A romantic through and through, Robert Schumann battled depression and madness
all his life, leaving a legacy of luminous works in the process. The son of a
Zwickau bookseller, he was born on June 8, 1810, and took his first piano
lessons at the age of ten with Marienkirche organist J. G. Kuntzsch. Although
his mother was an excellent pianist and his father encouraged him in his musical
endeavors, the latter had no wish for his son to become a musician. His sister's
suicide and his father's death gave him new family responsibilities, and in
1828, the young Schumann studied law at...