"
Oddly enough, less than a year after this he writes to another friend:
"At present I write only vocal pieces.... I can hardly tell you what a
delight it is to write for the voice as compared with instruments, and
how it throbs and rages within me when I am at work. Entirely new
things have been revealed to me, and I am thinking of writing an
opera, which, however, will not be possible until I have entirely
freed myself from editorial work."
Like other vocal composers, Schumann suffered much from the lack of
suitable texts. In one letter he suggests that Lenau might perhaps be
induced to write a few poems for composers, to be printed in "The
Zeitschrift:" "the composers are thirsting for texts." In several
other letters we become familiar with some of his plans which were
never executed, owing, apparently, to the shortcomings of the
librettists. One of these was R. Pohl, who in all earnestness sent
Schumann a serious text in which the moon was introduced as one of the
vocalists! Schumann mildly remonstrated that "to conceive of the moon
as a person, especially as singing, would be too risky.
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