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Composer Profiles
Robert Schumann
Born: Zwickau, Saxony – 1810
Died: Bonn, Germany – 1856
Biography
Robert Schumann was born in the village of Zwickau in
the province of Saxony, which at the time was an
independent confederacy that was absorbed into the
German Empire in 1871. August Schumann, Robert’s
father, was a bookseller and publisher; he is credited with
translating into German the complete works of Sir Walter
Scott and Lord Byron. Because of this, young Robert was constantly around literature; it would
shape his view of the world and his compositional works. Unfortunately, August also had a mental
condition that he called a “nervous disorder”, most likely bipolar disorder, which was also passed
down to his children. Emilia, Robert’s sister, would commit suicide when Robert was 16, a month
after their father died. Robert’s musical education did not formally begin until he was eighteen.
After his father’s death, his mother wished him to study law in Leipzig, and after studying for only
a year, Robert’s attention soon turned to music. Caught up in the new style of Romanticism
brought on by his reading of authors such as Schiller, Goethe, Byron, and most importantly Jean
Paul, Schumann turned to the pianist Friedrich Wieck for musical instruction. Schumann lived in
the Wieck home while studying and practicing voraciously, also taking composition lessons from
Heinrich Dorn, conductor of the Leipzig opera. Unfortunately for Schumann’s pianistic career, a
permanent injury to his right hand, possibly caused by damage to the tendons due to an invention
Schumann created to exercise finger independence, prevented him from achieving fame as a
concert performer. After this, Schumann focused solely on musical composition.
Composition was not the only talent Schumann exercised; as a lover of books he tried his
hand at writing, a trait many future historians would know him for as much as his musical works.
In 1833, he began his own musical journal, called the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for
Music). It was Schumann in his critiques that first noticed the mastery of Chopin, and condemned
the grandiose music of Meyerbeer and Rossini as base and not representing the true essence of
Romanticism he embraced in his pieces. For his articles, he invented a society known as the
Davidsbund, or the band of David, waging war on the Goliaths of grand opera. Schumann used
code names for the group’s members; he himself was two separate entities: Florestan, the
exuberant, passionate side to his personality, and Eusebius, the more reserved, calmer side. These
inventions could possibly have been created in part to Schumann’s own manic-depressive
personality, an ailment that would contribute to his early death. Another character, Master Raro,
represented his teacher Friedrich Wieck, and Chiara represented Wieck’s daughter Clara. Robert
and Clara had fallen in love, much to her father’s chagrin, and married against his consent in 1840
after a long courtship and legal battle. Clara was a virtuoso pianist and composer in her own right,
especially in an age where women were considered inferior to men. Schumann continued to write,
both music and for the Journal, and even taught at the Leipzig Conservatory. Schumann’s last few
years began to strain his mind; he became more unpredictable and sometimes even violent.
Though he had a family of eight children (five of whom survived), Schumann committed himself
to a mental institution after attempting suicide by throwing himself into the Rhine river. He died
from what some scholars believe to have been either syphilis or mercury poisoning in the
sanatorium on July 29th, 1856, at the age of 46. Clara Schumann would outlive Robert by forty
more years, passing away at the turn of the century in 1896.
Works
Schumann was highly influential in the development of program music, marrying literary ideas
with musical ones. His first attempt was his Op. 2, “Papillons” (Butterflies), modeled after Jean
Paul’s novel Die Flegeljahre. Rather than writing one large work, Schumann instead combined
shorter pieces, sometimes less than a minute in length, creating one larger opus held together by
a common theme. The Op. 9, “Carnaval” and Op. 12, “Scenes from Childhood”, are excellent
examples of Schumann’s characteristic piano work. Though Schumann embraced the Romantic
ideal of rejecting all ideas of Classical form, he nonetheless wrote some sonatas, though they are
not considered the most representative of Schumann’s works. However, he did write four fulllength symphonies after experimenting with piano music and lieder, though he was not an expert
orchestrator (several of his symphonies were rescored by Gustav Mahler). His piano and chamber
music does not reflect the virtuosic skill of Chopin or Liszt, believing that virtuosity was only
exhibited as mere showmanship and not designed to reflect true art or beauty. The only genre
Schumann did not achieve success in was opera. But it primarily Schumann’s chamber music for
what he is most remembered for, which the public only began to notice his genius after his
untimely death.
Suggested Listening
Symphonies: No. 1, Op. 38: “Spring”; No. 2, Op. 61; No. 3, Op. 97: “Rhenish”; No. 4, Op. 120
Chamber Works: Papillons, Op. 2; Carnaval, Op. 9; Fantasiestücke, Op. 12; Scenes From Childhood,
Op. 15; Liederkreis, Op. 39; Phantasiestücke, Op. 73