About Robert Schumann Peter Härtling tells of the life and death of the torn and brilliant composer Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856): of his childhood in Zwickau, of his studies and work in Leipzig, Heidelberg, Dresden and Düsseldorf, of his encounters with Heine and Wagner, of his friendship with Mendelssohn and Brahms, of various loves and the great love for Clara Wieck, whom he marries against all odds in 1840. Stations in his biography and descriptions of the last two years of his life in the sanatorium near Bonn alternate. "A highly sensitive, atmospherically dense, at times slightly melancholy portrait." (Peter Mohr in "General-Anzeiger", Bonn).