The second all-important factor which Schumann, over and above Schubert, brought to his song-writing was a matured harmonic and pianistic technique for the accompaniments. However truly Schubert divined the possibilities of the modern pianoforte, just nearing perfection in his day, he never wrote thoroughly in the new style. His chords in the bass were apt to be heavy and thick, his accompaniment is not spread as widely as it might advantageously be, and his inner voices never show the free and sprightly polyphony which is peculiarly adapted to the piano. Had he lived he would doubtless have become one of the greatest masters of the new pianoforte style. But it was left for Schumann consciously and reverently to take up the work. Schumann did not write a single song, for publication at least, until he had been working for full ten years for the piano. His first enthusiasm was for the piano. The shattering of his hopes to become a virtuoso forced him to turn his enthusiasm toward piano composition. And in his early years of creative activity he developed the possibilities of the new instrument with all the enthusiasm of his youthful nature. His first twenty-three works, written between the years 1830 and 1840, were almost exclusively for the piano. In them he developed a pianoforte idiom which was unique in its day. With this new and mature technique he approached his song writing. Inevitably he looked as lovingly toward the accompaniment as toward the voice part--some critics say even more so. He had learned how to make the most of the mechanical peculiarity of the piano--its _struck_ strings which are incapable of a true sustained legato; he treated the piano, in other words, essentially as a hammer instrument and not as a wind instrument, like the organ. He developed a surprising adeptness at enharmonic modulation, for which the complete piano keyboard is so peculiarly adapted. He learned the full use of the damper pedal--not so much for sustaining chords as for permitting a wide separation of notes. He learned how to make his inner voices pianistic instead of vocal, making them depend wholly on their contour and position (as opposed to tone quality) for their independence. Finally, he had learned how to give each composition a style of its own--a peculiarity of pianistic manner over and above its individuality of musical content. All these qualities of Schumann’s piano technique should be kept in mind in studying his accompaniments. They represent a good half of the musical value of Schumann’s songs. If the vocal parts of the _Dichterliebe_ cycle had never been written the accompaniments would still have a high value as proof of Schumann’s mastery over pianistic writing. Without an appreciation of the pianistic side of Schumann’s vocal work no singer can begin to appreciate the songs; he cannot even satisfactorily sing his part of them. A large share of Schubert’s accompaniments can