Clara & Robert Schumann <3

Clara Schumann
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Clara Schumann

Portrait by Franz von Lenbach, 1838

Born Clara Josephine Wieck

13 September 1819
Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony, German Confederation
Died 20 May 1896 (aged 76)
Frankfurt, German Empire
Occupation Pianist
Composer
Piano teacher
Organization Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium
Spouse Robert Schumann

(m. 1840; died 1856)
Children 8, including Eugenie
Parents Friedrich Wieck (father)
Mariane Bargiel (mother)
Signature

Clara Josephine Schumann ([ˈklaːʁa ˈʃuːman]; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist,
composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her
influence over the course of a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital by
lessening the importance of purely virtuosic works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto (her Op. 7),
chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.
She grew up in Leipzig, where both her father Friedrich Wieck and her mother Mariane were pianists and piano
teachers. In addition, her mother was a singer. Clara was a child prodigy, and was trained by her father. She began
touring at age eleven, and was successful in Paris and Vienna, among other cities. She married the composer Robert
Schumann, and the couple had eight children. Together, they encouraged Johannes Brahms and maintained a close
relationship with him. She premiered many works by her husband and by Brahms in public.
After Robert Schumann's early death, she continued her concert tours in Europe for decades, frequently with the
violinist Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. Beginning in 1878, she was an influential piano educator at Dr.
Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt, where she attracted international students. She edited the publication of her
husband's work. Schumann died in Frankfurt, but was buried in Bonn beside her husband.
Several films have focused on Schumann's life, the earliest being Träumerei (Dreaming) of 1944. A 2008 film, Geliebte
Clara (Beloved Clara), was directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms. An image of Clara Schumann from an 1835 lithograph
by Andreas Staub was featured on the 100 Deutsche Mark banknote from 1989 to 2002. Interest in her compositions
began to revive in the late 20th century, and her 2019 bicentenary prompted new books and exhibitions.Family[edit]
Clara Josephine Wieck [ˈklaːʀa ˈjoːzɛfiːn ˈviːk] was born in Leipzig on 13 September 1819 to Friedrich Wieck and his
wife Mariane (née Tromlitz).[1] Her mother was a famous singer in Leipzig who performed weekly piano and soprano
solos at the Gewandhaus.[2] Clara's parents had irreconcilable differences, in part due to her father's unyielding nature.
[2] Prompted by an affair between her mother and Adolph Bargiel, her father's friend,[3][4] the Wiecks were divorced in
1825, with Mariane later marrying Bargiel. Five-year-old Clara remained with her father while Mariane and Bargiel
eventually moved to Berlin, limiting contact between Clara and her mother to written letters and occasional visits.[5]
Child prodigy[edit]
From an early age, Clara's father planned her career and life down to the smallest detail. She started receiving basic
piano instruction from her mother at the age of four.[6] After her mother moved out, she began taking daily one-hour
lessons from her father. They included subjects such as piano, violin, singing, theory, harmony, composition,
and counterpoint. She then had to practice for two hours every day. Her father followed the methods in his own
book, Wiecks pianistische Erziehung zum schönen Anschlag und zum singenden Ton ("Wieck's Piano Education for a
Delicate Touch and a Singing Sound.")[6][7] Her musical studies came largely at the expense of her broader general
education, although she still studied religion and languages under her father's control of the family.[8]

Clara Wieck, from an 1835 lithograph

Clara Wieck made her official debut on 28 October 1828 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, at age nine.[6][9] The same year,
she performed at the Leipzig home of Ernst Carus, director of the mental hospital at Colditz Castle. There, she met
another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, Robert Schumann, who was nine years older.
Schumann admired Clara's playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to stop studying law, which had
never interested him much, and take music lessons with Clara's father. While taking lessons, he rented a room in the
Wieck household and stayed about a year.[10]
From September 1831 to April 1832, Clara toured Paris and other European cities, accompanied by her father.
[6] In Weimar, she performed a bravura piece by Henri Herz for Goethe, who presented her with a medal with his
portrait and a written note saying: "For the gifted artist Clara Wieck". During that tour, the violinist Niccolò Paganini,
who was also in Paris, offered to appear with her.[11] Her Paris recital was poorly attended because many people had
fled the city due to an outbreak of cholera.[11] The tour marked her transition from a child prodigy to a young woman
performer.[6]
Success in Vienna[edit]
From December 1837 to April 1838, at the age of 18, Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna.[12] Franz
Grillparzer, Austria's leading dramatic poet, wrote a poem entitled "Clara Wieck and Beethoven" after hearing her
perform Beethoven's Appassionata sonata during one of these recitals.[12] She performed to sell-out crowds and
laudatory critical reviews; Benedict Randhartinger, a friend of Franz Schubert, gave her an autographed copy of
Schubert's Erlkönig, inscribing it "To the celebrated artist, Clara Wieck."[12] Chopin described her playing to Franz Liszt,
who came to hear one of Wieck's concerts and subsequently praised her extravagantly in a letter that was published in
the Parisian Revue et Gazette Musicale and later, in translation, in the Leipzig journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.[13] On
15 March, she was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Österreichische Kammer-virtuosin ("Royal and Imperial Austrian
Chamber Virtuoso"),[14] Austria's highest musical honor.[13]
An anonymous music critic, describing her Vienna recitals, said: "The appearance of this artist can be regarded as epoch-
making... In her creative hands, the most ordinary passage, the most routine motive acquires a significant meaning, a
colour, which only those with the most consummate artistry can give."[15]
Lasting relationships[edit]
Robert Schumann[edit]

Gedächtniskirche Schönefeld [de] in Leipzig-Schönefeld, where the Schumanns married on 12 September 1840

Robert Schumann was a little more than nine years older than Wieck. In 1837, when she was 18, he proposed to her and
she accepted. Robert then asked her father for her hand in marriage.[16] Friedrich was strongly opposed to the
marriage, and refused his permission. Robert and Clara decided to go to court and sue him. The judge allowed the
marriage, which took place in Gedächtniskirche Schönefeld [de] in Leipzig-Schönefeld on 12 September 1840, the day
before Clara's 21st birthday, when she attained majority status.[17][18] From then on, the couple maintained a joint
musical and personal diary of their life together.[19]
In February 1854, Robert Schumann had a mental collapse, attempted suicide, and was admitted, at his request, to
a sanatorium in the village of Endenich near Bonn, where he stayed for the last two years of his life. In March 1854,
Brahms, Joachim, Albert Dietrich, and Julius Otto Grimm spent time with Clara Schumann, playing music for her and with
her to divert her mind from the tragedy.[20] Brahms composed some private piano pieces for her to console her: four
piano pieces and a set of variations on a theme by Robert Schumann that she had also written variations on a year
earlier, as her Op. 20. The music by Brahms was not intended to be published, but for her alone. Brahms later thought to
publish them anonymously, but eventually they were issued as his four Ballades, Op. 10, and Variations on a Theme by
Robert Schumann, Op. 9. Brahms dedicated the variations to both Schumanns, hoping that Robert would be released
soon and rejoined with his family.[21]
For the entire two years of Robert Schumann's stay at the institution, his wife was not permitted to visit him, while
Brahms visited him regularly. When it was apparent that Robert was near death, she was finally admitted to see him. He
appeared to recognize her, but could only speak a few words.[22] Robert Schumann died two days later, on 29 July
1856.[23]
Joseph Joachim[edit]
The Schumanns first met violinist Joseph Joachim in November 1844, when he was 14 years old.[24] A year later, Clara
Schumann wrote in her diary that in a concert on 11 November 1845, "little Joachim was very much liked. He played a
new violin concerto by Felix Mendelssohn, which is said to be wonderful."[25] In May 1853, they heard Joachim play the
solo part in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. She wrote that he played "with a finish, a depth of poetic feeling, his whole
soul in every note, so ideally, that I have never heard violin-playing like it, and I can truly say that I have never received
so indelible an impression from any virtuoso." A lasting friendship developed between Clara and Joseph, which for more
than forty years never failed her in things great or small, never wavered in its loyalty.[26]
Over her career, Schumann gave over 238 concerts with Joachim in Germany and Britain, more than with any other
artist.[27] The two were particularly noted for their playing of Beethoven's violin sonatas.[28]
Johannes Brahms[edit]
Schumann in 1853
In early 1853, the then-unknown 20-year-old Johannes Brahms met Joachim and made a very favorable impression.
Brahms received from him a letter of introduction to Robert Schumann, and thus presented himself at the Schumanns'
home in Düsseldorf. Brahms played some of his piano solo compositions for the Schumanns, and they were deeply
impressed.[29] Robert published an article highly lauding Brahms, and Clara wrote in the diary that Brahms "seemed as
if sent straight from God".[30]
During Robert Schumann's last years, confined to an asylum, Brahms was a strong presence for the Schumann family.
[31] His letters indicate his strong feelings for Clara.[32] Their relationship has been interpreted as somewhere between
friendship and love,[33] and Brahms always maintained the utmost respect for her, as a woman and a talented musician.
[32]
Brahms played his First Symphony for her before its premiere. She gave some advice about the Adagio, which he took to
heart. She expressed her appreciation of the Symphony as a whole, but mentioned her dissatisfaction with the endings
of the third and fourth movements.[34] She was the first to perform many of his works in public, including the Variations
and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, a solo piano work written by Brahms in 1861.[35]
Concert tours[edit]
Clara Schumann first toured England in April 1856, while her husband was still living but unable to travel. She was invited
to play in a London Philharmonic Society[a] concert by conductor William Sterndale Bennett, a good friend of Robert's.
[36] She was displeased with the little time spent on rehearsals: "They call it a rehearsal here if a piece is played through
once." She wrote that musical "artists" in England "allow themselves to be treated as inferiors."[37] She was happy,
though, to hear the cellist Alfredo Piatti play with "a tone, a bravura, a certainty, such as I never heard before". In May
1856, she played Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor with the New Philharmonic Society[b] conducted by Dr Wylde,
who as she said had "led a dreadful rehearsal" and "could not grasp the rhythm of the last movement".[37] Still, she
returned to London the following year and continued to perform in Britain for the next 15 years.[38]

Joseph Joachim and Schumann, after a lost 1854 drawing by Adolph Menzel
In October–November 1857, Schumann and Joachim went on a recital tour to Dresden and Leipzig.[39] St. James's
Hall in London, which opened in 1858, hosted a series of "Popular Concerts" of chamber music.[c] Joachim visited
London annually beginning in 1866.[40] Schumann also spent many years in London participating in the Popular
Concerts with Joachim and the celebrated Italian cellist Carlo Alfredo Piatti. Second violinist Joseph Ries (brother of
composer Ferdinand Ries) and violist J. B. Zerbini usually played on the same concert programs. George Bernard Shaw,
the leading playwright and also a music critic, wrote that the Popular Concerts helped greatly to spread and enlighten
musical taste in England.[41]
In January 1867, Schumann toured Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland, along with Joachim, Piatti, Ries, and Zerbini. Two
sisters, Louisa and Susanna Pyne, singers and managers of an opera company in England, and a man named Saunders,
made all the arrangements. She was accompanied by her oldest daughter Marie, who wrote from Manchester to her
friend Rosalie Leser that in Edinburgh the pianist "was received with tempestuous applause and had to give an encore,
so had Joachim. Piatti, too, is always tremendously liked."[42] Marie also wrote: "For the longer journeys we had a
saloon [car], comfortably furnished with arm-chairs and sofas... the journey ... was very comfortable." On this occasion,
the musicians were not "treated as inferiors".[43]
Later life[edit]
Concerts[edit]
Schumann still performed actively in the 1870s and 1880s. She performed extensively and regularly throughout
Germany during these decades, and had engagements in Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland. When in
Basel, Switzerland, she often stayed with the Von der Mühll family.[44] She continued her annual winter-spring concert
tours of England, giving 16 of them between 1865 and 1888, often with violinist Joachim.[45]
She took a break from concert performances, beginning in January 1874, cancelling her usual England tour due to an
arm injury. In July, she consulted a doctor, who having massaged the arm, advised her to practice for only one hour a
day.[46] She rested for the remainder of the year before returning to the concert stage in March 1875.[34] She had not
fully recovered, and experienced more neuralgia in her arm again in May, reporting that she "could not write on account
of my arm".[34] By October 1875, she had recovered enough to begin another tour in Germany.
In addition to solo piano recitals, chamber music, and accompanying singers, she continued to perform frequently with
orchestras. In 1877, she performed Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto in Berlin, with Woldemar Bargiel conducting, her
half-brother by her mother's second marriage, and had tremendous success.[30][34] In 1883, she performed
Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the newly-formed Berlin Philharmonic, and was enthusiastically celebrated, although
she was playing with an injured hand in great pain, having fallen on a staircase the previous day.[47] Later that year she
played Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto (with her own cadenzas) with Joachim conducting the same orchestra, again
to great acclaim.
In 1885, Schumann once again joined Joachim conducting Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, again playing her own
cadenzas. The following day, she played her husband's Piano Concerto with Bargiel conducting. "I think I played fresher
than ever", she wrote to Brahms, "What I liked very much about the concert was that I was able to give Woldemar the
direction of it, who had longed for such an opportunity for years."[47]
She played her last public concert in Frankfurt on 12 March 1891. The last work she played was Brahms's Variations on a
Theme by Haydn, in a version for two pianos, with James Kwast.[48]
Teaching[edit]

Saalhof, the first location of Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium

In 1878, Schumann was appointed the first piano teacher of the new Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt.[49]
[50] She had chosen Frankfurt among offers from Stuttgart, Hannover, and Berlin, because the director, Joachim Raff,
had accepted her conditions: she could not teach more than 1-1/2 hours per day, was free to teach at her home, and
had four months of vacation and time off for short tours in winter. She demanded two assistants, with her daughters
Marie and Eugenie in mind.[6][49][51]
She was the only woman on the faculty.[49] Her fame attracted students from abroad, including Britain and the United
States.[31] She trained only advanced pupils, mostly young women, while her two daughters gave lessons to beginners.
Among her 68 known students who made a musical career were Natalia Janotha, Fanny Davies, Nanette Falk, Amina
Goodwin, Carl Friedberg, Leonard Borwick, Ilona Eibenschütz, Adelina de Lara, Marie Olson and