Schumann and His World

We know Robert Schumann in many ways: as a visionary composer, a seasoned journalist, a cultured man of letters, and a genius who, having passed his mantle on to the young Brahms, succumbed to mental illness in 1856. Drawing on recent pathbreaking research, this collection offers new perspectives on this seminal nineteenth-century figure.

In Part I, Leon Botstein and Michael P. Steinberg assess Schumann's efforts to place music at the center of German culture, in public and private sectors. ...