Robert Schumann - Four Fugues

The four fugues were written in a critical stage of Schumann’s life, the quiet years during the mid-1840s. In 1845, his diaries state that as soon as he began to work he was seized with fits of shivering and an apprehension of death, which was exhibited in an abhorrence for high places, for all metal objects, and for drugs.
He also suffered perpetually from imagining that he had the note A5 sounding in his ears.