The Nachtstücke or Night Pieces are a set of four character pieces for piano by the German composer and pianist Robert Schumann. Historical background The Nachtstücke (Night Pieces), Op. 23, were composed in 1839 together with Faschingsschwank aus Wien and published one year later. The Intermezzo from Faschingsschwank was originally published as a supplement to the Neue Zeitschrift and identified as a 'fragment from the Nachtstücke which are to appear shortly'. Schumann envisaged the following titles for the four pieces: Trauerzug ("Funeral procession") Kuriose Gesellschaft ("Strange company") Nächtliches Gelage ("Nocturnal revelries") Rundgesang mit Solostimmen ("Roundelay with solo voices") These titles were not included in the original edition. Death of brother Schumann wrote the Nachtstücke under extremely stressful circumstances. He was spending the winter in Vienna. On March 30, 1839, he received a letter concerning the imminent death of his older brother Eduard (1799–1839), which could have meant economic disaster to the family's publishing business. In a letter to his fiancée Clara Wieck he wrote, "Wouldn’t you leave me if I were now to become a very poor man and told you to leave me because I would bring you nothing but sorrow?". Because he had premonitions of his brother's death, he wanted to call his new composition Corpse Fantasia. "I always saw funeral processions, coffins, unhappy and despairing people. [...] Often I was so distraught that tears flowed and I didn’t know why—then [Eduard's wife] Therese's letter arrived and I knew why". While working on his Corpse Fantasia Schumann always got stuck "at a place where it seemed as if someone was sobbing 'O God' from a heavy heart". Schumann left Vienna for Zwickau, Germany on April 5, 1839, one day before his brother would die there. (He actually missed the funeral.) He wrote to Clara: "Half past three on Saturday morning, while traveling, I heard a chorale of trombones—it was the moment Eduard died. [...] I still feel stunned by all the exertion. [...] Without you I long ago would have been where he is now". Schumann eventually heeded the advice of Clara concerning the title of the work: "The public won’t understand what you mean and it will bother them. I think you should settle for the general title Nightpieces". Schiller's Funeral Phantasy 18th century poets apparently were less scrupulous. Friedrich von Schiller did write a Leichenphantasie which may have inspired Schumann. The opening fits the mood of