44 Facts About Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic.

Robert Schumann is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era.

In 1840, Robert Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara Wieck, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with Friedrich, who opposed the marriage.

Clara and Robert Schumann maintained a close relationship with German composer Johannes Brahms.

Robert Schumann composed four symphonies, one opera, and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works.

At age seven, Robert Schumann began studying general music and piano with Johann Gottfried Kuntzsch, a teacher at the Zwickau high school.

At age 14, Robert Schumann wrote an essay on the aesthetics of music and contributed to a volume, edited by his father, titled Portraits of Famous Men.

In 1828, Robert Schumann left high school, and after a trip during which he met the poet Heinrich Heine in Munich, he left to study law at the University of Leipzig under family pressure.

Robert Schumann began to seriously study piano with Friedrich Wieck, a well-known piano teacher.

Robert Schumann abandoned the idea of a concert career and devoted himself instead to composition.

On this occasion Clara played bravura Variations by Henri Herz, a composer whom Robert Schumann was already deriding as a philistine.

Robert Schumann published most of his critical writings in the journal, and often lambasted the popular taste for flashy technical displays from figures whom Robert Schumann perceived as inferior composers, or "philistines".

Robert Schumann campaigned to revive interest in major composers of the past, including Mozart, Beethoven, and Weber.

Robert Schumann promoted the work of some contemporary composers, including Chopin and Hector Berlioz, whom he praised for creating music of substance.

Robert Schumann begins nearly every section of Carnaval with a musical cryptogram, the musical notes signified in German by the letters that spell Asch, the Bohemian town in which Ernestine was born, and the notes are the musical letters in Robert Schumann's own name.

In Carnaval, Robert Schumann went further than in Papillons, by conceiving the story as well as the musical representation.

Robert Schumann felt a growing attraction to 15-year-old Clara Wieck.

Robert Schumann's budding romance with Clara was disrupted when her father learned of their trysts during the Christmas holidays.

Robert Schumann summarily forbade them further meetings, and ordered all their correspondence burnt.

On 3 October 1835, Robert Schumann met Felix Mendelssohn at Wieck's house in Leipzig, and his enthusiastic appreciation of that artist was shown with the same generous freedom that distinguished his acknowledgement of the greatness of Chopin and other colleagues, and later prompted him to publicly pronounce the then-unknown Johannes Brahms a genius.

Robert Schumann intended to use proceeds from sales of the work toward the construction of a monument to Beethoven, who had died in 1827.

From 1832 to 1839, Robert Schumann wrote almost exclusively for piano, but in 1840 alone he wrote at least 138 songs.

Robert Schumann often waited for hours in a cafe in a nearby city just to see Clara for a few minutes after one of her concerts.

Robert Schumann's biographers attribute the sweetness, doubt, and despair of these songs to the emotions aroused by his love for Clara and the uncertainties of their future together.

Robert Schumann devoted 1842 to composing chamber music, including the Piano Quintet in E-flat, Op.

Robert Schumann spent the first half of 1844 with Clara on tour in Russia, and his depression grew worse as he felt inferior to Clara as a musician.

The insurrection of Dresden caused Robert Schumann to move to Kreischa, a little village a few miles outside the city.

From 1850 to 1854, Robert Schumann composed in a wide variety of genres.

In 1850, Robert Schumann succeeded Ferdinand Hiller as musical director at Dusseldorf, but he was a poor conductor and quickly aroused the opposition of the musicians.

In January 1854, Robert Schumann went to Hanover, where he heard a performance of his Paradise and the Peri organized by Joachim and Brahms.

Robert Schumann returned to Dusseldorf and began to edit his complete works and make an anthology on the subject of music.

Robert Schumann had a renewal of the symptoms that had threatened him earlier.

Robert Schumann recorded in his diary hearing the Bach cantata Ein Feste Burg.

In late February 1854, Robert Schumann's symptoms increased, the angelic visions sometimes being replaced by demonic ones.

Robert Schumann warned Clara that he feared he might do her harm.

Robert Schumann entered Dr Franz Richarz's sanatorium in Endenich, a quarter of Bonn, and remained there until he died on 29 July 1856 at the age of 46.

Robert Schumann appeared to recognize her, but was able to speak only a few words.

Robert Schumann's medical records from this illness were released in 1991, and suggest a "progressive paralysis", a term used for neurosyphilis at the time, although a diagnostic test for Treponema pallidum did not become available until 1906.

Robert Schumann heard a persistent A-note at the end of his life.

Robert Schumann returned to London in 1865 and made regular appearances there in later years, often performing chamber music with the violinist Joseph Joachim and others.

Robert Schumann had considerable influence in the nineteenth century and beyond, despite his adoption of more conservative modes of composition after his marriage.

Robert Schumann left an array of acclaimed music in virtually all the forms then known.

Robert Schumann has often been confused with Austrian composer Franz Schubert; one well-known example occurred in 1956, when East Germany issued a pair of postage stamps featuring Robert Schumann's picture against an open score that featured Schubert's music.

One of the best known instruments that Robert Schumann played on was the grand piano by Conrad Graf, a present from Graf on the occasion of Robert and Clara's marriage in 1839.