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10 August Death of August Schumann—his demise has
been hastened by his devastated reaction to the tragic
death of his daughter, Robert’s sister.
The young composer goes on a walking tour encompassing
Gera, Jena, Weimar (where there is no
attempt to visit Goethe), Gotha, Schnepfenthal and
the Haydn town of Eisenstadt. He embarks on writing
a novel entitled Selene.
1827 (aged 17) 16 January After attending a ball where
Liddy Hempel touches him twice on the hand, Robert
writes an enthusiastic 128-line poem.
28 January Sehnsucht (text by Schumann himself)
Anhang M2 No 5 (WoO121/1) 1 1 is almost
certainly his first song although it remains an unfinished
fragment. Die Wienende Anhang M2 No 1
(WoO121/2) 1 2, a song to a poem by his muchadmired
Lord Byron, dates from more or less the
same time. These excursions into Lieder composition
are tentative—at this point poetry, not music,
remains Robert’s favoured form of expression. In
April he writes a poem in celebration of his brother’s
wedding. In May he conceives a passion for the
complex and allusion-rich writing of Jean Paul
(1763–1825, the James Joyce of his time), an
enthusiasm that will last a lifetime. By June Robert
is already writing autobiographical reminiscences
(Juniusabende und Julitage) in the style of this
writer. By the end of the year he has come to consider
Jean Paul’s Flegeljahre as ‘a kind of bible’.
In July Robert encounters for the first time the
gifted amateur soprano Agnes Carus, married to Ernst
August Carus, a doctor from Colditz, and the brother
of Schumann’s friend Karl Erdmann Carus. Agnes
sings the songs of Franz Schubert very prettily, and
thus another of Robert’s lifelong devotions is
awakened—for the music of a composer, thirteen
years older, and still very much alive in Vienna in the
year of the composition of his Winterreise. For a while
Robert is in love with three women (Nanni, Liddy
and Agnes) simultaneously. The song Lied für XXX
Anhang M1 No 2 1 3 is probably thus discreetly
entitled because it refers to Agnes, a married and,
so far as we know, respectable woman. The text is by
young Schumann himself. In August the composer
visits Prague and Teplitz where Liddy is taking a cure;
the relationship with her, such as it is, comes to a
definitive end.
1828 (aged 18) Robert continues his musical life in
Zwickau. He plays a Kalkbrenner Concerto with the
orchestra in January.
31 March Robert’s first meeting in Leipzig with the nineyear-old
Clara Wieck, daughter of the piano teacher
Friedrich Wieck, famous pedagogue and friend of
Beethoven. Clara is already a well-known child
prodigy. Her superior pianistic abilities make Robert
despair.
24 April Accompanied by his friend Gisbert Rosen
(1808–1876), Robert sets off on a pilgrimage to
Bayreuth where they visit sites associated with Jean
Paul. On 27 April the pair sight-see in Nuremberg, and
on 29 April they reach Augsburg where they visit Dr
Kurrer (a friend of Schumann’s late father) whose
daughter Clara momentarily turns Robert’s head.
5–9 May Rosen and Schumann are in Munich; they
meet Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) on 8 May, and
spend the day with the already celebrated poet; they
are fortunate to encounter him in a surprisingly
agreeable and hospitable mood. On 9 May they begin
their return journey via Landshut and Regensburg,
returning to Bayreuth on 12–13 May where they visit
Jean Paul’s widow.
On Robert’s return from this holiday he moves to
Leipzig to begin his law studies. In early June he once
again encounters Agnes Carus with whom he has
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