Robert Schumann Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. His teacher, Friedrich Wieck, a German pianist, had assured Schumann that Robert could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. In 1840, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with Wieck, who opposed the marriage, Schumann married Wieck's daughter
Friedrich Wieck Marianne, were irreconcilable in large part due to Wieck’s unyielding nature. When his friend Adolph Bargiel, father of Woldemar Bargiel, had an affair with her, she divorced Wieck in 1824. She then married Adolph Bargiel. His second wife, Clementine Fechner – whom he married in 1828 – was twenty years his junior. Clementine was the sister of painter Eduard Clemens Fechner and of experimental psychology pioneer Gustav Fechner. One of the three children she gave birth to, besides Cäcilie and Clemens (1829–1833), who died at the age of four, Marie Wieck was also a concert pianist, although she was not