The Intermezzi (Op. 4) answered in the negative. These were genuine pure music without any external pretensions. It was possible already to recognise the true style of Schumann: the characteristic features were repeated. Dotted motives, built up in fugato style; delicate melodies with the “nachschlag” accompaniment and with other melodies superimposed; reflective repose in chords; syncopated rhythm; parallelisms of the air in octaves; all these were as before. In the slurred thirds and the sequences, and especially the diatonic runs, which seem to gather their strength as they go, the model was not Schubert but Sebastian Bach. There was something in this not merely of his absolute, self-contained music, but even of his means of expression. At this time of course this could do no harm. In the fifth and sixth intermezzos Schumann’s personality would seem to have entirely ripened. This marked propensity to “anticipations,” those pianissimo unisons, those sharp detonations of C and C sharp, D and D sharp; the singing legato middle voices developing in the canonic manner, the absolute transference of whole passages by means of a single note foreign to the scale, generally effected by an anticipation; all this had grown into a definite musical picture, extraordinarily sympathetic, in which soul and technique were united. With stern sadness the hands grip one within another, to bring out the “suppressed lyric” of the piano; and a delicate noble spirit guides them, which delights to express strange things in strange forms. With stern sadness, as in the style of Jean Paul, and right in the midst of the music, where an answering voice intrudes itself, Schumann writes over the notes the words, “Meine Ruh ist hin”--my peace has departed. This is not as text, but merely as a comment by the way. Then came Op. 5, free variations in romantic style, on a theme by Clara Wieck; and Op. 6, called “Davidsbündlertänze.” They were dedicated to Walther von Goethe, and bore as motto the old proverb:-- “In all’ und jeder Zeit verknüpft sich Lust und Leid; Bleibt fromm in Lust, und seyd dem Leid mit Mut bereit.” [In all and every time, our joy and sorrow meet: Gird up thy loins and go, bravely thy fate to greet.] In the later revised edition Schumann cut out this good old saying, as he omitted so much of the first and heartfelt edition. “Two readings may often be of equal value,” says Eusebius once in the aphorisms. “The original one is usually the best,” adds Raro. Why did not Schumann follow his own Raro? Raro was the most delicate of the “Davidsbündler.” He was in his irony, which had drunk deep of worldly wisdom, raised far above the storm and stress of Florestan and the gentle, simple complaisance of Eusebius. In Florestan there was much of Beethoven, in Eusebius an echo of Schubert. Raro was to surpass and combine them in a higher unity. But Raro is just--rare.