Schumann#
Summary#
Nietzsche characterizes Robert Schumann as the last founder of a school in German music, but one whose Romanticism represented a decline from European significance. With his half Werther-like, half Jean-Paul-like nature and taste for quiet lyricism and emotional intoxication, Schumann is portrayed as a noble weakling whose music was merely a German event, threatening to lose the voice for the soul of Europe that Mozart and Beethoven had possessed.