disagreeable; and it is a sad proof of corrupt taste that, in the face of the many dramatic master-works which Germany has produced, some persons have the presumption to belittle these in favor of Wagner's. Yet enough of this. The future will pronounce judgment in this matter, too." Poor Schumann! His own opera, "Genoveva," was a failure, while "Tannhaeuser" and "Lohengrin" were everywhere received with enthusiasm. This was a quarter of a century ago; and the future _has_ judged, "Tannhaeuser" and "Lohengrin" being now the most popular of all works in the operatic repertory. What caused the failure of Schumann's only opera was not a lack of dramatic genius, but of theatrical instinct. He believed that in "Genoveva" "every bar is thoroughly dramatic;" and so it is, as might have been expected of the composer of such an intensely emotional and passionate song as "Ich grolle nicht" and many others. But Schubert, too, could write such thrilling five-minute dramas as the "Erlking" and the "Doppelgaenger," without being able to compose a successful opera. Like Schumann, he could not paint _al fresco_, could not command that bolder and broader sweep which is required of an operatic composer. It is characteristic of Schumann that he did not write an opera till late in life, whereas born operatic composers have commonly begun their career with their specialty. Indeed, it was only ten years before he composed his opera that Schumann wrote to a friend: "You ought to write more for the voice. Or are you, perhaps, like myself, who have all my life placed vocal music below instrumental, and never considered it a great art? But don't speak to anyone about this." Oddly enough, less than a year after this he writes to another friend: "At present I write only vocal pieces.... I can hardly tell you what a delight it is to write for the voice as compared with instruments, and how it throbs and rages within me when I am at work. Entirely new things have been revealed to me, and I am thinking of writing an opera, which, however, will not be possible until I have entirely freed myself from editorial work."