Musical creativity and mood bipolarity in Robert Schumann: a tribute on the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth.

摘要

AS A GENIUS COMPOSER and a cutting-edge music critic, Robert Schumann (8 June 1810-29 July 1856) has long been attracting interest as to the correlations between his creativity and mental condition. Although still debated, his progressively deteriorating bipolar disorder was the most likely cause of his mysterious suicide attempt in 1854, which tragically resulted in his incarceration in a psychiatric hospital in Endenich, Germany, where he died 2 years later. In order to pay tribute to the great composer on the 200th anniversary of his birth, we reviewed the biographical and historical literature in order to generate his admission report based on the modern concepts of the psychiatric diagnostic system and psycho-pathological descriptions. The correlation between musical creativity and mood bipolarity in the master is discussed.Mr S, a 43-year-old composer and music critic, had suffered from devastating auditory hallucinations for more than 2 years. On 4 March 1854, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital due to a suicide attempt (jumping into the river on 27 February) followed by repeated suicidal ideations.Mr S had experienced continuous mood bipolarity throughout his life. During manic episodes, he exhibited impetuous behaviors with destructive consequences (including having his right hand injured after over-practising on piano and having syphilis infection due to hypersexuality).