Classical genius composer biography series written by robert

Robert Schumann was a German composer and critic born in Zwickau on June 8, A quirky, problematic genius, he wrote some of the greatest music of the Romantic era, and also some of the weakest.

Clara josephine

Severely affected by what was most likely bipolar disorder, he achieved almost superhuman productivity during his manic periods. His life ended early and miserably with a descent into insanity brought on by syphilis. He did his best work when younger, in small forms: piano pieces and songs. Schumann's bookseller father was also a novelist and translator of Walter Scott and Byron; highly nervous, he married a violently passionate woman, and Schumann was brought up in an environment both literary and unstable.

He began piano lessons at seven, and studied Latin and Greek in school in Zwickau, developing a keen interest in literature and in writing as he entered his teens. He continued to develop as a pianist and wrote novels. When he was 16 his father died and in the same month his sister committed suicide. His father had stipulated that for Robert to receive his inheritance he had to take a three-year course of study at the university level, and the next year Schumann enrolled as a law student at the University of Leipzig.

He spent his time reading Jean Paul Richter and soon became a piano student of and border with Friedrich Wieck, whose daughter Clara, then nine, he would eventually marry. He developed a consuming interest in the music of Schubert, which opened a window on his own creative yearnings.