For some years prior to 1844 Schumann lived in Leipsic. It was his habit to compose intensely all day, and then to walk to a beer-cellar at the upper end of the Grimmaische Strasse. There he would sit at a table with one of his most trusted friends, an odd-looking but able musician and piano-teacher named Wenzel. There were two or three other musicians who frequented the place and were generally at the same table. Schumann enjoyed being among friends, but disliked nothing more than the restraint of social functions. No doubt there was a large consumption of beer, after the fashion of the Germans on such occasions, but to a musical student who could sit within hearing there was afforded a golden opportunity of absorbing musical ideas. SCHUMANN'S "SYMPHONY NO. 1, B FLAT" When I went to Germany, Schumann was living in Dresden, but he made frequent visits to Leipsic. I knew little or nothing of Schumann's music, for Mendelssohn then dominated the musical world; but the first orchestral composition of Schumann's that I ever heard placed him far above Mendelssohn in my estimation. It was at the second concert I attended at the Gewandhaus in Leipsic, and the work was the "First Symphony." I was so wrought up by it that I hummed passages from it as I walked home, and sat down at the piano when I got there, and played as much of it as I could remember. I hardly slept that night for the excitement of it. The first thing I did in the morning was to go to Breitkopf & Haertel's and buy the score, the orchestral parts and piano arrangements for four and two hands, and in these I fairly reveled. I grew so enthusiastic over the symphony that I sent the score and parts to the Musical Fund Society of Boston, the only concert orchestra then in that city, and conducted by Mr. Webb. They could make nothing of the symphony, and it lay on the shelf for one or two years. Then they tried it again, saw something in it, but somehow could not get the swing of it, possibly on account of the syncopations. Before my return from Europe in 1854, I think they finally played it. In speaking of it, Mr. Webb said to my father: "Yes, it is interesting; but in our next concert we play Haydn's 'Surprise Symphony,' and that will live long after this symphony of Schumann's is forgotten." Many years afterward I reminded Mr. Webb of this remark, whereupon he said, "William, is it possible that I was so foolish?" Only a few years before I arrived at Leipsic, Schumann's genius was so little appreciated that when he entered the store of Breitkopf & Haertel with a new manuscript under his arm, the clerks would nudge one another and laugh. One of them told me that they regarded him as a crank and a failure because his pieces remained on the shelf and were in the way.