Why composer Robert Schumann was a misunderstood genius
Rick Fulker
June 6, 2017
He was an ambivalent genius and a manic-depressive whose tragic end colored our perception of his works. Only in recent years has the music world come to better understand Robert Schumann's creative output and influence.
Advertisement
Robert Schumann, the quintessential Romantic
Düsseldorf is planning a new museum dedicated to Robert Schumann. Here's more on the ingenious composer, pianist, poet, music journalist, who was also a melancholic manic-depressive plagued by suicidal fantasies.
Image: picture-alliance/Luisa Ricciar
Schumann House in Zwickau
Robert Schumann was born in the small Saxon city of Zwickau on June 8, 1810. His father August Schumann was a book merchant, publisher, author and translator who introduced the English authors Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott to German readers. August was an adherent of the "Sturm und Drang" (Storm and Stress) movement upholding the ideals of genius, innocence and the sanctity of love and nature.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
The 'bright spot'
The young Robert Schumann was of a cheerful disposition. His mother, Johanna Christiane, called him her "bright spot." Hearing a recital by the pianist Ignaz Moscheles at age nine, he demanded a piano — and was soon improvising on it as though possessed. He was equally talented in poetry and music. At age 15, he suffered his first serious bout of depression.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Virtuosos' assembly line
After studying law for two years in Leipzig and Heidelberg and traveling to Italy, the 20-year-old Robert decided to dedicate himself to music and moved into the household of the notoriously strict piano instructor Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig. To strengthen individual fingers, he devised a contraption that would hold other fingers up in the air. As a result, his hand was paralyzed.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Condemned to compose
That was the end of the dream of becoming a piano virtuoso. A bout of depression resulted in his first suicide attempt in the autumn of 1833. Robert Schumann could only come to terms with his diverse interests and mood swings through creative work — by writing music. Even early works such as the "Abegg-Variationen" and "Papillons" showed a mastery of technique.
Image: Imago/Leemage
Forbidden love
Also under Friedrich Wieck's tutelage was his daughter Clara; the gifted girl played concerts as a child. The love between Robert and Clara was first openly expressed in 1835 when she was 16 years old. Her father sought to prevent any contact between the two with every means at his disposal. They secretly got engaged in 1837 — but weren't able to marry until 1840 after a court decision.
Image: Imago stock&people
Writing about music
The convivial young Schumann spent time with like-minded artists in "Kaffeebaum," a coffeehouse in Leipzig. Calling themselves "Davidsbündler," they railed against petty bourgeois artistic tastes and mediocrity. In 1834 Schumann founded the "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik" (New Music Journal) and wrote for the periodical for 10 years. His critiques had a major impact on the music world.
Image: gemeinfrei
Flood of productivity
Schumann wrote mostly piano music at first. Then, after his marriage in 1840, he penned more than 130 Lieder in that year alone. Music in nearly every genre followed in the years to come: an opera, four symphonies, choral and chamber music. Clara wrote music as well, but was not permitted to enter the public eye as a composer. Robert even wanted her to discontinue her concert appearances at first.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Mouths to feed and pangs of depression
The Schumanns had eight children — and for financial reasons, Clara soon found herself back on tour. Periods of high productivity during Schumann's time in Leipzig and Dresden alternated with phases of depression. Today his illness would likely be diagnosed as a bipolar disorder. An earlier syphilis infection may have contributed to his symptoms.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Short-lived respite in the Rhineland
In 1850, the Schumann family moved to Dusseldorf, and Robert was warmly greeted as the city's new music director. Buoyed by the upbeat mood of his new surroundings, he composed his Third Symphony, the "Rhenish." Soon, however, he was at loggerheads with the municipal chorus and orchestra. He seemed unsuited for the organizational aspects of the job.
Image: Imago/Imagebroker/K. F. Schöfmann
The future of music
In 1853, Johannes Brahms visited the Schumanns in Düsseldorf — and Schumann promptly wrote an essay proclaiming the young man as the greatest composer in the years to come. Bolstered by optimism, Schumann had a brief surge of creativity, but professional conflicts erupted that same year — after which he withdrew from his conducting responsibilities and stopped composing.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Final home
In a downward spiral, sounds raging through his head robbed him of his sleep. On February 27, 1854 he leapt into the Rhine but was rescued and sent home. On March 4, at his own request, he was admitted to the Institution for the Treatment and Care of the Emotionally Ill and Insane in Endenich near Bonn — and died there two and a half years later on July 29, 1856.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Grande dame of music
Surviving her husband by 40 years, Clara Schumann remained a star of the music world. Johannes Brahms was more than a close friend to her, though their love most likely remained platonic. Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms destroyed late works by Robert Schumann, considering them to have been impaired by his illness. Musicologists have only recently come to see Schumann's work in a new light.
Image: Imago stock&people
Final resting place
Clara and Robert Schumann lie interred at the Alter Friedhof (Old Cemetery) in Bonn. Funds for the ornate gravesite were raised at a major Schumann festival in 1873. The memorial was designed by sculptor Adolf von Donndorf and unveiled in 1880 at a festive ceremony with Clara and her children in attendance. Today it's a destination for those who love the music of Robert Schumann.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Sauer
A new museum planned in Düsseldorf
Until he was admitted to the Bonn hospital, Schumann lived from 1850 to 1854 in Düsseldorf, where he was a musical director. He composed about a third of his works in the city. The musician's former house has served as a memorial institute for years, but now it will be extended into a museum that is planned to open in October 2020.
Image: Heinrich-Heine-Institut Düsseldorf
14 images1 | 14
"He started out as a genius and ended as a talent," said the German composer Felix Draeseke. For decades, orchestral musicians lamented the "gray in gray" of his instrumentation. He's even been called a second-rate composer.
Epithets like these took on a life of their own after Robert Schumann's death. Perhaps writers and musicians were horrified by the tragic end of the composer who spent his final months in an insane asylum. Even his widow Clara Schumann and his friend Johannes Brahms withdrew or destroyed some of Schumann's late works, fearing damage to his reputation: In their view they betrayed signs of his degenerative mental illness and were thus of inferior quality.
Only in the final years of the 20th century did musicologists come to re-evalute the music of Robert Schumann - including his late works, which are now recognized as highly progressive. His status as one of the 19th century's greatest composers has never been in dispute, however.
Like none other, Schumann embodied the era of musical romanticism. Prominent individuals in the music world were guests at his household, and Schumann unselfishly advanced the careers of other musicians, introducing the Pole Frédéric Chopin, the Dane Niels Gade and the German Johannes Brahms.
Robert Schumann's own musical innovations were so unique that in terms of style, he actually neither had real predecessors or successors. Some of his music is anchored in the collective consciousness and turns up in advertisements and films without listeners knowing that it was written by Schumann. Many other works - including his lieder and his chamber music - only rarely turn up on concert programs.
Taking place from June 6-18, the Schumannfest in Bonn advances the composer's rediscovery. In conformity with the salon music of Schumann's time, many of the concerts are performed in the tiny concert hall, once a library, at his last residence.
Click through the gallery above for the important moments in Schumann's life and times.