Robert Schumann (1810-1856) in 1839

We mark the death on July 29, 1856 – 163 years ago today – of the German composer, pianist, and music critic Robert Schumann at the age of 46.

The actress Valerie Harper was back in the news this week. Now nearly 80 years old (her birthday is on August 22nd), she is best remembered for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and then its spin-off, Rhoda, in the 1970s. Ms. Harper was diagnosed with lung cancer back in 2009, and she has fought like the proverbial tiger since. Her time is almost up; this week’s news was about her husband’s refusal to ship her off to a hospice.

Valerie Harper, b. 1939, in the day circa 1975

During the course of her illness, she has pointed out – correctly, if painfully for us all – that we are all “terminal.” I know, I know, I know: it’s not something anyone wants to think about, especially not on a Monday, which by itself is depressing enough. Yes, our time will come when it comes, but I, for one, want to spend as little energy as possible thinking about it. But having buried three beloved family members long before their time should have been up, I am as aware as anyone of the randomness of disease and death and the emotional catastrophe it leaves in its wake.

Are you still with me? 

Death sucks; no two ways about it. But there is such a thing as a good death: quick, painless, and in old age. And, tragically, there is such a thing as a bad death: slow, painful, and at a young age. 

Robert Schumann, bless him, suffered a very bad death.

He was a big, sweet, talented bear of a man with bi-polar disease. In 1831 – at the age of 21 – he acquired syphilis from a prostitute known to us as only “Christal” or “Charitas.” Writing in his diary at the time, Schumann referred to a “wound” that caused him “biting and gnawing pain”, in all likelihood a reference to a penile lesion. Not long before his death he scribbled a note recorded by his doctor: “In 1831 I was syphilitic and treated with arsenic.”

Schumann was one of the very few to not just emerge from the first two stages of syphilis physically intact but into a 20-year-long latency, during which he was non-infectious and symptom-free. He must have believed he was one of the blessed few to have been cured of what was, at the time, an otherwise fatal disease. 

But between January and November of 1853, Schumann – now a married father of six, living and working in the Rhineland city of Düsseldorf – experienced a series of increasingly worrisome neurological disorders, among them an inability to speak or write for days at a time, rheumatoid pain, dizziness, aural disturbances and enlarged pupils in both eyes. Whether he realized it or not, Schumann’s syphilis had entered its mortal, tertiary stage.

In February of 1854, his mind gave way. 

During the evening of February 10, he was tormented by what he called:

“very strong and painful aural disturbances.” 

Within a week, the sounds in Schumann’s ears had taken shape; he reported hearing:

Clara (1819-1896) and Robert Schumann in 1850

“Magnificent music, with instruments of splendid resonance, the like of which has never been heard on earth before.”

His wife Clara was becoming more and more frightened. She wrote in her diary:

“My poor Robert suffers terribly. All sounds are transformed for him into music . . . He has said several times that if it does not stop, he’ll go out of his mind.” 

On February 18,