IMSLP Forums

Does anyone know where I might be able to get an English language translation of Schumann's oft quoted review of Chopin's Op. 35 sonata, where he refers to it as "four of Chopin's maddest children?" I've found snippets here and there, but no place that has it in its entirety.

Thanks
-Andrew

pp. 173 -174 in Schumann on Music: A Selection from the Writings translated and edited by Henry Pleasants, reprinted by Dover (1988) from a book originally published by Victor Gollancz (1965). The complete quote (more accurately translated by Pleasants than by earlier translators) is:

"He seems to have taken four of his most unruly children and put them together, possibly thinking to smuggle them, as a sonata, into company where they might not be considered individually presentable."

and by that what on earth did he meant?!

He basically thought that the work had no unity as a whole, and should have stayed as individual pieces. Schumann is very fond of the concept of such sets of pieces, an idea he probably got from Schubert's Op.142.