Robert Schumann : Life and Death of a Musician

by John Worthen

• ISBN13: 9780300163988
• ISBN10: 0300163983
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2010-05-18
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

This candid, intimate, and compellingly written new biography offers a fresh account of Robert Schumann's life. It confronts the traditional perception of the doom-laden Romantic, forced by depression into a life of helpless, poignant sadness. John Worthen's scrupulous attention to the original sources reveals Schumann to have been an astute, witty, articulate, and immensely determined individual, whowith little support from his family and friends in provincial Saxonypainstakingly taught himself his craft as a musician, overcame problem after problem in his professional life, and married the woman he loved after a tremendous battle with her father. Schumann was neither manic depressive nor schizophrenic, although he struggled with mental illness. He worked prodigiously hard to develop his range of musical styles and to earn his living, only to be struck down, at the age of forty-four, by a vile and incurable disease. Worthen's biography effectively de-mystifies a figure frequently regarded as a Romantic enigma. It frees Schumann from 150 years of mythmaking and unjustified psychological speculation. It reveals him, for the first time, as a brilliant, passionate, resolute musician and a thoroughly creative human being, the composer of arguably the best music of his generation.

Author Biography

John Worthen was Professor of D. H. Lawrence Studies at the University of Nottingham. His books include The Gang: Coleridge, the Hutchinsons and the Wordsworths in 1802 and D. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider. He lives in Nottingham, England, and in Germany.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Maps: Saxony	p. xii
Travels in Europe and Russia	p. xiii
Preface	p. xv
Note on the Text	p. xvi
Early Years
Birth and upbringing: Zwickau 1810-1828	p. 3
Leipzig and Wieck: 1828-1829	p. 18
Decision for music: 1829-1830	p. 35
A numbed finger: 1830-1832	p. 51
On syphilis: 1831-1832	p. 72
Other fears and tremblings: 1832-1833	p. 77
Ernestine von Fricken: 1834-1835	p. 93
Clara Wieck
'No longer a child': 1835	p. 109
Apart: 1836-1837	p. 123
Engaged: 1837-1838	p. 136
Enduring: 1838-1839	p. 150
Fighting: 1839-1840	p. 166
Success: 1840	p. 186
Marriage and Career
Thin walls in Inselstrasse: 1840-1841	p. 203
The composer at home: 1842-1843	p. 218
To Russia: 1844	p. 233
Illnesses: Dresden 1844-1845	p. 249
Offspring: 1846-1847	p. 266
Choral, operatic and financial: 1847-1849	p. 282
A new career? 1849-1850	p. 299
Düsseldorf: 1850-1852	p. 314
While the daylight lasts: 1852-1853	p. 333
Catastrophe: 1853-1854	p. 344
Ending
Diagnosis: 1854-2007	p. 361
Endenich: 1854-1856	p. 370
Epilogue	p. 386
Appendix: Autopsy Report on the body of Robert Schumann	p. 390
Acknowledgements	p. 397
Cue-Titles, Abbreviations and Conventions	p. 399
Notes	p. 405
Index	p. 474
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