Studied Law at Leipzig, but around 1830 he focused his attention
to music. He studied with Friedrich Wieck when he was around
20 and there he met Wieck's daughter, who was 11 at the time.
He had relations with other women and at one time was engaged
to Ernestine von Fricken. Due to a paralysed right hand he wasn't
able to play the piano well enough and he turned to composition.
When
Clara was sixteen they got closer, but Friedrich Wieck didn't
want the penniless Schuman hanging around his daughter. However,
after a long struggle for her hand he married Clara Wieck in
1840 and in 1843 they went to live in Dresden.
In 1850
the Schumanns and their children moved to Düsseldorf, where
his "Rheinische Sinfonie" was first performed on Februari 6,
1851. Schumann suffered from health problems and he conducted
his last concert in Düsseldorf on October 27, 1853. In January
1854 he and Clara gave concerts in Hanover, but on February
2 he jumped from a bridge into the river Rhein. He was saved
by fisherman, but his mental illness (probably caused by syphilis)
was so severe that he had to spend the rest of his life in a
mental institution at Endenich, near Bonn.
He was buried
at the Alter Friedhof in Bonn, a place he visited several times
during his life to take a look at the tomb of Schiller's wife
Charlotte.
Family
• Wife: Schumann, Clara Josephine
Related persons
• helped Brahms, Johannes
• was a friend of Franz, Robert
• met Hanslick, Eduard
• knew Kinkel, Johanna
• was a friend of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix
• knew Reinecke, Carl
• visited Schadow-Hasenclever, Sophie
• was a friend of Verhulst, Johannes Josephus Hermanus
• was pupil to Wieck, Friedrich
|
Sources
• Winkler Prins Encyclopedie (editie 1909), 1909
• ilexikon.com
|
| |
