Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic and is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. He was born on 8th June 1810 in Zwickau, Germany and died on the 29th July 1856 in Endenich, Bonn, Germany aged 46. 

4 Symphonies
Piano Concerto (1845)
Violin Concerto (1853)

1810: Robert Alexander Schumann was born in Zwickau, Saxony, Germany on 8th June to August Schumann a bookseller, publisher, and novelist and Johanna Christiane (née Schnabel). He was the youngest of 5 children. He became interested in music through his teacher at school, Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch. After school he initially studied law but his music teacher Friedrich Wieck told him he had the potential to be one of the best pianists in Europe but sadly a hand injury put paid to that and he turned his attention to composing.

1817: He begins to compose at the age of seven.

1824: He writes an essay on the aesthetics of music and also contributes “Portraits of Famous Men” edited by his father. At this period he was influenced by German writers such as Friedrich von Schiller and Johann von Goethe and other romantic poets such as Lord Byron.

1825: Death of his elder sister Emilie by suicide, probably by drowning.

1826: Death of his father. He completes his novel “Juniusabende”.

1828: He leaves school and goes to the University of Leipzig in Germany to study law. However, he became more interested in music spending his time on improvisation, composition and writing novels.

1829: He begins to study piano with Friedrich Wieck although he continues his study of the law in Heidelberg.  

1830: At Easter he hears the Italian violinist and composer Niccolo Paganini play in Frankfurt. He begins a study of music theory with Heinrich Dorn a composer and conductor of the Leipzig Opera. 

1831: He writes his first music criticism work on Frederic Chopins “Variations on a Theme from Mozart’s Don Giovanni” which is published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. 

1832: Completion of “Papillons” opus 2. (Butterflies). Later in the year he performs the first movement of his Symphony in G minor (now known as the “Zwickauer”).

1833: His brother Julius and his wife Rosalie die in a worldwide cholera epidemic. Schumann suffers a severe melancholic depressive episode. These began to recur more frequently thereafter and he went from exaltation to paranoia about being poisoned or stabbed.

1834: He founds “Die Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik” (New Journal for Music) in April. In it Schumann championed the work of composers from the past to revive interest such as Wolfgang Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Carl Maria von Weber. He also introduced the work of contemporary composers such as Frederic Chopin and Hector Berlioz although he was less than complimentary about the work of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. He completes “Carnaval” opus 9 for piano. During the summer he becomes engaged to Ernestine von Fricken, the adopted daughter of a Bohemian noble who was just sixteen.

1835: In August he realises that Ernestine is illegitimate, and would therefore have no dowry and breaks with her fearing poverty. He is now becoming close to the fifteen-year-old Clara Wieck whom he had seen playing in a concert. Her father, his piano teacher, soon puts a stop to the romance and burns all their correspondence. On 3rd October he meets Felix Mendelssohn at Wieck’s house in Leipzig. he completes “Carnaval”a suite for solo piano that is widely considered to be one of his greatest works.

1836: He composes the “Fantasie in C” opus 17. Schumann intended to use proceeds from sales of the work toward the construction of a monument to Ludwig van Beethoven.

1837: He meets William Sterndale Bennett who is visiting Germany and they go on long country walks together and drink in the local taverns. In August Schumann dedicates his “Symphonic Studies”, a set of etude variations, to Bennett who replies with his own “Fantasie”. Schumann also pens an article in the “Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik” magazine in praise of Bennett. He also publishes “Davidsbundlertanze” opus 6 (Dances of the League of David).

1838: Composition of “Kinderszenen” opus 15, the “Träumerei” in F major, No. 7 and “Kressleriana” opus 16. 

1839: He visits Vienna where he discovers Franz Schubert’s Symphony No 9 for the first time. He also writes “Faschingschwank aus Wien” (Carnival Prank from Vienna).

1840: He marries Clara Josephine Wieck in the Gedachtniskirche Schonefeld in Leipzig on 12th September, the day before her twenty first birthday. He was thirty. Clara’s father had carried out a long legal challenge against the wedding. Clara was herself a musical prodigy and the two worked together well forming a business partnership, with Clara providing inspiration and a friendly ear to her husband. This was a very industrious year for Schumann who composed around one hundred and eighty songs during the period including “Dichterliebe”.

1841: Birth of his daughter Marie. He composes Symphony no 1 in B Flat opus 38 (The Spring) and what is now known as No 4 in D Minor.

1842: This year is almost entirely taken up with chamber works including the Piano Quintet in E flat opus 44.

1843: Birth of his daughter Elise. He composes “Andante and Variations” opus 46 and his first choral work “Paradise and the Peri” based on words by Thomas Moore.

1844: He goes to Russia with Clara on a concert tour but feels inferior to her playing. On return to Germany he leaves Leipzig and sets up in Dresden. He begins setting Johann von Goethe’s “Faust” to music which will engage him until 1853.

1845: Birth of his daughter Julie. He composes Symphony No 2 in C (although his third) and one of his most famous works the Piano Concerto in A Minor opus 54.

1846: Birth of his son Emil who died aged one year. During the winter the Schumann’s visit Vienna and Prague.

1847: Their tour then takes them to Berlin where he is received with great enthusiasm and he realises his fame has spread outside more widely.

1848: Birth of his son Ludwig. The Insurrection of Dresden, part of the revolutionary upheavals that year throughout Europe, causes the Schumann’s to move to Kreischa, a small village outside the city. He composes his only opera “Genoveva“.

1849: Birth of his son Ferdinand. He composes music to Lord Byron’s “Manfred”. In August, on the centenary of Goethe’s birth, completed scenes of his “Scenes from Goethe’s Faust” are performed in Dresden, Leipzig and Weimar.

1850: His opera “Genoveva” is premiered during the spring but it was not a success and has never entered the repertoire. Schumann becomes the musical director at Dusseldorf but is not a success with the musicians there. At the end of the year he finishes his Symphony No 3, The “Rhenish”.

1851: Birth of his daughter Eugenie. He revises his Fourth Symphony and visits Switzerland, Belgium and Leipzig over the next few months.

1853: He composes the Violin Concerto and the “Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra” and the Violin Sonata No. 3. On 30th September Johannes Brahms knocks at their front door with a letter of introduction from the violinist Joseph Joachim. Both Robert and Clara were very taken by the music of Brahms and he stayed with them for several weeks afterwards and became a friend.

1854: In January he visits Hanover where he hears a performance of his “Paradise and the Peri” organised by Brahms and then he returns to Dusseldorf. He completes his last known work the “Geistervariationen” (Ghost Variations). In February Schumann has a variety of visions and felt he was going to harm Clara. On 27th February he attempts suicide by throwing himself into the River Rhine from a bridge. He is rescued by river boatmen and taken home and thence to Dr Franz Richarz’s sanatorium in Bonn. He was not allowed to see Clara but Johannes Brahms was allowed to make several visits. Birth of his son Felix.

Robert Schumann died on 29th July 1856. Clara had visited him two days before but his words were incoherent. The cause of death was thought to be syphilis or mercury poisoning from his treatment but scholars still debate this issue today and the likely final cause was pneumonia.

Robert Schumann was influenced in music by Franz Schubert in his early years and later Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn and Frédéric Chopin. In literature he was influenced by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, E.T.A. Hoffmann and the poets Lord Byron, Heinrich Heine,Jean Paul Richter, and Friedrich Rückert. He began studying the piano at the age of six.

In 1828 Schumann left school and entered the University of Leipzig to study law as directed by his father but spent his time composing songs and improvising at the piano, as well as attempting to write novels. From 1829 he had formal lesson with the piano teacher Friedrich Wieck (the father of his future wife) but his dream of being a virtuoso pianist were dashed by a problem with his right hand and so he concentrated on composition.

Beethoven influenced Schumann through his musical structure and his ability to extend the classical sonata form giving it an emotional narrative with the use of recurring motifs and Chopin, who was the same age as him, influenced his techniques and style at the piano. He paid homage to his literary heroes by writing pieces such as “Kreisleriana” for solo piano which is based on the novels by Hoffmann, such as “Kreisleriana” and“The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr”. Another influence literary was Bettina von Arnim who had famously fallen in love with Goethe and befriended Beethoven. In 1835 Schumann wanted her to publish some of her music in a “Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” which began the friendship between them. His wife Clara met her in Berlin in 1837 and described her as a fiery woman but wrong in judgments as far as music is concerned. Schumann dedicated his five-movement piano solo “Gesänge der Frühe” (Songs of the Morning) to Bettina von Arnim, whom he described as “the high poetess.”

One of the major friendships in his life was Johannes Brahms who aged twenty, knocked on the Schumann’s front door in Dusseldorf in 1853. Schumann became his mentor and was responsible for gaining the young composer lasting fame. Brahms was particularly fond of Clara and continued to write to her and meet after Robert’s death and also visited Robert in the sanatorium in his last years on her behalf.

Initially he was impressed with Richard Wagner who said he much admired his work but became disillusioned later on.

He marked the mature stage of Romanticism in music and his new forms of musical expression and became known as the father of the symphonic poem and thus left a great legacy. Those he influenced directly include the French composers Gabriel Faure, Georges Bizet, Charles-Marie Widor, Emmanuel Chabrier, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Edward Elgar called Schumann “my ideal”, and Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto owes a debt to Schumann’s. Grieg wrote that Schumann’s songs deserved to be recognised as “major contributions to world literature”. In Russia too, he influenced the Russian school of composers and in particular Pyotr Tchaikovsky who thought him a genius. In the German speaking countries his influence stretches to Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg, In the twentieth century Wolfgang Rihm incorporated parts of Schumann’s music into his 1978 opera “Jakob Lenz” and his influenced continues into the twenty-first century with several other composers.

In 1991 the first volume of a complete edition of Schumann’s works was published updating the 1879 and 1887 editions published by Clara and Brahms. The University of Cologne researched all his manuscripts culminating in the “New Schumann Complete Edition” of forty-nine volumes completed in 2023. The International Robert Schumann Competition for Piano and Voice was launched in Berlin in 1956 and in 2009 the Royal College of Music in London inaugurated the Joan Chissell Schumann Prize for singers and pianists. In 2005 the German government launched the online Schumann Network which aims to offer the most comprehensive coverage of the life and works of Robert and Clara Schumann.

List of works by Schumann.