Schumann, Clara (EN)

Schumann, Wieck-Schumann, Wieck, Clara Josephine, *13 September 1819 Leipzig, †20 May 1896 Frankfurt am Main, German pianist, composer and teacher. She received her general and musical education from her father, Friedrich Wieck, for whim her early performances and concert tours were a great advertisement of his piano teaching method. She debuted at a concert already in 1828 at Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and in 1830, she performed there with a full programme containing works by F. Kalkbrenner, H. Herz, C. Czerny and her own Variationen über ein Originalthema. In 1831, from a tour of Germany and performances in Paris, she began to concertise actively. In 1840, she married R. Schumann. She performed most often at Gewandhaus, including 21 concerts conducted by F. Mendelssohn (i.a. the premiere of R. Schumann’s Piano Concerto, 1846). She achieved success in Berlin (from 1837), Vienna (1838), where she received the title Kammervirtuosin and honorary membership in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, in Russia (1844, 1864), and England (19 concert tours from 1856); she also gave concerts in Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and France (tour in 1862). After 1890, she only performed at private chamber concerts, among others, with J. Joachim and R. Mühlfeld (Frankfurt am Main, 1894). Moreover, she was a teacher; after the establishment of the Leipzig Conservatory (1843), she was appointed as the piano professor by Mendelssohn. From 1878, she was a professor at a newly founded Conservatory in Frankfurt am Main. Her students included, among others, N. Janotha.

Clara Schumann was seen as the heroine of the 19^th-century music. The story of romantic love and the then-famous battle for consent to marriage, which she and R. Schumann had to fight with her despotic father (1840), became the subject of literary works. After her husband’s death (1856), Schumann was forced to cope with raising eight children alone, combining her duties as a mother with intensive concert activity. The collection of her programmes, preserved in the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau, consists of 1,299 items. Admired by F. Mendelssohn, N. Paganini, F. Chopin, F. Liszt, L. Spohr, I. Moscheles and M. Bruch, and as a close friend of J. Joachim and J. Brahms, she was one of the leading pianists of that time, alongside Liszt and An. Rubinstein. She performed, among others, with Mendelssohn and Moscheles (1835, Concerto in D minor BMV 1063 by J.S. Bach), Liszt (1841, Hexamerori), and many times with Brahms and Joachim.

The turning point in her career was her relationship with Schumann; thanks to him, she broadened her knowledge of literature and composition, formed her aesthetic views and deepened her attitude toward the art of performance. In her concert programmes, purely virtuoso pieces (including those by J.P. Pixis, C.G. Reissiger, A. Henselt, I. Moscheles, and S. Thalberg) gave way to the music of D. Scarlatti, J.S. Bach. W.A. Mozart and L. van Beethoven, while miniatures and characteristic pieces were replaced by large forms (e.g. Beethoven’s last sonatas). Schumann introduced works by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Chopin to concert halls and gave numerous premieres of compositions by R. Schumann and Brahms. She began working on the Chopin repertoire with Variations in B-flat major Op. 2, which she performed at the age of 12 at a public concert in Weimar (7 October 1831). From 1833, her programmes included an increasing number of Chopin’s works, starting from Concerto in E minor and Trio in G minor Op. 8 for piano, violin and cello (1834). At one of Schumann’s last public performances, her programme included Concerto in F minor (Frankfurt am Main 1890). Schumann’s mature pianistic style was shaped by works of Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Brahms; it was characterised by greater drama and intensity of sound than the performance style of the virtuoso pieces that she had previously included in her repertoire. Her technical mastery was also evident in virtuoso ‘preluding’ and ‘fantasising,’ which she performed with pleasure on stage despite Schumann’s warnings (letter from 3 December 1838). Some of these improvisations were written down (Präludien und Vorspiele 1895) and published (New York 1999). However, Schumann’s principle was to strictly respect the original text in performance practice, teaching and editorial work on the collected edition of R. Schumann’s works (31 volumes, partly in cooperation with Brahms, Leipzig 1879–93). From 1846, for about 10 years, Schumann participated in works on the collected edition of Chopin’s compositions, but for unclear reasons, she did not reveal herself as a co-editor (B & H).

 Clara Schumann’s work remained in the shadow of her husband’s compositional activity. Apart from 12 Gedichte aus F. Rückerts “Liebesfrühling” published together and mutual borrowings of themes (Impromptus über ein Thema von C. Wieck, Leipzig 1833; Variationen überein Thema von R. Schumann, Leipzig 1854), C. Schumann’s creative work – treated marginally also by herself – did not arouse much interest in her home and professional circles. As a composer, she drew attention with Piano Concerto in A minor, which she performed at Gewandhaus conducted by Mendelssohn (1835). From the period of her marriage to Schumann – apart from songs – the most striking is Piano Trio in G minor. After her husband’s death, Schumann gave up composing. From that time, there are only astonishing critical remarks she made in her correspondence with Brahms, who sent her almost all of his new works for evaluation. Since the 1970s, the interest in C. Schumann’s works has been growing; there were some collected editions and numerous recordings of her piano and chamber works, as well as solo and choral songs, published by the record companies Koch, Callope, Hyperion, Partridge, Bayer.

Literature: P.-A. Koch Clara Wieck-Schumann (1819–1896). Kompositionen. Eine Zusammenstellung der Werke, Literatur und Schallplaten, Frankfurt am Main 1991; B. Litzmann Clara Schumann. Ein Künstlerleben nach Tagebüchern und Briefen, 3 volumes, Leipzig 1902–08, reprint Hildesheim 1971; Clara Schumann – Johannes Brahms. Briefe aus den Jahren 1853– 1896, ed. B. Litzmann, 2 volumes, Leipzig 1927, reprint Hildesheim 1970; Clara und Robert Schumann. Briefwechsel. Kritische Gesamtausgabe 1832–1838, ed. E. Weissweiler, 2 volumes, Basel 1984, 1987; F. May The Girlhood of Clara Schumann, London 1912; J. Chissell Clara Schumann. A Dedicated Spirit, London 1983; N.B. Reich Clara Schumann. The Artist and the Woman, London 1985, Ithaca (New York) 2000; E. Weissweiler Clara Schumann, Hamburg 1990; J. Klassen Clara Wieck-Schumann. Die Virtuosin als Komponistin, «Kieler Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft» XXXVII, Kassel 1990; N.B. Reich Clara Schumann. Romantik als Schicksal. Eine Biographie, Reinbek 1991; B. Borchard Clara Schumann. Ihr Leben, Frankfurt am Main 1994; C. de Vries Die Pianistin Clara Wieck-Schumann. Interpretation im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Individualität, «SchumannForschungen» V, Mainz 1996; “Ich fahre in mein liebes Wien”. Clara Schumann. Fakten, Bilder, Projektionen, ed. E. Ostleitner, U. Simek, Vienna 1996; H. Loos Chopin w repertuarze koncertowym Clary Schumann, «Chopin w Kręgu Przyjaciół» / «Chopin im Umkreis seiner Freude», ed. I. Poniatowska, vol. 3, Warsaw 1997; Clara Schumann. Komponistin, Interpretin, Unternehmerin, Ikone, ed. P. Ackermann, H. Schneider, Hildesheim 1999.