... Tell me if you, too, find this picture fitting the
music." "The Papillons," he says once more, are intended to be a
musical translation of the final scene in Jean Paul's "Flegeljahre."
Believers in telepathy will be interested in the following additional
instance of composing with a visual object in mind: "I wrote to you
concerning a presentiment; it occurred to me on the days from March
24th to 27th, when I was at work on my new composition. There is a
place in it to which I constantly recurred; it is as if some one
sighed, 'Ach, Gott!' from the bottom of his heart. While composing, I
constantly saw funeral processions, coffins, unhappy people in
despair; and when I had finished, and long searched for a title, the
word 'corpse-fantasia' continually obtruded itself. Is not that
remarkable? During the composition, moreover, I was often so deeply
affected that tears came to my eyes, and yet I knew not why and had no
reason--till Theresa's letter arrived, which made everything clear."
His brother was on his death-bed.
* * * * *
The collection of Schumann's letters so far under consideration met
with such a favorable reception that a second edition was soon called
for, and this circumstance no doubt promoted the publication of a
second series, extending to 1854, two years before Schumann's sad
death in the lunatic asylum near Bonn.
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