Composer
Robert Schumann
A composer and influential critic, married to one of the era's great pianists.
Robert Schumann was both a composer and one of the most influential music critics of his era, using his own journal to champion younger talents — he was among the first to publicly celebrate the young Brahms, correctly predicting his significance years before most of Europe caught on.
His Piano Concerto in A minor was written in close partnership with his wife, Clara Schumann, herself one of the leading concert pianists of the 19th century and an accomplished composer in her own right; the concerto remains one of the most performed in the Romantic repertoire. His Symphony No. 3, nicknamed the "Rhenish," was inspired by his travels along the Rhine river, including a movement evoking the atmosphere of Cologne Cathedral.
Schumann's music is prized for its intense emotional directness and literary sensibility — he set an enormous amount of poetry to music and often built entire works around a single vivid poetic or narrative idea.
Where to start listening: the Piano Concerto in A minor's first movement is a good full-scale introduction; his song cycle Dichterliebe shows his literary, text-driven side.