SOURCE: Brion, Marcel. “Chapter 7.” In Schumann and the Romantic Age, translated by Geoffrey Sainsbury, pp. 148-67. New York: Macmillan, 1956.

In the following excerpt, Brion defines Schumann's criticism as a work of art.

It was partly to do justice to the great men of the past, partly to give a helping hand to young musicians scorned by the critics and unnoticed by the public, that Schumann decided to found a musical review. The idea was born in a cloud of pipe and cigar smoke at the Stammtisch of the Kaffeebaum, where he and his friends were accustomed to meet. This silent meditative man, who liked to sink into himself to listen to the music that was humming in his heart, was also a fighter. It would perhaps be better to say a knight-errant, for he was always ready to take up his lance to tilt at self-satisfied mediocrity and...