Robert was so moved by this performance that, upon returning home, swore that he would now become a virtuoso.
Robert spent his early teenage years furthering his love for music. He also became increasingly involved in his father's editing business; his father even allowed him to contribute to an original work, Portraits of the Most Celebrated Men and People of All Times. He began ordering music through his father's bookstore, as much as he could get, and devoured it with great endeavor. His father gladly ordered the music for him, ever supportive of whatever Robert wanted to study. His mother, Johanna, however, was not so pleased with Robert's love of music. When August died in 1826, Robert had been wrestling with the decision of pursuing a career in music or in literature. Johanna, now without August to encourage Robert, insisted that he go to Leipzig to study law, calling his musical aspiration a "breadless art- (Schauffler, 1945, p. 16). However, Leipzig turned out to be the opposite of what Johanna had wanted for her son. While there he began taking advantage of the extensive concerts and church music services that were available to him in this new metropolis. The friends he made there were not fellows who excelled at the study of law but of music, and his favorite professors were also amateur musicians. It was in Leipzig, at the age of twenty, Schumann met Friedrich Wieck. The name Wieck would come to be the most influential of all to Schumann. Wieck's claim to fame was his prodigal daughter, Clara, with whom Robert would find himself falling in love in just a few years. Wieck was excited about Schumann's promise as a performance artist and became his first proper music teacher. .
He wrote to Schumann's mother, promising that Robert would "be one of the greatest pianists within three years. He shall play with more warmth and genius than Moscheles, .
and on a grander scale than Hummel- (Schonberg, 1970, p.
