From Schumann’s review of Liszt playing Carnaval:
The review of this recital in NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR MUSIK was written by Schumann himself:
"Apprised of my nagging doubts as to whether such rhapsodic carnivalesque goings-on could make an impression on a crowd, he replied with the firm opinion that... he hoped so. And yet I believe he was mistaken. Allow me a few words on the composition, which owes its existence to a coincidence. The name of a little town, where a musical acquaintance of mine once lived, consists entirely of letters from the scale...
If there are many things in it to please one person or another, the musical moods change too quickly to be followed by a large audience, which does not want to be startled every minute....
This, as I said, my dear friend had failed to take into account; and notwithstanding the brilliance and great empathy of his playing, it was perhaps possible to reach this or that individual, but not to raise the entire mass."
Ernst Herttrich, “Preface,” in Carnaval, op. 9, ed. Ernst Herttrich, Urtext, Schumann (Remagen: G. Henle Verlag, 2004), v.