Why hurry over beautiful things? Why not linger and enjoy them?
Clara Schumann was a genius German composer, pianist, and teacher. She is rightfully regarded as one of the greatest piano players of the Romantic era. During her life, she was a close friend of violinist Joseph Joachim and composer Johannes Brahms. She gave over 238 concerts with Joachim in Germany and Britain.
Early Life
Clara Schumann was born in Leipzig into a family of musicians: Friedrich Wieck and Mariane Wieck. Her father was a proficient music teacher Her mother was a popular singer who used to play the piano often at the Gewandhaus.
Clara’s father saw that she had a bright musical career from the earliest age. Her mother gave her basic piano lessons when she was only four. After Clara’s parents divorced, Friedrich began giving her one-hour lessons every day. She was taught how to play the piano and the violin, as well as how to sing. Her father told her about harmony, composition, and counterpoint.
Additionally, she had to practice at least two hours a day. Friedrich Wieck taught her by the same methods that were used in his book "Wieck's Piano Education for a Delicate Touch and a Singing Sound." Her extensive musical studies hindered her general education, but she did study religion as well as several other languages.
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When Clara was only 18 years old, she was offered marriage by Robert Schumann, who was 9 years older than her. She accepted the proposal, but her father was strongly opposed to their union. Clara and Robert had to go to court and sue him. Their marriage was allowed by the court on September 12, 1840, one day before Clara turned 21 years old. After the ceremony, the couple enjoyed a close relationship. They even wrote a joint personal and musical diary that described their life.
The happiness lasted only 14 years as in 1854 Robert mentally collapsed and tried to take his own life. In the aftermath, he was confined in a sanatorium in the Endenich village near Bonn. He would stay there until his death two years later. Schumann died in Frankfurt and was later buried in Bonn beside her husband.
Joseph Joachim, Albert Dietrich, Johannes Brahms, and Julius Otto Grimm spent time and played music for Clara in March 1854. This way they wanted to ease her pain from the strategy. Brahms also frequently visited Robert Schumann at the institution. Clara never saw her husband during all that time and was only admitted to seeing Robert on his deathbed.
Musical career
Schumann spent 61 out of 76 years of her life-giving concerts. She began touring when she was only 11 years old. She was most successful in Vienna and Paris. She often changed the program and the format. Some of her venues were meant to showcase her high level of play while others were dedicated to more serious works.
In April 1856 she toured England for the first time. William Sterndale Bennett, a good friend of Robert, invited her to play at the London Philarmonic Society. Clara was very disappointed with how little time was spent on the rehearsals but was amazed by cellist Alfredo Piatti and his style of performance was unlike anything she had heard before. Despite her initial mixed feelings about Britain, she performed there for the next 15 years.
After her husband died, Schumann went on touring Europe for decades. She often performed along with acclaimed violinist Joseph Joachim as well as other chamber musicians.
In 1878 she started a career as a piano teacher at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt. There Schumann was a favorite among international students.
Legacy
Several motion pictures are celebrating Schumann. 1944 saw the release of Träumerei (Dreaming). Director Helma Sanders-Brahms released her Geliebte Clara (Beloved Clara) movie in 2008.
From 1989 to 2002 Clara Schumann’s image from an 1835 lithograph was present on the 100 Deutsche Mark banknote.
Top questions
Who was Clara Schumann?
Clara Schumann (1819 to 1896) was a German concert pianist of the Romantic era, a composer, and the editor of her husband Robert Schumann's complete works. Born in Leipzig as Clara Wieck, she was trained from the age of four, and the Austrian court named her Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso in 1838, at eighteen. She also taught piano at a conservatory in Frankfurt.
Why is Clara Schumann called a genius?
The case rests on her playing and her effect on the concert more than on her compositions. She played whole programmes from memory by thirteen, when reading from the score was universal, and made the practice standard. She also replaced showy virtuoso pieces with Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Mendelssohn. A counter-view holds that this was craft and taste rather than invention, since she changed how music is performed more than what music is.
How was Clara Schumann trained as a child?
After her parents divorced in 1825, her father Friedrich Wieck, a Leipzig piano teacher, gave her an hour of daily instruction in piano, violin, singing, theory, harmony and counterpoint, plus two hours of practice. She debuted at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 28 October 1828, aged nine. In 1835 she played her own Piano Concerto in A minor, written at fourteen, under Mendelssohn.
Why did Clara Schumann take her father to court?
Friedrich Wieck refused to let her marry Robert Schumann, nine years older and a former student of his, after Robert proposed in 1837. The refusal lasted three years. The couple sued him and won, and they married on 12 September 1840, one day before Clara turned twenty-one and no longer needed anyone's consent.
Did Clara Schumann compose music?
Yes. Her Op. 1, Quatre Polonaises pour le pianoforte, appeared in 1831, and her Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17 (1846), is her most substantial chamber work. She also wrote the Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22, dedicated to Joseph Joachim. Her output fell sharply after 1848, and after a final burst in 1853 she wrote almost nothing original.
What did Clara Schumann do after Robert Schumann died?
Robert died on 29 July 1856, and Clara, then thirty-six with seven surviving children, returned to the road harder than before. Her busiest performing years ran from 1856 to 1873, and she made sixteen tours of England between 1865 and 1888. In 1878 she became the first piano teacher at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt, and from 1881 to 1893 she edited Robert's complete works.
How is Clara Schumann remembered?
Clara Schumann died in Frankfurt on 20 May 1896, aged seventy-six, and was buried in Bonn beside Robert. Her face appeared on the German 100-mark note from 1989 to 2002, and Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium named its great hall for her. Her Piano Trio and the Op. 22 Romances now sit in the standard chamber repertoire. Sixty-eight of her students went on to musical careers.
