In 1831 Schumann began to study counterpoint with Heinrich Dorn, conductor of the Leipzig Opera, along with his multiple other studies.
Schumann soon began composing some incredible piano works such as the Papillons, the Paganini Etudes, Six Intermezzi, and the Toccata, yet not so long afterwards he had trouble with his hands. Because of a devise to strengthen his fingers, but more likely due to remedies for a syphilitic sore, performing on the piano became an increasingly difficult task and eventually impossible, since his right hand had become crippled. Suddenly, Schumann had to accept that his virtuoso career had finished before it even began. In a letter to his mother of November 1832 he wrote, "for my part, I'm completely resigned [to my lame finger], and deem it incurable."".
Although, his performing career had ended, he was not at a dead-end, so Schumann's view of himself shifted from composer-pianist to composer-critic. Unfortunately, this transition did not come without turmoil; Schumann often gave way to fits and fainting spells. For a long time he lapsed into periods of overwhelming depression which led to a suicide attempt on October 17, 1833 when he tried to jump out a window. Yet relief began in 1834 when Schumann founded a music journal, the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, which became one of the most important and influential music journals of the Nineteenth Century. For ten years, he worked as editor and leading writer, encompassing the most advanced aspects of musical thinking in his time and drawing attention to many young composers such as Chopin and Brahms. Sometimes he would write under pseudonyms (a fictitious name), Eusebius, his lyrical and contemplative side, and Florestan, his fiery and impetuous side. This new duty and a new love interest in Wieck's student Ernestine von Fricken, helped restore his emotional well being which in turn helped his self-esteem and creative powers between 1834 and 1835 to write the Etudes symphoniques and the Carnaval, both for piano.
