Robert Schumann: Life and death of a musician

Robert Schumann: Life and death of a musician

â€˜Beautifully written and meticulously researchedâ€™ - Simon Heffer, Literary Review.

â€˜We have always lacked good biographies of Schumann, and this one will become a standard reference work.â€™ - Susan Tomes, The Independent.

â€˜This riveting account of Schumannâ€™s life also manages to encapsulate both the joy and elation of one of musicâ€™s greatest, still neglected geniuses, and to express a passionate enthusiasm for his works. For this, Schumannites ought to be deeply gratefulâ€™ - Hugh Canning, Sunday Times.

â€˜The most complete and engrossing account of Schumannâ€™s life yet written. Worthen has marshalled an amazing amount of research into a perceptive study that reads like a good novelâ€™ - Jeremy Nicholas, Classic FM Magazine.

â€˜Worthenâ€™s handling of Robert and Claraâ€™s complex, protracted courtship amounts to an embedded romantic novel of uncommon intelligenceâ€™ - Paul Driver, London Review of Books.

â€˜Rich in biographical detailâ€¦ particularly distinguished in accuracy and discrimination of referencesâ€™ - Michael Musgrave, The Life of Schumann.

John Worthenâ€™s Schumann is not the traditional, doom-laden Romantic; he is neither manic-depressive nor schizophrenic, nor a man who went mad after years of depression. A study of the original sources reveals Schumann to have been an astute, tough, articulate and immensely determined individual, who â€“ with little support from his background in provincial Saxony â€“ painstakingly taught himself his craft as a musician, overcame problem after problem in his professional life, married the woman he loved after a tremendous battle with his father-in-law, struggled with financial problems and illness, worked amazingly hard to develop his musical range and to earn his living â€“ to be struck down, at the age of only forty-four, by a vile and incurable disease. But he wrote arguably the best music of his generation.

This biography effectively de-mystifies Schumann: it reveals him as a passionate, resolute musician and a thoroughly creative human being.

About the author
John Worthen was born in London; after working as an academic, he has written biographies of D. H. Lawrence, the Wordsworth/Coleridge circle (The Gang), T. S. Eliot and William Wordsworth. Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician was originally published by Yale University Press in 2007.

Country	USA
Author	John Worthen
Binding	Kindle Edition
Format	Kindle eBook
IsAdultProduct
Label	Thistle Publishing
Manufacturer	Thistle Publishing
NumberOfPages	496
PublicationDate	2014-08-11
Publisher	Thistle Publishing
ReleaseDate	2014-08-11
Studio	Thistle Publishing

Robert Schumann: Life and death of a musician

You might also like...