Robert Schumann - Rhenish (2006) CasTaN

Robert Schumann (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer and influential music critic.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study
of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich
Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann
then focused his musical energies on composing.

Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed
works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and
other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Kinderszenen, Album für die Jugend, Blumenstück,
Sonatas and Albumblätter are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.

In 1840, against the wishes of her father, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara, following a
long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favor of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and
had a considerable concert career as a pianist, the earnings from which formed a substantial part of her
father's fortune.

Schumann suffered from a lifelong mental disorder, first manifesting itself in 1833 as a severe melancholic
depressive episode, which recurred several times alternating with phases of ‘exaltation’ and increasingly
also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. After a suicide attempt in 1854,
Schumann was admitted to a mental asylum, at his own request, in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with "psychotic
melancholia", Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness.