The Genius of Robert Schumann

Great Composers: Genius or Madness?

Part Trois

 

1839

Robert Schumann is now in the throes of deep longing and courtship with his soon-to-be-wife, Clara Wieck. Clara’s father, Friederich, has forbidden them to see each other, and will unsuccessfully fight their impending marriage in court, as he is loathe to give up Clara’s substantial annual performance income. Clara and Robert are so very much in love, and Robert writes one of my favorite pieces, Romance in F#, Op. 28, No. 2. Written on three staves, the very sweet melody tugs at the heart. The dramatic and tumultuous middle section turns minor, but resolves once again to the lovely melody, and ends with soft tenderness.

Frederich softens after a few years, and makes up with Robert and Clara. Truth be told, he wants to see his grandchildren, of which there are many. 

Schumann had nearly always been depressed, especially after cholera claimed the lives of his brother, Julius, and Julius' wife, Rosalie.  Called melancholic depression then, today most probably diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins to experience both angelic and demonic visions, along with constant sounds in his head. In the late 1800s, they consider his disease “as softening of the brain.”¹ Although there was modern speculation that he had developed mercury poisoning, as the cure for syphilis², the more correct explanation could be revealed from “a report by Janisch and Nauhaus on Schumann's autopsy [which] indicates that he had a ‘gelatinous’ tumor at the base of the brain; it may have represented a . . . cyst, or  . . . meningioma. The brain tumor was also found to be "partly of cartilagenous consistency."³ In particular, meningiomas are known to produce musical auditory hallucinations, such as Schumann reported.⁴

Pieces written during his depressive episodes were his Second String Quartet, Violin Concerto and Ghost Variations (Geistervarationen, five variations for piano).

Poor Robert, afraid he will hurt his beloved Clara, commits himself to an asylum, where he remains for two years. He is reunited with Clara two days before his death in 1856 at 46 years of age.

¹ Florence May, The Life of Johannes Brahms (London, 1905), page 206

² Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, Cornell University Press, 1985, p. 151.

³ Jänisch W, Nauhaus G. "Autopsy report of the corpse of the composer Robert Schumann: publication and interpretation of a rediscovered document", Zentralbl Allg Pathol 1986; 132:129–136.

⁴ Michael Scott, "Musical hallucinations from meningioma", JAMA 1979; 241:1683.