The composer and musician Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau on June 8, 1810. His reconstructed birthplace, the Robert Schumann House, houses a unique museum.
The museum has the world’s largest Schumann collection, of which about 400 exhibits are on display.
Who was Robert Schumann?
Robert Schumann saw the light of day in Zwickau in 1810 as the youngest child of Christiane and August Schumann. August Schumann was a writer, bookseller and publisher. Together with his brother, he ran the publishing house Gebrüder Schumann with its headquarters at Hauptmarkt 5, and it was precisely there that Robert Schumann was born. August Schumann is considered the inventor of the paperback book and some of the first paperbacks can also be discovered in the Robert Schumann House.
It was not until seven years later that the family moved into their own house in the city (Amtsgasse 550). However, this building was destroyed during the Second World War. Today, only a plaque commemorates the house here.
Robert’s mother discovered his musical talent at an early age, and so the child was already receiving piano lessons at the age of 7. At the age of 11 he wrote his own compositions for choir and orchestra. He also set his own poems to music.
After graduating from high school, Robert Schumann began studying law. From time to time he visited his family in Zwickau during this time and gave his first public concert as a pianist during one of these visits. Only a few years later a finger paralysis already led to the end of the concert pianist career.
In 1835, during another visit to Zwickau, he met Clara Wieck, who was performing there as a concert pianist. It came to the first kiss and a secret engagement. When Clara’s father learned of this, he imposed a ban on contact. Just under 1.5 years later, Robert and Clara met again and became engaged for the second time. In 1839 the couple conducted a marriage trial against Clara’s father and subsequently married (1840). The couple had their first child of a total of 8 children in 1841.
In 1843 Robert Schumann was appointed to the Leipzig Conservatory, and in early 1844 the couple went on a 5-month concert tour to Russia. Afterwards, due to Robert’s illness, they moved their residence to Dresden.
In the course of the next years numerous concert tours followed. Schumann founded the Verein für Chorgesang in Dresden and published compositions for children and young people. He became municipal music director in Düsseldorf.
In 1854, Robert Schumann’s life began to change. He was plagued by hallucinations and fever dreams, which culminated in a suicide attempt on February 27. On March 4, he had to be admitted to a mental hospital near Bonn. On July 29, 1856, he died in Endenich near Bonn.
Clara Schumann continued to work as a successful concert pianist after her husband’s death, touring throughout Europe. She published her husband’s works and letters and taught children. She dies on 20.5.1896.
Works by Robert Schumann
During his lifetime, Robert Schumann began to compile his catalog raisonné and to write it down in a project book. The museum of the Robert Schumann House has created a PDF PDF from it, which can be downloaded free of charge.
I do not want to list all his works here, it would simply be too much. Only so much is noted, Robert Schumann has written, for example, symphonies, pieces for choral singing, the opera Genoveva, pieces for children and various piano pieces. I have discovered some beautiful examples as videos. Have fun listening!
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Particularly interesting, I think, are the “Musical Home and Life Rules”, which can be seen as a small book in the museum. Here Robert Schumann created rules that he considered indispensable for musical and spiritual development. On the Webseite des Robert-Schumamm-Hauses you can read these rules.
The Robert Schumann House
The city of Zwickau founded the Robert Schumann Museum as early as 1910 to mark the 100th birthday of the famous composer.
At first, the exhibition was still quite small, but could be expanded more and more through the work of the First Director. For example, he acquired numerous documents and autographs from Schumann’s daughters.
After the floods in 1954, it was possible to rebuild Schumann’s birthplace on the Hauptmarkt. In the Robert Schumann House a concert hall was opened, a research center and the museum moved into some rooms.
A museum visit to the Robert Schumann House
When you enter the building, you will find the area for the regular special exhibitions in the entrance area. These always deal with a theme related to the life and works of Schumann. When we visited the museum, the theme was “Robert and Clara Schumann and their Jewish friends”. Numerous pictures, documents and diary entries document today the relationship of the couple to their Jewish friends.
The eight exhibition rooms of the museum are located on the second floor of the building and are easily accessible not only by stairs.
The permanent exhibition
Each room deals thematically with a focus from the life of Robert and Clara (Wieck-) Schumann. In all rooms you can find personal mementos as well as letters and music samples. For me, walking through the rooms was like wandering through the life of Robert Schumann. There was so much to read, so much to discover – you should take some time during the tour.
The first room focuses on the years 1810-1828, i.e. Schumann’s childhood and youth in Zwickau. Here one learns a lot about Schumann’s birth, his family, his school years and his first literary works.
Subsequently, the exhibition focuses on the period from 1828-1835, the time Schumann spent studying in Leipzig and Heidelberg. During this period of his life he met, for example, Friedrich Wieck, with whom he founded a journal for music and who later became his father-in-law.
The third room of the exhibition in the Robert Schumann House looks at the “brewing years and the wedding”, i.e. the years 1836-1840. Schumann met and fell in love with Clara Wieck, who was already celebrated throughout Europe, in the Wieck house. In 1840 they married and in the exhibition you can also find, for example, Robert’s wedding gift to Clara, the piece Myrthen op.25.
Entering the fourth room of the exhibition, everything revolves around the Schumanns’ first years of marriage until 1845, during which time they lived and worked in Leipzig. While working at the conservatory, they met Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, with whom they developed a long-lasting friendship. After their time in Leipzig, the Schumann couple traveled to Russia for an extended period of time. There Robert Schumann fell ill and the doctors sent him to Dresden to recuperate.
The Dresden period from 1844-1850 can be viewed in the fifth exhibition room in the Robert Schumann House. As in the entire museum, here, too, you can immerse yourself in this creative period with the help of sheet music, documents and manuscripts and learn a lot about Schumann.
Another important period of Schumann’s life began in 1850, when he became music director in Düsseldorf. Here he lived and worked until his death in 1856. In the beginning he still created some expressive works, but his deteriorating health became more and more noticeable. Robert Schumann’s jump into the Rhine and his rescue showed how badly he was doing, and he spent the last two years of his life in a sanatorium.
Clara Schumann continued to work in the field of music even after her husband’s death. In the seventh room of the exhibition, for example, one learns how she disseminated her husband’s works through her concerts.
The corner room on the second floor in the Robert Schumann House was Schumann’s birth room. In the eighth room of the museum there are originals owned by the family. The piano that can be seen there belongs to the collection of keyboard instruments that are distributed throughout the rooms.
Keyboard Instrument Collection
On a tour of the museum, the beautiful keyboard instruments immediately catch the eye. I would have loved to listen to their sound and hear a piece by Schumann.
In Robert Schumann’s birth room, for example, there is a fortepiano that Clara played at her first concert at the age of nine in the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
On display are simple pianos that were often used for home music, as well as larger grand pianos and even a physharmonica that Clara used as a child for practice while traveling.
On one of the pianos, I discover a very special “additional device” during the tour. An additionally attached hand ladder should support the practice.
I also found very interesting a combination between upright piano and pedal keyboard that Robert and Clara Schumann used to practice playing the organ.
Chamber Music Hall
On the first floor of the Robert Schumann House there is a chamber music hall. Here, 140 guests can attend concerts that are offered on a regular basis. Not only Schumann’s music is on the program. Concerts ranging from salon music to jazz are played. Popular are the concerts within the Schumann Festival with choral and orchestral works, song and chamber music evenings, which always take place around the birthday of Robert Schumann.
Adjacent to the concert hall is a covered courtyard. On the upper floor of this courtyard is a sound station where one can listen to Schumann’s works.
I really enjoyed the exhibition at the museum. There is so much interesting information about Robert Schumann, which I had not known before. I have not only learned a lot, but also after the visit with enthusiasm once again listened to his music and rediscovered some old works for me.
Address:
Hauptmarkt 5 08056 Zwickau
Opening hours:
Tuesday-Friday: 10-17 h Saturday: currently closed Sunday: 13 – 17 h Monday: closed
Admission fees:
Adults: 5,-€ Discounts are offered
Disclosure: The visit took place as part of a research trip to Zwickau. The article was written independently of the visit.
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