![Damian Thompson](https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Damian_T.png?w=176)
The syphilitic sound of Schumann’s violin concerto is part of its genius
Robert Schumann met a wretched end. He died in a lunatic asylum where he thought the nurses were feeding him human faeces. Meanwhile he drove his fellow residents mad by sitting at the piano and bashing out nonsense-music until he had to be dragged away — a grotesque indignity for the creator of the most
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