By now he was good at writing all kinds of music. He wrote music for the famous play "Faust" by Goethe. He wrote one opera, "Genoveva", in 1849. His fame spread slowly. For many years Dresden and Leipzig were the only towns where he was famous. In 1850 he became musical director at Düsseldorf. In 1853 he met Brahms. Brahms became a great friend of the Schumann family. Schumann published an article in the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" with the heading “Neue Bahnen” (“New Paths”) in which he said that Brahms (who was 20 at the time) was going to be a very great composer. He was right.