From now on until 1839, when Schumann began to be absorbed in song writing, there appeared at leisurely intervals piano works from his study, few of which are anything short of creations of genius. In the Intermezzi his technical preoccupations were given fuller play; in the _Davidsbündler Tänze_ our old friends ‘Florestan,’ ‘Eusebius,’ and ‘Meister Raro’ contribute pieces in their own special vein, all directed to the good cause of ‘making war on the Philistines’--in other words, asserting the claims of lovely music against those of mechanical music, and of technically scholarly music against those of sentimental salon music. Following this work came the Toccata, one of Schumann’s earliest serious works later revised--an amazing achievement in point of technical virtuosity, based on a deep knowledge of Bach and polyphonic procedure, yet revealing the new Schumann in every bar. It proved that the young revolutionist who was emphasizing musical beauty over musical learning was not doing so because he was technically unequipped. He now wrote the _Carnaval_, perhaps the most popular of Schumann’s piano works, with Schumann’s friends, including Clara Wieck, Chopin, and Paganini, appearing among the ‘musical pictures.’ Schumann’s humor is growing more noisy, for in the last movement the whole group join in an abusive ‘march against the Philistines,’ to the tune of the old folk-song, ‘When Grandfather Married Grandmother.’ Why should an avowed revolutionist take as his patron theme a song which praises the good old times ‘when people knew naught of Ma’m’selle and Madame,’ and deprecates change? But the romanticists, especially of Schumann’s type, prided themselves on nothing more than their historical sense and their kinship with the past--especially the German past. Next came more ambitious piano works, and interspersed among them the _Phantasiestücke_ (‘Fantasy Pieces’), containing some of Schumann’s most characteristic numbers, and the brilliant ‘Symphonic Études,’ masterpieces one and all. And still later the ‘Novelettes,’ the _Faschingsswank_, the well-known ‘Scenes from Childhood,’ and the _Kreisleriana_. This group Schumann felt to be his finest work. It was taken, like the _Papillons_, from literature, this time E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tales of the eccentric Kapellmeister Kreisler.