Born in Zwickau on 8 June 1810, died in Endenich near Bonn on 29 July 1856; Robert Schumann was a German composer, pianist and writer on music of the Romantic period. He began studying law in Leipzig and Heidelberg and took piano lessons with Friedrich Wieck, whose daughter Clara he married in 1840. In 1834 he founded the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and directed it for ten years. In 1843 he taught at the newly founded Leipzig Conservatory, from 1844 he lived in Dresden, and from 1850 to 1853 he was municipal music director in Düsseldorf. In 1854 he was admitted to the Endenich asylum near Bonn, where he died two years later. His output comprises four symphonies, concertos, chamber music, oratorios, the opera “Genoveva” and one of the largest bodies of song of the 19th century; the piano cycles of the 1830s are among the best known pieces in the piano literature. Two albums connect him with Cybele: in 1999 Bernd F. Marseille recorded Robert Schumann: Davidsbündlertänze op. 6 and Waldszenen op. 82, and Vera Forester’s audiobook Vera Forester: Ich möchte lachen vor Todesschmerz – Robert Schumanns letzter Weg (2005) follows his last years, with Michael Rotschopf as speaker and piano music played by Thomas Günther.
Robert Schumann
Composer
