Clara Josephine Wieck Schumann (September 13, 1819 – May 20, 1896) was a German musician, one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, as well as a composer. Her prestige — she became known as "the high priestess of music" — exerted over a 61-year concert career, changed the format and repertoire of the piano concert and the tastes of the listening public. Her husband was composer Robert Schumann.

Biography

Early career and first meeting with Schumann

In March 1828, at the age of nine, the young Clara Wieck performed at the Leipzig home of Dr. Ernst Carus, director of a mental hospital at Colditz Castle, and met another gifted young pianist invited to the musical evening named Robert Schumann, nine years older than she. Schumann admired Wieck's playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to discontinue his studies of the law, which had never interested him much, and take music lessons with Wieck's father. While taking lessons, he took rooms in the Wieck household, staying about a year, until Wieck left on a concert tour to Paris. In 1830 at the age of eleven, Wieck gave her first solo concert, giving her debut at Leipzig's famed Gewandhaus, followed by concerts in various cities and towns, including Weimar, where she performed for Goethe, who presented her with a medal with his portrait and a written note saying, "For the gifted artist Clara Wieck."

Clara Wieck had a brilliant career as a virtuoso pianist from the age of thirteen. In her early years her repertoire, selected by her father, was showy and popular, in the style common to the time, with works by Kalkbrenner, Henselt, Thalberg, Henri Herz, Pixis, Czerny, and her own compositions. As she matured, however, becoming more established and planning her own programmes, she began to play works by the new Romantic composers, such as Chopin, Mendelssohn and, of course, Schumann, as well as the great, less showy, more "difficult" composers of the past, such as Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

Marriage

In her nineteenth year, her father did everything in his power to prevent her from marrying Schumann, forcing the lovers to take him to court. During this period Robert Schumann, inspired by his love for Wieck, wrote many of his most famous Lieder. They eventually married on December 12 1840. Wieck-Schumann continued to perform and compose after the marriage even as she raised seven children, an eighth child having died in infancy. In the various tours on which she accompanied her husband, she extended her own reputation beyond Germany, and her efforts to promote his works gradually made his work accepted throughout Europe.

In 1853 Johannes Brahms, age twenty, met Clara and Robert in Leipzig and immediately impressed both of them with his talent. Brahms became a lifelong friend to Wieck-Schumann, sustaining her through the illness of Robert, asking for her advice about new compositions, even caring for her young children while she went on tour. It is clear that they developed a deep and life-long love for each other, although there is no indication that it was ever consummated physically.

Later career

Wieck-Schumann's reputation brought her into contact with the leading musicians of the day, including Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt. She also met violinist Joseph Joachim who became one of her frequent performance partners.

Clara Wieck-Schumann often took charge of the finances and general household affairs due to Robert's mental instability. Part of her responsibility included making money, which she did by giving concerts, although she continued to play throughout her life not only for the income, but because she was a concert artist by training and by nature. Robert, while admiring her talent, wanted a traditional wife to bear children and make a happy home, which in his eyes and the eyes of society were in direct conflict with the life of a performer. Furthermore, while she loved touring, Robert hated it.

After Robert's death (July 29, 1856), Wieck-Schumann devoted herself principally to the interpretation of his works. But when she first visited England in 1856, the critics received Robert's music with a chorus of disapproval. She returned to London in 1865 and continued her visits annually, with the exception of four seasons, until 1882. She also appeared there each year from 1885 to 1888. In 1878 she was appointed teacher of the piano at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main, a post she held until 1892, and in which she contributed greatly to the improvement of modern piano playing technique.

Wieck-Schumann played her last public concert in Frankfurt in March 1891. Five years later, on March 26, 1896, she suffered a stroke, dying on May 20, at age 77. She is buried at Bonn's Alter Friedhof (Old Cemetery) with her husband.

Character

Clara Schumann was a woman of great character. She was the main breadwinner for her family through giving concerts and teaching, and she did most of the work of organizing her own concert tours. She refused to accept charity when a group of musicians offered to put on a benefit concert for her. In addition to raising her own large family, when one of her children became incapacitated, she took on responsibility for raising her grandchildren. During a time of revolution in Dresden, she famously walked into the city through the front lines, defying a pack of armed men who confronted her, rescued her children, then walked back out of the city through the dangerous areas again.

Music of Clara Schumann

As part of the broad musical education given her by her father, Clara Wieck learned to compose, and from childhood to middle age she produced a good body of work. At age fourteen she wrote her first piano concerto, with some help from Robert Schumann, and performed it at age sixteen at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Mendelssohn conducting.

As she grew older, however, she lost confidence in herself as a composer, writing, "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?" In fact, Wieck-Schumann composed nothing after the age of thirty-six.

Today her compositions are increasingly performed and recorded. Her works include songs, piano pieces, a piano concerto, a piano trio, choral pieces, and three Romances for violin and piano. Inspired by her husband's birthday, the three Romances were composed in 1853 and dedicated to Joseph Joachim who performed them for George V of Hanover. He declared them a "marvellous, heavenly pleasure."

Wieck-Schumann was the authoritative editor of her husband's works for the publishing firm of Breitkopf & Härtel.

Quotations

"Clara has composed a series of small pieces, which show a musical and tender ingenuity such as she has never attained before. But to have children, and a husband who is always living in the realm of imagination, does not go together with composing. She cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many profound ideas are lost because she cannot work them out."

—Robert Schumann in the joint diary of Robert and Clara Schumann.

"Composing gives me great pleasure...there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound."

—Clara Schumann.

"I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?"

—Clara Schumann at 20.

Works (partial listing)

This is a partial list of recordings in the WorldCat database.

• 1832· 9 Caprices en forme de valse:
• 1833· Romance variée (C major)
• 1833· Valses romantiques
• 1836· 6 Soirées musicales: 1 (A minor) Toccatina; 2 (F Major) Notturno; 3 (G minor) Mazurka; 4 (D minor) Ballade; 5 (G major) Mazurka; 6 (A minor) Polonaise
• 1836· Concerto (A minor): 1 Allegro maestoso; 2 Romanze. Andante non troppo con grazia; 3 Finale. Allegro non troppo; allegro molto
• 1838· Impromptu (G major) "Souvenir de Vienne"
• 1839· Scherzo #1 (D minor)
• 1839· 3 Romances: 1 (E-flat minor) Andante; 2 (G minor) Andante; 3 (A major) Moderato
• 1840· Volkslied
• 1841· 3 songs: 1 Er ist gekommen in Sturm und Regen; 2 Liebst du um Schönheit; 3 Warum willst du and’re Fragen? (these were published as part of Robert Schumann's "Gedichte aus Liebesfrühling," Op. 37)
• 1841· Die gute Nacht, die ich dir sage
• 1842· Scherzo #2 (C minor)
• 1842· Sonata (G minor): 1 Allegro; 2 Adagio con espressione e ben legato; 3 Scherzo; Trio; 4 Rondo
• 1843· 6 songs: 1 Ihr Bildnis. Ich stand in dunklen Träumen; 2 Sie liebten sich beide; 3 Liebeszauber; 4 Der Mond kommt still gegangen; 5 Ich hab’in deinem Auge; 6 Die stille Lotusblume
• 1843· 3 songs: • Lorelei
• 1843· O weh des Scheidens, das er tat
• 1844· Impromptu (E major) Album de gaulois
• 1845· 4 Pièces fugitives: 1 (F major) Larghetto; 2 (A minor) In poco agitato; 3 (D major) Andante espressivo; 4 (G major) Scherzo
• 1845· 3 (Prélude & Fugue)s: (1 (G major): 1 prélude; 2 fugue); (2 (B-flat major or B major): 1 prélude; 2 fugue); (3 (D minor): 1 prélude; 2 fugue)
• 1846· Piano Trio in G minor: 1 Allegro moderato; 2 Scherzo. Tempo di menuetto; 3 Andante; 4 Allegretto

External links

• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net - Free Scores by Clara Schumann
• Complete works of Clara Schumann-Wieck

- Play about Clara Schumann

References

• Litzmann, Berthold. Clara Schumann: An Artist's Life, page 13. New York: Da Capo Press; 1979. ISBN 0-306-79582-5
• Sowell, Thomas. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, pages = 29-60. Basic Books; 2001. ISBN 0-465-08140-1
• Kamien, Roger. Music: an appreciation. Mcgraw-Hill College; 3rd edition (August 1, 1997) ISBN 0-07-036521-0
• Machlis, Joseph; Forney, Kristine. The Enjoyment of Music. 8th edition. Norton: New York; 1999.
• Rattalino, Piero. Schumann. Robert & Clara. Varese: Zecchini Editore; 2002. ISBN 88-87203-14-8
• Reich, Nancy B. Clara Schumann, The Artist and The Woman. Cornell University Press. 1985. ISBN 0-8014-9388-9
• Reich, Susanna. Clara Schumann: Piano Virtuoso. New York: Clarion Books; 1999. ISBN 978-0395891193