Editorial de Música BOILEAU - Since 1913

SCHUMANN, Robert

Zwickau (Alemania) 1810 - Endenich (Alemania) 1856

Robert Schumann was a German composer and a critic of the music of the Romantic era. He is seen as one of the greatest and most representative composers of romanticism.

He studied at the universities of Leipzig and Heidelberg. In 1830 he abandoned his law studies to devote himself exclusively to music.

He studied piano with the German teacher Friedrich Wieck, but an irreversible injury on one of his fingers ended his career as a pianist. He devoted himself to composing and writing about music. In 1834 he founded the musical magazine Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which he edited until 1844. He married in 1840 with the pianist Clara Josephine Wiek, daughter of his teacher. They stayed together until the death of the composer and had eight children. In 1843 he was a professor at the newly founded Conservatory of Leipzig.

He composed one hundred thirty-eight songs, among which are the collections of Liederkreis (with texts by Heinrich Heine and Joseph Eichendorff), Myrthen, Love and life (with text by Adelbert von Chamisso), and The loves of the poet (on texts by Heinrich Heine).

His compositions for piano are usually musical expressions about moods. With the exception of Fantasia in C Major (1836) and Symphonic Studies (1854), his works for piano are collections of short pieces. In addition to the Carnival, he composed Mariposas (1829-1832), Escenas de niños (1838), Kreisleriana (1838) and Album for the youth (1848). Among his long works include the Symphony No. 1 (1841), the Quintet for piano in E flat major (1842), the Concerto for piano in the minor (1845), the Symphony No. 2, the Symphony No. 3 Renana (1846), and the Trio for piano (1847).

In 1850 he was appointed music director in Düsseldorf, but a mental illness, which he suffered from adolescence, made him resign in 1854. That same year, after an attempted suicide, he was admitted to a mental health clinic in Enderich, near Bonn. , where on July 29, 1856 died.