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Robert Schumann, b. Zwickau, June 8, 1810,
d. July 29, 1856, was a major German romantic composer and
pianist. He began to study the piano at an early age and wrote
his first compositions when still a schoolboy. His enthusiasm
for literature was almost as great as his love of music, and
his early attempts at poetry, prose, and drama served him
well in his later career, for he became one of the outstanding
composer-critics of his day and remained highly sensitive
to the relationship between words and music throughout his
life.
Schumann began to study law at Leipzig University, later moving
to Heidelberg, where a law professor, Justus Thibaut, deepened
his knowledge of aesthetics. Schumann, who had heard Moscheles
play the piano years before and had never forgotten the experience,
attended a concert given by Paganini, which inspired him to
work even harder at the piano. His teacher was Friedrich Wieck,
whose daughter Clara (a virtuoso pianist) he later married.
In composition, however, Schumann was virtually self-taught,
his formal instruction in theoretical subjects being limited
to a few months of harmony lessons and a few weeks studying
orchestration.
Schumann's published reviews first appeared in 1831, and from
that time his musical activity combined with his critical
and editorial writings (from 1834) for the Neue Leipziger
Zeitschrift fur Musik to absorb the greater part of his life.
All thoughts of a concert career were abandoned when he damaged
one of the fingers of his right hand in a finger-stretching
device. His meetings and discussions with musicians such as
Berlioz, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Moscheles proved fruitful
in many ways, not least because of his own lack of self-assurance
in orchestration, form, and composition. He lived at various
times in Dresden, Dusseldorf, Leipzig, and Vienna, but never
found it easy to settle for any length of time despite a growing
family--he had married Clara in 1840, and they had eight children.
His unstable nature combined with a frenetic life and almost
unceasing mental stress resulted in his admittance to a private
asylum about two years before his death. He was frequently
visited there by Brahms and occasionally by the violinist
Joseph Joachim, musicians who did much to make his works known
throughout Europe.
The range, variety, and number of Schumann's compositions
are remarkable, although a lesser proportion than might be
wished still remains in the repertoire. Performances of his
opera, Genoveva (1850), the incidental music to Manfred (1852),
and the scenes from Goethe's Faust (1844-53) are rare, yet
the four symphonies, the cello concerto and piano concerto,
some chamber music, songs, and music for solo piano (especially
Carnaval, Fantasiestucke, Kinderscenen, and the sonatas) are
enduringly popular.
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