Schumann’s New Way

Abstract Notwithstanding the challenges of the period from 1841 to 1843, these years represented a relatively stable phase in Schumann’s often unstable life. Now he could look back with justifiable pride, had he wanted to, on a not insignificant series of accomplishments, both personal and professional. The victor in a messy legal dispute over the woman he loved, and the father of two children, he was well on the way toward achieving bourgeois respectability. A staple of Leipzig’s musical life, his reputation as a composer, consolidated through the symphonic and chamber works of 1841 and 1842, would soon spread far and wide in the wake of the Peri’s successes; Schumann was within striking distance of the artistic renown he had dreamed of for over a decade. But lives seldom if ever hold to an undisturbed course; the artist-life in particular is more apt to be rent by turmoil, frustrated by reversals, and besieged by psychological trauma. Such was the case with Robert Schumann in 1844.