For lighter tastes in musical biography, by the popular lecturer and self-styled tune detective, this is the story of the romance between Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck, from the time when Schumann, a student of eighteen, came to work under Professor Wieck and first met Clara, a pinafored prodigy of nine. From his initial brotherly affection for the little girl who had great confidence in his future as a composer, to the friendship based on mutual interests, there followed his realization that he had fallen in love with her when she turned sixteen and began her career as a concert pianist. Faced with her father's furious refusal to sanction their marriage and several years of separation, the love affair was sustained by letter, by the music she inspired, and finally ended in the marriage without her father's consent. There's.. no great depth here, and little new, but the story makes a sentimental appeal.