Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) was a German Romantic composer, pianist, editor, and music critic. Born in Zwickau, Saxony, on June 8, 1810, he initially studied law at Leipzig and Heidelberg but increasingly devoted himself to music. In Leipzig he studied piano with Friedrich Wieck and theory with Heinrich Dorn. A hand injury ended his hopes for a career as a piano virtuoso, after which composition and criticism became central to his work.

In 1834 Schumann helped establish the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, through which he became an influential advocate for contemporary music. He married the pianist and composer Clara Wieck in 1840. His output includes piano cycles such as Carnaval and Kinderszenen, the song cycle Dichterliebe, chamber music, four symphonies, the Piano Concerto in A minor, choral music, and opera. He taught briefly at the Leipzig Conservatory and in 1850 became municipal music director in Düsseldorf.

Schumann did not chiefly write congregational hymn tunes. Several melodies from his concert works were adapted for later hymnals. CANONBURY derives from the fourth of his Nachtstücke, Op. 23, composed in 1839; nineteenth-century hymn editors reshaped the melody for Long Meter texts. Schumann died at Endenich near Bonn on July 29, 1856. His influence extends far beyond hymnody, but the adaptation of melodies such as CANONBURY gave part of his Romantic musical vocabulary a continuing life in congregational singing.