The twenty years during which Schumann personally exerted a great influence upon the musical world cover a red-letter period of this century. Only a few years before, Beethoven, Schubert and Weber had died, closing the great epoch of the classic masters, while at the same time preparing a new one with new ideals and new prospects. In the centre of the musical world stood the masters of French and Italian opera: Auber, Halévy, Bellini, Donizetti, and soon Meyerbeer, while such men as Cherubini, Méhul and Boieldieu had already stepped into the background. Germany still had Spohr and a number of less famous composers excelling in some special field, as for instance, Marschner in opera, Lachner in song and instrumental music, Löwe in ballads and oratorios, Hummel and Moscheles in pianoforte music; but they all were far surpassed by the brilliant sun of Mendelssohn which had just risen. He, born in 1809, heads the list of those distinguished names, which opened a new epoch of our art, mainly represented beside himself by Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Franz, and their great French contemporary, Berlioz. Italian and French opera, and an exhibition of meaningless technical virtuosity, formed the general musical taste; Beethoven was neglected, Schubert hardly known; and it looks as if by some kind device of nature just in the right time a resurrection of the higher conception of art was brought about, no one assisting more in the great work than Robert Schumann. He was equipped not only with rarest creative gifts, but also with a superior intellect, a high general culture and a thorough and sincere character, which enabled him to persevere in his great undertaking with unflagging zeal. Alas! why has not nature been more kind to him? Why has not one so deserving been spared the saddest of all fates? Perhaps it was to make his memory still dearer to us, to increase our veneration for him so that even weaknesses or errors in his life or works elicit from us an honest sympathy, which increases whenever we read his many published letters or the story of his life as told by able and sympathetic writers like Wasielewski, Spitta, Reissmann, and others.