"Schumann: The Faces and the Masks" is a groundbreaking approach to a major 19th-century composer, whose life and work have sparked intense controversy from his suicide attempt and premature death in a psychiatric institution. Schumann was a central figure of Romanticism, inspiring writers, musicians, and painters, reaching every corner of the world. All the contradictions of his era are reflected in his works, from the fantastic disguises of his carnivals and his passionate love songs to his great Symphonies "Spring" and "Rhenish." He was intensely original and imaginative, yet a lover of the past, like Shakespeare, Byron, Raphael, Michelangelo, Beethoven, and Bach. He believed in political, personal, and artistic freedom but struggled with the constraints of artistic form. He transformed his tumultuous life into music that speaks directly to the soul, maintaining its power over time. Using unpublished archival material, Chernaik sheds new light on Schumann's life and music, his romantic adventures, the paternity of an illegitimate child, the real details behind his courtship with his wife Clara and her father's opposition, as well as the ways in which his life's crises, dreams, and fantasies entered his music. Schumann's tumultuous relationships with his fellow Romantic composers Mendelssohn and Chopin are re-examined, while the complete medical diary kept at Endenich Institution allows Chernaik to revisit the mystery of Schumann's final illness. Using her experience as a Romantic scholar and novelist, Chernaik brings Schumann's world and his unique artistic achievement to life in its rich complexity.