Grandfather's Dance. The march, a step nearly always in duple meter, is here in 3/4 time (triple meter). The work ends in joy and a degree of mock-triumph. In Carnaval, Schumann went further than in Papillons, by conceiving the story as well as the musical representation (and also displaying a maturation of compositional resource). Relationships During the summer of 1834 Schumann became engaged to 16-year-old Ernestine von Fricken, the adopted daughter of a rich Bohemian-born noble. In August 1835, he learned that Ernestine was born illegitimate, which meant that she would have no dowry. Fearful that her limited means would force him to earn his living like a "day-labourer," Schumann completely broke with her toward the end of the year. He felt a growing attraction to 15-year-old Clara Wieck. They made mutual declarations of love in December in Zwickau, where Clara appeared in concert. His budding romance with Clara was disrupted when her father learned of their trysts during the Christmas holidays. He summarily forbade them further meetings, and ordered all their correspondence burnt. 1835–1839 On 3 October 1835, Schumann met Felix Mendelssohn at Wieck's house in Leipzig, and his enthusiastic appreciation of that artist was shown with the same generous freedom that distinguished his acknowledgement of the greatness of Chopin and other colleagues, and later prompted him to publicly pronounce the then-unknown Johannes Brahms a genius. In 1837 Schumann published his Symphonic Studies, a complex set of étude-like variations written in 1834–1835, which demanded a finished piano technique. These variations were based on a theme by the adoptive father of Ernestine von Fricken. The work—described as "one of the peaks of the piano literature, lofty in conception and faultless in workmanship" [Hutcheson]—was dedicated to the young English composer William Sterndale Bennett, for whom Schumann had had a high regard when they worked together in Leipzig. The Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, (also published in 1837 despite the low opus number) literally "Dances of the League of David", is an embodiment of the struggle between enlightened Romanticism and musical philistinism. Schumann credited the two sides of his character with the composition of the work (the more passionate numbers are signed F. (Florestan) and the more dreamy signed E. (Eusebius)). The work begins with the "motto of C. W." (Clara Wieck) denoting her support for the ideals of the Davidsbund. The Bund was a music society of Schumann's imagination, members of which were