Robert,born in Zwickau,in the German state of Saxony,on June 8,1810,met Clara when he studied piano with her father,Friedrich Wieck,Europe's foremost teacher,from 1831. Clara,then 12 and a prodigy,adored him but he fell in love only when she turned 16.
He unfortunately ended any chance of a virtuoso career himself by damaging his finger with a device he designed to strengthen it. Wieck had no intention of damaging his own financial prospects by allowing his famous daughter to wed an impecunious composer,and the pair had to go to court to win the right to marry.
In 1834 he launchedDie Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (New Journal for Music),in which he lambasted contemporary taste for pyrotechnic but superficial composers and promoted recently deceased masters such as Beethoven,Mozart and Weber.
Courageously,and with a near-infallible eye for ability,he championed contemporary composers such as Chopin and Berlioz,who were then little admired. He discovered and promoted Schubert's Great C major symphony,and famously fell out with Liszt when the Hungarian genius criticised Mendelssohn at a dinner at Schumann's house.
He also met Wagner,but the pair did not get on. The egotist barely drew breath to interrupt the parade of his opinions,while Schumann barely spoke. Wagner later noted:''It is impossible to communicate with Schumann. The man is hopeless;he does not talk at all.''''For me Wagner is impossible … he talks without ever stopping. One just can't talk all the time,''Schumann said.
Schumann's first meeting with Brahms in 1853 is characteristic. The young composer arrived at the Schumanns'house unannounced and played his own pieces. Schumann said little before disappearing,and Brahms began to get nervous,before his host reappeared with Clara,insisting she hear this marvel. Robert's diary notes:"Brahms to see me (a genius)."Brahms moved into the Schumanns'home,and Schumann's last article was to hail Brahms - as yet an unpublished composer - as"the chosen one"who would give"ideal expression to the age".
If Brahms was soon admired,it took decades for Schumann's genius to be recognised. The 19th-century American pianist William Mason said the composer was so little appreciated that when he entered the store of music publisher Breitkopf and Hartel with a new manuscript,the clerks would nudge one another and laugh.''One of them told me that they regarded him as a crank and a failure because his pieces remained on the shelf and were in the way.''