Schumann considered the _Kreisleriana_ to be his best work for the piano alone. It was inspired by the character of Johannes Kreisler, an eccentric, highly gifted kapellmeister who figured in the tales and musical papers of E. T. A. Hoffmann.[33] Just what it means few will venture to suggest. The last movement may recall the account of the last appearance of Kreisler on this earth, as he was seen hopping along the road beyond the town, with a red hat on the side of his head and a wooden sword by his side. Dr. Oskar Bie quotes from Hoffmann in connection with the second movement, the tale of the young girl who was lured to a magic oak by the sound of a lute, and there killed; whose heart grew into a twining rose-bush.[34] In the main, however, the music eludes analysis. It is eccentric. Though full of the mannerisms of Schumann, much of it presents an unfamiliar mood of the composer. The moods of it are different from the moods of the ‘Carnival,’ the ‘Symphonic Études,’ the ‘Fantasy,’ the ‘Scenes of Childhood.’ On the whole, it lacks the warmth of his other works. It is fantastic, and not unfrequently grotesque; parts of it strangely deliberate. Many pages of it are out of the usual and consequently baffling. It is more involved, too, in workmanship, and the separate movements full of contrasts that seem to be vagaries. Schumann has, of course, here as elsewhere put himself into the person of his inspiration; and the result is a tribute to the power of his imagination. Never was music more fantastic, less consequential. It is, on the other hand, superb. The opening movement alone, with its figures like short waves in a windy sea, its sharp cross-accents, its filmy, elusive trio, is a masterpiece. The second movement is unbalanced, yet at times most wondrously beautiful. The opening theme in itself is inspired, though it is perhaps overworked. But what is the meaning of the harsh chords which interrupt it and shatter the mood which it might else instill? The style is polyphonic in places; there are inner melodies that slide long distances up and down the keyboard, oftenest in tenths. The two intermezzi furnish a welcome contrast to the intense subjectivity of most of this second movement. After the second there comes one of the loveliest pages in all Schumann’s pianoforte music. The third movement is built on a restless, jerky figure, in ceaseless movement. There are strong accents and unusual harmonies. A middle section offers yet another happy instance of Schumann’s skill in dialogue between two melodies, such as we have already noticed in _Warum?_ and the eleventh of the ‘Symphonic Études.’ The movement is somewhat slower than the main body of the piece, but a strange sort of half-accompaniment does not allow the restlessness to subside altogether.