Feb. 13, 2003

Contact: John Tibbetts, Department of Theatre and Film, (816) 346-9334 or (785) 749-1130; Phil Wilke, Kansas Public Radio, (785) 864-5016.

Kansas Public Radio to premiere 13-part musical documentary on composer

LAWRENCE -- Few composers have generated as much speculation -- both musical and psychoanalytical -- as Robert Schumann.

The brilliant German composer and pianist was in the vanguard of the 19th century Romantic movement but struggled with mental illness. He died in a mental institution in 1856 at the age of 46.

Now Schumann's life and legacy are dramatized for radio listeners by John Tibbetts, associate professor of theatre and film at the University of Kansas. He has crafted a 13-part musical documentary, "Robert Schumann and the Age of Romanticism," about Schumann. The hourlong episodes will be broadcast from 8 to 9 p.m. Mondays beginning March 3 on Kansas Public Radio.

The series pays considerable attention to the story of Schumann's marriage to a brilliant concert pianist, Clara Wieck (who became the most famous female musician in Europe in the 19th century), their attempt to carry on a distinctly modern dual-career marriage, and his struggle against the insanity that finally claimed him.

"I have been working actively on this series for 15 years," Tibbetts said. "It has taken that much time to track down and interview the musicians, scholars and critics heard in the series and to write and produce the episodes."

Tibbetts has assembled commentary and analysis from some of the foremost Schumann biographers, historians and critics, including cultural historian Jacques Barzun, biographer Peter Ostwald, conductor Leonard Slatkin, author Maurice Sendak, CBS music journalist Eugenia Zuckerman and composer Virgil Thomson.

Providing musical performances are pianists Emanuel Ax and Claude Frank, the Juilliard String Quartet and singers Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elly Ameling.

Actors from the Missouri Repertory Theater provide the voices of Robert and Clara Schumann and other characters.