What Happened to Robert Schumann? The Composer Who Split Himself Into Two Imaginary Selves

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) was a German Romantic composer and music critic whose life was shaped by a ruined right hand, a hard-won marriage and recurring mental crises. A growing paralysis in his fingers ended his dream of becoming a virtuoso pianist, so he turned to composing and writing about music instead. In 1854 he threw himself into the Rhine, was rescued, and at his own request entered a sanatorium near Bonn, where he died two years later, aged 46. Between those events he wrote some of the most personal piano music and songs of the nineteenth century.

A bookseller's son who chose music over law

Schumann was born on 8 June 1810 in Zwickau, in the Kingdom of Saxony, the fifth and last child of August Schumann, a bookseller, publisher and author. Growing up among books gave him a lifelong love of literature, and many of his later works are built around poems and novels.

He began piano lessons at seven with a local organist. At his mother's urging he enrolled to study law at Leipzig University in 1828, then moved to Heidelberg a year later. In Leipzig he had also started piano lessons with the teacher Friedrich Wieck, and by 1830 he had decided that music, not law, would be his life.

The hand that ended a piano career

Schumann's plan was to become a touring virtuoso. But a growing paralysis in at least one finger of his right hand put an end to that hope. Even today the cause is uncertain. What is clear is the result: he redirected his energy into composition, and the loss of one career created another.

Florestan, Eusebius and the League of David

Schumann was also a gifted writer. In 1834 he co-founded a music journal, and from January 1835 he ran it alone as the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, editing it for about ten years. In its pages he championed serious new music and attacked what he saw as shallow showmanship.

To do this he invented characters. The Davidsbündler, or League of David, was an imaginary society of musical fighters, and it included his real friends. He even divided his own personality into two voices: Florestan, impulsive and passionate, and Eusebius, gentle and dreamy. Both appear by name in his piano cycle Carnaval, Op. 9, completed in 1835, a musical masked ball full of portraits of friends.

Piano music full of stories

Most of Schumann's famous piano works come from the 1830s. Kreisleriana, Op. 16, dates from 1837, and Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15, from 1838. Kinderszenen contains 13 short pieces chosen from about thirty. Schumann told Clara Wieck that they were inspired by her remark that he sometimes seemed "like a child".

The titles were added after the music was written, and Schumann called them only delicate hints for the performer. The seventh piece, Träumerei ("Dreaming"), became one of his best-known works and even gave its name to a 1944 German film about his life.

The fight to marry Clara

Schumann declared his love for Wieck's daughter Clara, a celebrated young pianist, in January 1836. Her father refused his consent. After several years of legal battles, a court ruled that they could marry without Wieck's approval, and the wedding took place on 12 September 1840, the day before Clara's 21st birthday. The partnership became one of the most famous in music: she performed and championed his works for the rest of her life.

1840, the "Year of Song"

The struggle and its happy ending released a flood of music. In 1840, often called his "Year of Song", Schumann poured himself into song, writing among much else Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love), sixteen songs on poems by Heinrich Heine, and Frauenliebe und -leben (A Woman's Love and Life), eight songs on poems by Adelbert von Chamisso.

He then moved to larger forms. His First Symphony, "Spring", was premiered by Felix Mendelssohn on 31 March 1841, and his Piano Concerto in A minor, which grew out of a single-movement fantasy of 1841, was completed in 1845.

Düsseldorf, Brahms and "New Paths"

In April 1850 Schumann became music director in Düsseldorf, hoping for financial security. His shyness and mental instability made it hard to work with the local musicians, and after three years the post came to an end.

That same year, 1853, the twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms visited the Schumanns. Robert was so impressed that he wrote an article called "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") praising the unknown young man; it was his last article. It introduced Brahms to the musical world almost overnight.

Illness, the Rhine and Endenich

Schumann had mental health crises throughout his life, including a severe one in early 1843. A report by a Dresden doctor lists symptoms such as insomnia, weakness, auditory disturbances, tremors and various phobias.

On 27 February 1854 he threw himself into the Rhine and was rescued by fishermen. On 4 March, at his own request, he entered a private sanatorium at Endenich near Bonn. Clara did not see him again until two days before his death on 29 July 1856. The recorded cause of death was pneumonia. He was 46, and his songs, symphonies and piano cycles have been part of the core repertoire ever since.

Learn with Schumann: English phrases about dreams and change

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to have a change of heart	to change your opinion or plan	He had a change of heart and left law for music.
a turning point	a moment when things change direction	The hand injury was a turning point in his life.
to pour your heart into something	to put all your feelings into it	In 1840 he poured his heart into songs.
to be lost in thought	to be thinking deeply and not noticing things	Träumerei sounds like someone lost in thought.
to take someone under your wing	to help and protect someone younger	Schumann took the young Brahms under his wing.

Try this: Describe a turning point in your own life in four English sentences. Use "a change of heart" and "a turning point".