Schumann
ROBERT, a German musical composer; born in Zwickau in the kingdom of Saxony, June 8, 1810. He studied law at Leipsic, but in 1830 finally devoted himself to music under the tuition of Friedrich Wieck and Heinrich Dorn. The daughter of the former, the celebrated pianiste, Clara Wieck (born 1819), became his wife in 1840. In 1834 he commenced his "A New Musical Periodical," a journal which was to herald an ideal music, and which, for the 10 years of his more intimate connection with it, exercised an important influence on the development of the art not incompara parable with that of Lessing's "Hamburg Dramaturgy" in drama. Prior to 1840 his principal works were the "Fantasias," the "Scenes of Childhood," the "Etudes Symphoniques," the "Kreisleriana," the "Abegg" variations, the "Papillons," the "Carnival," and two sonatas in F sharp minor and G minor. In the year following his marriage he published nearly 150 songs, many on Heine's words. He then commenced his great series of orchestral works, his symphony in B flat being first performed at the close of 1841. It was followed by his "Overture Scherzo and Finale," his D minor symphony, three quartets, the piano quintet and quartet, the cantata "Paradise and the Peri," SCHURZ vieve" (1847); "Manfred" (1848); the Faust music (1850), the E flat symphony (1851), and other works. Under stress of work, however, his reason failed him, and after an attempt to drown himself in 1854 he was confined in a lunatic asylum, where he died July 29, 1856.