Robert Schumann and the city of Zwickau

Robert Schumann and the city of Zwickau

The fact that Robert Schumann was born in the West Saxon town of Zwickau, and not, like his siblings, in Ronneburg (Thuringia), could be called a coincidence: Only three years before his birth, his family moved to Zwickau – on the one hand, because his father August founded with his in Zwickau living brother the bookstore “Gebrüder Schumann” (Brothers Schumann), but on the other hand because the famous time-honored Latin school of Zwickau (later named “Lyzeum” and “Gymnasium”; high school) promised good educational opportunities for the Schumann sons.

Also the youngest, the in 1810 born Robert visited the school with great success and although he left the town of his father after high school in spring 1828, but returned frequently to visit. His last stay in Zwickau in 1847 also marked the beginning of an unbroken tradition until today, since back then the first Schumann Festival was held to honor the great composer.

For the Schumann centennial celebration in 1910, the basis for the world's only Zwickau Schumann collection was provided, which as museum and archive stocks came in 1914 to the municipal (King Albert) Museum and which is since 1956 in the research and memorial place Robert-Schumann-Haus on the main market in Zwickau.

The fact that the city of Zwickau calls itself since 1993 officially "Robert-Schumann-city", is justified in the tradition of Schumann festivals and International Schumann Competitions (since 1963) and also becomes manifest in the Schumann monument (built 1901), in the Robert Schumann Society and the Robert-Schumann-Haus, but also reflects on the entire cultural life of the city and region of Zwickau with the Robert Schumann Conservatory as music school and the Clara-Wieck-Gymnasium as training school of arts.

(Gerd Nauhaus, translated by Katharina Ma)