Schumann: The Faces and the Masks (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780451494467)

Drawing on previously unpublished sources, this groundbreaking biography of Robert Schumann sheds new light on the great composer's life and work. With the rigorous research of a scholar and the eloquent prose of a novelist, Judith Chernaik takes us into Schumann's nineteenth-century Romantic milieu, where he wore many "masks" that gave voice to each corner of his soul. The son of a book publisher, he infused his pieces with literary ideas. He was passionately original but worshipped the past: Bach and Beethoven, Shake­speare and Byron. He believed in artistic freedom but struggled with constraints of form. His courtship and marriage to the brilliant pianist Clara Wieck--against her father's wishes--is one of the great musical love stories of all time. Chernaik freshly explores his troubled relations with fellow composers Mendelssohn and Chopin, and the full medi­cal diary--long withheld--from the Endenich asylum where he spent his final years enables her to look anew at the mystery of his early death. By turns tragic and transcendent, Schumann shows how this extraordinary artist turned his tumultuous life into music that speaks directly--and timelessly--to the heart.

Author: Judith Chernaik
ISBN-10: 0451494466
ISBN-13: 9780451494467
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Language: English
Published: 09/18/2018
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.65lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.50w x 1.60d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2018 pg. 48
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2018 pg. 60
Library Journal 08/01/2018 pg. 97
Booklist 09/01/2018 pg. 24
Publishers Weekly 10/01/2018