(``Only when the form is clear to you will the spirit become clear too'')

So it's true what they say about Mathematics and Music. What's odd about this observation (from the Album für die Jugend) is that Schumann is commonly said to have no sense of form. So what is going on?

Possibly connected to this (but again possibly not) is the remark of Brahms' about Schumann. ``All he ever taught me was how to play chess!'' I got this last factoid from the introduction to Siegbert Prawer's The Penguin Book of Lieder. I asked Prawer about it, but he could not remember the source, and now — sadly — is no longer with us.

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