Like Berlioz, Robert Schumann (1810–56) embraced the metronome from his very first published opus, though we can only speculate about why. Berlioz, of course, did everything he could to ensure faithful performances of his works, but this does not appear to have ever been Schumann’s concern. In fact, at the point when he first turned to the metronome, he envisioned performing his own music, as was expected of nineteenth-century virtuosi. To foster his ambition, Schumann sought the guidance of Friedrich Wieck, a Leipzig piano teacher and music store owner, whose house was a meeting place for leading musicians in and traveling through the city. That it was also here where Schumann met the girl who was to become his wife was a bonus, but at the time Schumann undertook a course of study with her father, his sights were set on a career as a professional musician. Wieck, in turn, promised Schumann’s mother that if her son disciplined himself to the mechanics of piano playing, he would become a greater pianist than either Hummel or Moscheles.

And so, beginning in 1830, Schumann found himself practicing six to seven hours daily. Soon, however, the pianist was chafing under Wieck’s emphasis on technique or at the very least his own inability to conquer the technical challenges set before him. We can almost hear the tick of the metronome as the would-be virtuoso grew increasingly frustrated with the mechanical fluidity required of Moscheles’ Etudes and Chopin’s Variations and admitted how much more naturally things came to Wieck’s daughter Clara, whose keyboard career Friedrich was also cultivating. Of course, we do not know if Wieck owned a metronome or if he recommended that Schumann push himself with Maelzel’s device. But neither was Schumann adverse to mechanisms designed to improve his playing. One, in fact, was likely the cause of a finger injury that in 1831 effectively ended any ambitions for a solo career.

Schumann had struggled with occasional weakness and numbness of the third finger of his right hand prior to commencing studies with Wieck.