Music and Madness

The other day, in looking through a psychiatrist's report on the supposed connection between manic-depressive mood swings and musical creativity, I was brought up short. These words about Robert Schumann's lifelong history of depression leaped out at me: ''Starting in adolescence he was troubled by repeated attacks of melancholy which can be traced in his and his wife's letters as well as in their joint diary, later kept by Clara alone. For example, in May, 1831, it takes him three weeks to finish a letter . . .'






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