To Diotima - this addendum to the title was preserved until shortly before publication of the piano songs and mystified Schumann's contemporaries. The Goddess to whom they are addressed has caused me quite a headache wrote Joseph Joachim, and even Brahms was not able to identify her. The composer was referring to a novel by Hölderlin, although this work was apparently no longer generally very well-known in Schumann's day. Quite original pieces, there is a very particular atmosphere in them - thus Clara passed judgement. In our revised edition Ernst Herttrich provides a detailed illumination of the background to this unusual work.