Songs

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.

Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Kinderszenen, Album für die Jugend, Blumenstück, the Sonatas and Albumblätter are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.

In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favor of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a considerable concert career as a pianist, the earnings from which formed a substantial part of her father's fortune.

Schumann suffered from a lifelong mental disorder, first manifesting itself in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode, which recurred several times alternating with phases of ‘exaltation’ and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to amental asylum, at his own request, in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with "psychotic melancholia", Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness.

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Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich

Abraham Emanuel Fröhlich was a Swiss poet.

He was born in Brugg in the canton of Aargau, where his father was a teacher. After studying theology at Zürich he became a pastor in 1817 and returned as teacher to his native town, where he lived for ten years. He was then appointed professor of German language and literature in the cantonal school in Aargau, however he lost the post in the political quarrels of 1830. He afterwards obtained the post of teacher and rector of the cantonal college, and was also appointed assistant minister at the parish church. He died in Baden, Aargau.

Fröhlich is best known for his two heroic poems, Ulrich Zwingli and Ulrich von Hutten, and especially for his fables, which have been ranked with those of Hagedorn, Lessing and Gellert.

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