Schumann, Vienna and the Cat

Robert Schumann—one of the most imaginative figures of the Romantic era—and concert pianist Robert Silverman: in both lives, brief but psychologically complex sojourns in Vienna became decisive crucibles, testing ambition against reality and shaping the emergence of fully formed artistic identities.

Their two stories unfold in counterpoint in Schumann, Vienna, and the Cat, illuminating one another across time. In the first half of the book, Silverman traces his own artistic formation in Mon...