Robert Schumann invented fictional alter egos to write his music criticism — the impetuous Florestan and the dreamy Eusebius — and the split personality was not entirely an act. He married Clara Wieck against her father’s violent opposition, composed some of the most passionate music of the Romantic era, and then descended into a madness that ended with him throwing himself into the Rhine and spending his final two years in an asylum.

This episode traces Schumann from his literary childhood through the hand injury that ended his piano career, the battle to marry Clara, the compositional outpouring, and the mental collapse that destroyed one of music’s most original minds.

• Schumann’s literary youth, his invention of Florestan and Eusebius, and the hand injury that ended his performing career
• The legal battle against Friedrich Wieck to marry Clara and the love that produced a musical partnership
• The “song year” of 1840 and the compositional intensity that defined his greatest work
• The auditory hallucinations, the suicide attempt in the Rhine, and his death in the Endenich asylum