Robert Schumann, German composer

He would doubtless have written many more great works had his mental health been as stronger as his talent

Robert Schumann is justly famed as being one of the central figures of German Romanticism in music, although he was far from the ideal of the romantic hero in his personal life, being regarded as dull by his two greatest contemporaries, Liszt and Wagner. Although he died, romantically enough, in a lunatic asylum, and he once attempted suicide by throwing himself into the River Rhine, his symptoms were more likely to have been caused by syphilis than romantic angst.

Robert Schumann was born on 8th June 1810 in Zwickau, Germany. His father was a well-to-do bookseller and publisher, and Robert was able to gain a broad knowledge of European literature from his father’s bookshelves. His early ambition was to be a writer, but he also showed promise as a pianist and his parents encouraged him to develop this talent. At least, this was the case until his father died when Robert was aged 16, at which point his mother decided that the law would provide a more secure future for him.

He therefore started law studies at Leipzig University and then at the more distant Heidelberg University, this move coming about because Robert knew that the law professor there, Anton Thibaut…