The whole set presents an epitome of that imagination which gave to Schumann’s music its peculiar, intimate, and absorbing charm. His might well be considered the most subjective of all pianoforte music. It is for that reason dull to practice. The separate notes of which it is composed give little objective satisfaction. The labor of mastering them routs utterly in most cases the spirit which inspired them. Fine as the craftsman’s skill may prove to be in many of the pieces, it is peculiarly without significance, without vitality, until the whole is set in motion, or set afire by the imagination. The most imaginative and the most fantastic of the works as a whole is the series of twenty short pieces which make up the _Carnaval_, opus 9. Here there is a kaleidoscopic mixture of pictures, characters, moods, ideas, and personalities; the blazonry of spectacle, the noise and tumult, the quiet absorption that may come over one in the midst of such animation, the cool shadows beyond the edge of it wherein lovers may wander and converse; strange flashes of thought, sudden darting figures, apparitions and reminiscences. All is presented with unrelaxing intensity. One cannot pick out a piece from the twenty which does not show Schumann’s imagination at fever heat. There is a wealth of symbolism; the Sphinxes, mysterious sequences of notes that are common to all the pieces, and dancing letters which spell the birthplace of one of Schumann’s early loves. As to the Sphinxes it may be said, as before, that the coherence which they may add can hardly exist outside the mind of the player, or of the student who has made himself thoroughly familiar with the work. The average listener may hear the whole work a hundred times, learn to know it and to love it, without ever realizing that the first intervals of the _Arlequin_, the _Florestan_, of the _Papillons_ and others are the same; those of the _Chiarina_, the _Reconnaissances_, and the _Aveux_ likewise, note for note identical. Such hidden relationships in music are vaguely felt if felt at all. Just as two words spelled the same may have different meanings, so may two musical phrases made up of the same intervals be radically different in effect.