Introduction

Robert Schumann: innovative composer, groundbreaking music critic, literary connoisseur. As the title of an acclaimed biography has it: “Herald of a ‘New Poetic Age’.” 1 We know much, it seems, about Schumann. 2 With a solid proportion of his compositional output enshrined in the musical canon (which he helped formulate while at the helm of the influential Neue Zeitschrift für Musik) and a near-constant stream of biographies – scholarly as well as popular – recounting his colorful and prolific, if short, life, Schumann appears firmly established in our collective consciousness. Yet, like the man himself, whose mental decline and subsequent death at the early age of 46 impress upon his life story an aura of novelistic tragedy, our awareness is heavily mediated, full of unknowns. This compilation of essays represents many paths taken by scholars in their pursuit of knowledge about Schumann over the last halfcentury. In Future Directions, the final section in this Introduction, I point rather more forward – towards possible paths yet to come in Schumann scholarship.