Schumann's autograph of the Waldszenen affords us an unobstructed insight into the composer's working methods. It is namely not a final, fair version of the piano work but an autograph which bears numerous traces of thecomposition's development, enabling us to reconstruct the work's genesis. In the end the manuscript, which is always legible and beautifully written despite crossings out, changes and insertions, was even considered suitable to beused as the model for the engraving by the original