In early 1854, the deterioration of 43-year-old Schumann's health reached its peak. Ten years earlier, during a five-month concert tour of Russia with his wife, Schumann had suffered from bouts of depression and was forced to recuperate due to nervous exhaustion, but this time, his mental breakdown was more severe. From the beginning of the year, he was tormented by severe auditory and visual hallucinations. On the night of February 17, he wrote down a melody in E-flat major, which he claimed was given to him by angels, and composed "Theme and Variations" using this melody between the 22nd and 23rd. The fact that this piece is called "Ghost Variations" (or "Geistervariationen") stems precisely from this mental crisis of Schumann.

A few days later, on February 26, Schumann himself expressed a desire to enter a mental asylum. However, on "Rosenmontag" (Rose Monday), the day after the Rhineland carnival reached its peak, he slipped out of his house while preparing the fair copy of "Theme and Variations" and threw himself into the freezing Rhine River. This suicide attempt was thwarted when he was rescued by two boatmen. Schumann, brought back home, completed "Theme and Variations" the very next day, after a brief interruption. Subsequently, he was admitted to a private mental asylum in Endenich, near Bonn, where he quietly passed away two years later, on July 29, 1856. He was 46 years old, having just celebrated his birthday the previous month. The theme of this piece, which unintentionally became his last work, was perhaps not a hallucination but truly a divine revelation.

Analysis of the Variations

• Theme: The theme, later described by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) as "completely unsuitable for variations," is in E-flat major, 2/4 time, and has a quiet, introspective, chorale-like sound.
• Variation 1: The melodic line is almost identical to the theme, with the addition of triplet ornamentation in the inner voices.
• Variation 2: There is basically no change (with the exception of a passage near the end where a borrowed chord from the supertonic key affects the main melody), but a similar melody is sung in the left-hand voice, creating a canonic sound.
• Variation 3: The main melody shifts to the left hand.
• Variation 4: This is the only variation in a key other than the tonic, being in G minor. In the opening inner voice of the right hand, the theme of the second movement of the Violin Concerto, composed a few months earlier, appears: D-C-B-E-flat-D-C (d1-c1-b-es1-d1-c1).
• Variation 5: This is the freest variation, characterized by prominent chromatic movement.