Clara Schumann Biography Photos Piano Trio Robert Brahms Music Songs Composition Images Life Career

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Google Doodle:

To mark the 193rd birth anniversary of Clara Schumann, the German musician and composer, Google has posted a new doodle on its homepage.

The doodle features Clara Schumann playing the piano, with her eight children clinging to her, thereby replacing the two O's and the second G of the Google logo. The colours of the doodle are in sync with Google's official logo colours - blue, red, yellow and green.

Born on 13 September 1819, Clara Schumann was raised by her father. Her parents divorced when Clara was only four years old.

Clara Schumann 

In March 1828, whe she was eight years old, Clara performed at the Leipzig home of Dr Ernst Carus, director of a mental hospital at Colditz Castle, and met Robert Schumann, who was nine years older than her. Schumann admired Clara's performance and so much that he asked permission from his mother to discontinue his studies of the law, and take music lessons with Clara's father, Friedrich Wieck. She later married him.

Clara made her public debut in a concert in the Leipziger Gewandhaus at the age of 9. She was acknowledged throughout Europe as a phenomenally talented child prodigy. She was also instrumental in transforming the kind of programs expected of concert pianists.

At the age of 18, Clara Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna from December 1837 to April 1838. Clara Schumann's reputation brought her into contact with the leading musicians of the day.

In 1839, Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck wrote a petition to the Court of Appeals to marry without the consent of Friedrich Wieck. They got married on September 12, a day before her 21st birthday.

Her family life was hit by tragedy. Four of her eight children and her husband predeceased her, and her husband and one of her sons ended their lives in insane asylums.

She herself became deaf in her later life. She often would need a wheelchair. Clara suffered a stroke on 26 March 1896, and died on May 20 at the age of 76.

Biography: (1819-1896) Nationality: German

Clara Schumann (Clara Josephine Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. She exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital and the tastes of the listening public. Her husband was the composer Robert Schumann. She and her husband encouraged Johannes Brahms, and she was the first pianist to give public performances of some of Brahms' works, notably the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel.

Clara Schumann Biography 

Early Life:-

Clara Josephine Wieck was born in Leipzig on 13 September 1819 to Friedrich and Marianne Wieck (néeTromlitz). Her parents divorced when she was four years old; Clara was raised by her father. In March 1828, at the age of eight, 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 her. Schumann admired Clara'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 Clara's father, Friedrich Wieck. While taking lessons, he took rooms in the Wieck household, staying about a year. He would dress up as a ghost and scare Clara, the play created a bond and when she was older, she married him.

In 1830, at the age of eleven, Clara left on a concert tour to Paris via other European cities, accompanied by her father. She gave her first solo concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. 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, Niccolò Paganini was in Paris, and he offered to appear with her. However, her Paris recital was poorly attended as many people had fled the city due to an outbreak of cholera.

Clara Schumann Berlin

At the age of 18, Clara Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna from December 1837 to April 1838. Austria's leading dramatic poet, Franz Grillparzer, wrote a poem entitled "Clara Wieck and Beethoven" after hearing Wieck perform the Appassionata Sonata during one of these recitals. Wieck performed to sell-out crowds and laudatory critical reviews; Benedict Randhartinger, a friend of Franz Schubert, gave Wieck an autograph copy of Schubert's Erlkönig, inscribing it "To the celebrated artist, Clara Wieck." Frédéric 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." On 15 March, Wieck was named a Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin ("Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso"), Austria's highest musical honor.

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, Herz, Pixis, Czerny, and her own compositions. As she matured, however, becoming more established and planning her own programs, she began to play works by the new Romantic composers, such as Chopin, Mendelssohn and, of course, Robert Schumann, as well as the great, less showy, more "difficult" composers of the past, such as Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart,Beethoven, and Schubert. She also frequently appeared in chamber music recitals of works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms.

Clara and Robert Schumann:-

Clara Schumann Career

Clara Schumann Biography Photos Piano Trio Robert Brahms Music Songs Composition Images Life Career

By 1836, Clara had become completely infatuated with Robert Schumann and her father’s concern over the suitability of the match was apparent.  In his view, Robert Schumann was simply another unknown composer, while his daughter was already a famous and accomplished performer.  Wieck loathed the idea of Clara, the supreme achievement of his life, marrying someone who he considered beneath her.  In order to limit contact between the two, Wieck sent Clara, then seventeen, to Dresden and broke off all ties with his former pupil.  Clara was kept on a hectic performance schedule with some tours lasting up to seven months.  For years, she was torn between the father she revered and the man that she loved.  While she was touring, Clara and Schumann wrote to each other secretly through an intermediary. 
 
The couple faced resistance from Wieck after announcing their plans to marry.  According to German law, a woman could not marry without her father’s consent and Wieck refused to give it.  Since Clara was still underage, Schumann turned to the courts in order to force Wieck into consenting, but Wieck countered with charges against Schumann, claiming everything from financial irresponsibility to alcoholism.  After nearly a year of legal battles, the court sanctioned the marriage.  Clara and Schumann wed on September 12, 1840, one day before her twenty-first birthday and settled in Leipzig.  Four years later, in 1844, Schumann experienced a severe breakdown and the couple moved to Dresden at the recommendation of his doctors.

During their marriage, Clara was pregnant ten times and bore eight children: Marie, Elise, Julie, Emil, Ludwig, Ferdinand, Eugenie, and Felix.  Even with such a large family, Clara continued to perform, compose, and teach piano, while at the same time she supported Robert and his career.  Schumann encouraged Clara’s composing and contracted publishers for her, but made it clear that his creative work took priority over hers.  

On the surface, the relationship seemed to be confining, but it proved to be quite beneficial for her as well as for him.  Clara arranged many of his instrumental works for piano and performed them during her concert tours.  Conversely, he paid homage to her compositional efforts by including many quotations from her works in his.  

As the years passed, Robert suffered from increasing mental illness and eventually attempted suicide in 1854 by throwing himself into the Rhine.  Fishermen pulled him out of the icy water before it was too late.  He entered a sanatorium in Endenich (near Bonn).  Because his doctors considered him to be dangerous, they forbid Clara to visit him for the two-and-a-half years he was there.  During this time, Clara relied on support from her close friends, including the singers Pauline Viardot and Jenny Lind, the violinist Joseph Joachim, and the composers Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms.  It was with Brahms in particular that she developed an especially close bond.  Clara did not see her husband again until the days just before his death.  Schumann died in July of 1856 and Clara became a widow at the age of thirty-seven.

Career:-

Clara 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 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 (29 July 1856), Clara devoted herself principally to the interpretation of his works. But when she first visited England in 1856 largely through the good offices of William Sterndale Bennett, the English composer and friend of her late husband, 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.

She played a particular role in restoring Brahms's D minor concerto to the general repertory; it had fallen out of favour after its premiere, and was only rehabilitated in the 1870s, thanks mainly to the efforts of Clara Schumann and Brahms himself.

She was initially interested in the works of Liszt, but later developed an outright hostility to him. She ceased to play any of his works; she suppressed her husband's dedication to Liszt of his Fantasie in C major when she published Schumann's complete works; and she refused to attend a Beethoven centenary festival in Vienna in 1870 when she heard that Liszt and Richard Wagner would be participating.

She was particularly scathing of Wagner. Of Tannhäuser, she said that he "wears himself out in atrocities"; she described Lohengrin as "horrible"; and she wrote that Tristan und Isolde was "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life".

Clara Schumann Life

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.

She held Anton Bruckner, whose 7th Symphony she heard in 1885, in very low esteem. She wrote to Brahms, describing it as "a horrible piece". But she was more impressed with Richard Strauss's early Symphony in F minor in 1887.

Clara Schumann 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 the piano-duet version.

She suffered a stroke on 26 March 1896, dying on 20 May at age 76. She is buried at Bonn's Alter Friedhof (Old Cemetery) with her husband.

She was portrayed onscreen by Katharine Hepburn in the 1947 film Song of Love, in which Paul Henreid played Robert Schumann and Robert Walker starred as a young Johannes Brahms.

She was also portrayed more recently in a German film named simply "Geliebte Clara" in 2008 taking a look at the lives of 19th-century composers Clara and Robert Schumann.

Legacy:-

Although for many years after her death Clara Schumann was not widely recognized as a composer, as a pianist she made an impression which lasts until today. She was one of the first pianists to perform from memory, making that the standard for concertizing. Trained by her father to play by ear and to memorize, she gave public performances from memory as early as age thirteen, a fact noted as something exceptional by her reviewers.

She was also instrumental in changing the kind of programs expected of concert pianists. In her early career, before her marriage to Robert, she played what was then customary, mainly bravura pieces designed to showcase the artist's technique, often in the form of arrangements or variations on popular themes from operas, written by virtuosos such as Thalberg, Herz, or Henselt. And, as it was also customary to play one's own compositions, she included at least one of her own works in every program, works such as her Variations on a Theme by Bellini (Op. 8) and her popular Scherzo (Op. 10). However, after settling into married life, probably under the influence of Robert, her performances focused almost exclusively on more serious music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann.

Clara Schumann's influence has reached us as well through her teaching, which emphasized a singing tone and expression, with technique entirely subordinated to the intentions of the composer. One of her students, Mathilde Verne, carried her teaching to England where she taught, among others, Solomon; while another of her students, Carl Friedberg, carried the tradition to the Juilliard School in America, where his students included Malcolm Frager and Bruce Hungerford.

And, of course, Clara was instrumental in getting the works of Robert Schumann recognized, appreciated and added to the repertoire. She promoted him tirelessly, beginning when his music was unknown or disliked, when the only other important figure in music to play Schumann occasionally was Liszt, and continuing until the end of her long career.

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 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's compositional output decreased notably after she reached the age of thirty-six. The only compositions that exist from later in her life are cadenzas written to two concertos–one by Mozart and the other by Beethoven–and some sketches for a piece that never reached completion.  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."

Quotes of 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.

"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.

Quick Facts of Clara Schumann:-

-Clara was born in Leipzig on September 13, 1819; died in Frankfurt on May 20, 1896.
-Robert Schumann was born in Zwickau on June 8, 1810; died in the asylum at Endenich near Bonn on July 29, 1856.
-Clara's parents were Friedrich Wieck (1785-1873), a music teacher, and Marianne Tromlitz Wieck (Bargiel) (1797-1872), a soprano and student of Wieck; Clara's father had resolved before her birth that she would be a great musician and child prodigy.
-Her first public appearance was in 1828 (age 9); first complete piano recital in 1830 (age 11); first extended tour in 1831.
-She performed extensively and studied piano, voice, violin, instrumentation, score reading, counterpoint, composition; wrote and published several pieces for solo piano.
-Robert Schumann came to live and study with Wieck in 1830, and asked permission to marry Clara in 1837; Wieck objected, and did all he could to prevent the wedding before Clara's 21st birthday when she would be legally able without his consent; Robert and Clara filed a lawsuit, and won, but out of spite went ahead and married the day before her birthday, September 12, 1840.
-They first lived in Leipzig where they both taught in the Conservatory there; they moved to Dresden in 1844, to Düsseldorf in 1850.
-Their children were: Marie (1841-1929), Elise (1843-1928), Julie (1845-72), Emil (1846-47), Ludwig (1848-99), Ferdinand (1849-91), Eugenie (1851-1938), Felix (1854-79).
-Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) met the Schumanns in 1853, and remained a dear friend of both while they lived. -Robert's mental health was poor, and following a suicide attempt in 1854, he was committed to the asylum at Endenich; he is said to have suffered from manic depression and psychosis.
-Clara moved to Berlin in 1857, where she performed, taught, and edited Robert's works and letters; she was known as a champion and interpreter of the music of Schumann and Brahms, and was a direct influence on their music.
-Her playing was characterized by technical mastery, thoughtful interpretation, poetic spirit, depth of feeling, a singing tone, and strict observance of the composer's markings.
-She travelled on 38 concert tours outside Germany.
-All her compositions date from 1853 or before, including 29 songs, 3 partsongs, 4 pieces for piano and orchestra, 20 pieces for solo piano, and cadenzas for 3 piano concertos by Beethoven and Mozart; her works are numbered up to Op. 23, with 17 others without opus numbers.
-She set poetry by: Heine, Rückert, H. Rollet, E. Geibel, Kerner, F. Serre, Goethe, Lyser, and Burns (translated by Gerhard).

Works of Clara Schumann:-

Clara Schumann's published works are listed below by date of publication. Twenty-five additional unpublished or lost works may be found in Reich, Nancy B., Clara Schumann, The Artist and The Woman, appendix.

        1831· Quatre Polonaises pour le pianoforte, Op. 1.
  1832· 9 Caprices en forme de valse pour le piano, Op. 2. Dedicated to Madame Henriette Foerster, née Weicke.
  1833· Romance variée pour le piano, Op. 3 (C major). Dedicated to Monsieur Robert Schumann.
  1834· Walzer fűr Gesang und Klavier. Song with text by Johann Peter Lyser. Published in collection Lyser's Liedersammlung.
  1835· Valses romantiques pour le piano, Op. 4. Dedicated to Madame Emma Eggers née Garlichs. The Valses were orchestrated but none of the instrumental parts survive.
  1835· Quatre pieces caractéristiques, Op. 5 (1. Le Sabbat; 2. Caprice à la Boléro; 3. Romance: 4. Ballet des Revenants). Dedicated to Mademoiselle Sophie Kaskel.
  1836· 6 Soirées musicales, Op. 6 (1. Toccatina in A minor; 2. Nocturne in F Major; 3. Mazurka in G minor; 4. Ballade in D minor; 5. Mazurka in G major; 6. Polonaise in A minor). Dedicated to Madame Henriette Voigt.
  1836· Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7: Premier concert pour le piano-forte avec accompagnement d'orchestre (ou de quintour). (1 Allegro maestoso; 2 Romanze. Andante non troppo con grazia; 3 Finale. Allegro non troppo; allegro molto). Dedicated to Monsieur Louis Spohr. A draft exists of the last movement, orchestrated by Robert Schumann and in Schumann's hand.
  1837· Variations de concert pour le pianoforte, sur la Cavatine du Pirate, de Bellini, Op. 8. Dedicated to Monsieur Adolph Henselt.
  1838· Impromptu in G major. Souvenir de Vienne.
  1839· Scherzo No. 1 in D minor, Op. 10.
  1840· Trois Romances pour le pianoforte, Op. 11 (1. E-flat minor, Andante; 2. G minor. Andante; 3. A major, Moderato). Dedicated to Monsieur Robert Schumann.
  1841· Am Strande. Song with text by Robert Burns. Published in Neue Zeitung für Musik, July 1841.
  1841· 3 songs: Zwőlf Gedichte aus F. Rűckert's Liebesfrűling fűr Gesang und pianoforte von Robert und Clara Schumann, Op. 12: 2. Er ist gekommen in Sturm und Regen; 4. Liebst du um Schönheit; 11. 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· Piano Sonata in G minor (1. Allegro; 2. Adagio con espressione e ben legato; 3. Scherzo; Trio; 4 Rondo).
  1843· 6 songs: Sechs lieder mit begleitung des pianoforte, Op. 13: 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. Dedicated to Queen Caroline Amalie of Denmark.
  1843· O weh des Scheidens, das er tat.
  1844· Impromptu in E major (published in Album du gaulois, 1885), Sechs Lieder Op. 13: 1. Ich stand in drunklen Traumen; 2. Sie liebten sich beide; 3. Liebeszauber; 4. Der Mond kommt still gegangen; 5. Ich hab' in deinem Augen; 6. Die stille lotusblume.
  1845· Scherzo No. 2 in C minor, Op. 14: Deuxième scherzo pour le pianoforte, Op. 14. Dedicated to Madame Tutein née Siboni.
  1845· Quatre pièces fugitives, Op. 15 (1. F major, Larghetto; 2. A minor, In poco agitato; 3. D major, Andante espressivo; 4. G major, Scherzo). Dedicated to Marie Wieck. Scherzo originally composed for unpublished Sonatine.
  1845· 3 Preludes and Fugues: III Praeludien und fugen für das pianoforte, Op. 16: (1. B flat major; 2. B flat major; 3. D minor).
  1847· Piano Trio in G minor: Trio fur pianoforte, violine und violoncello, Op. 17: (1. Allegro moderato; 2. Scherzo. Tempo di menuetto; 3. Andante; 4. Allegretto). Some emendations on autograph seem to be by Robert Schumann.
  1848· Mein Stern ("O du mein Stern"). Song with text by Friederike Serre.
  1854· Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann: Variationen für das pianoforte über ein thema von Robert Schumann, Op. 20. Dedicated to Robert Schumann.
  1855· Drei romanzen für pianoforte, Op. 21. Dedicated to Johannes Brahms.
  1855· Drei romanzen für pianoforte und violine, Op. 22. Dedicated to Joseph Joachim.
  1855· Sechs lieder aus jucunde von Hermann Rollet, Op. 23 (1. Was weinst du, Blümein?; 2. An einem lichten Morgen; 3. Geheimes Flüstern; 4. Auf einem grünem Hügel; 5. Das ist ein tag; 6. O lust, O lust. Dedicated to Livia Frege.
  1885· Impromptu. Published in Album du Galois.
  1870· Cadenzas (2) for Beethoven Piano Concerto in G Major, op. 58.
  1870· Cadenzas for Beethoven Piano Concerto in C Minor, op. 37.
  1891· Cadenzas (2) for Mozart Piano Concerto in D Minor (K. 466).
  1977· Romanze für Clavier. Published in Clara Schumann, Romantische Klaviermusik, vol. 2.

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