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Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann


Robert Alexander Schumann was born in the small riverside town of
Zwickau, Saxony, in 1810.The youngest of five children, Robert Schumann was
brought up in comfortable, middle-class respectability. As a child, he
apparently exhibited no remarkable abilities.
At the age of six, Robert was sent to the local preparatory school, run
by Archdeacon Dohner. He had in fact already begun his education, with the young
tutor who gave lessons in exchange for board and lodging at the Schumann home.
At the age of seven Robert received his first piano lessons, from Johann
Gottfried Kuntzsch, organist at St. Mary's Church, and schoolmaster at the
Zwickau Lyceum. Kuntzsch was a kindly, conservative musician of limited
abilities; his knowledge stemmed from leisure-time study. Nevertheless, Robert
was soon improvising, and even composing a set of dances for the piano.
Robert's musical talent was recognized by his father. He bought an
expensive Streicher grand piano for his son, and soon four-handed arrangements
of the classics were heard in the Schumann home. With a friend named Friedrich
Piltzing, another pupil of Kuntzch's, Robert started to explore Haydn, Mozart
and Beethoven.
As a child, Schumann took part in several concerts at the Zwickau Lyceum.
He once played Moscheles' Alexander March variations, which demanded
considerable dexterity.
At the public Lyceum Robert was active as both pianist and public
speaker. When he was fourteen, Kuntzsch decided that his pupil had progressed
beyond the point where he could give further help, and declined to teach him
anymore.
Shortly before leaving the Lyceum, Schumann collaborated with his
brother Karl in preparing a new edition of Forcellini's Latin dictionary,
Lexicon Totius Latinatinis.
Although now very busy as a composer, Robert yearned for affection. He
soon fell for seventeen-year-old Ernestine von Fricken, who came to Leipzig in
April 1834 to live in at the Wiecks', and to study with Clara's father. She...