Vlad Plays a Little Bob Schumann

I want to be Robert Schumann when I grow up. Unfortunately I have almost zero discipline and little drive to create, or share what I do create, beyond rambling blog entries. Schumann wrote everything at blinding speed in a self-controlled trance. There never seems to be any mention of what he used to induce the trance. Horowitz? All I know is that his nose ran a lot. His playing became less precise, more ragged with age, but even more perfect. He was playing the music, not the notes.

"You never reach a dead end with Schumann and his analytical observations. New doors are always opening up. One door opens onto the next and there is another one behind that, and another and another. In his work, speculative thinking collides head on with a vast, labyrinthine imagination. Schumann was an extremely erudite man. He translated Sophocles at 17. He had considerable literary talents and he was probably one the greatest writers among the composers, up there with Berlioz and Debussy. This makes him an encyclopaedic character. A cosmic figure without limits. The same applies to his music."