Clara Schumann: still in Robert's shadow even after 200 years

Exactly 200 years ago, on 13 September 1819, Clara Schumann was born in Leipzig as Clara Wieck. She is among one of the greatest pianists of the nineteenth century. Against her father's wishes, she married Robert Schumann, whose work she fervently promoted. She also wrote well-received compositions of her own and was more famous than Robert. Yet she was largely forgotten after her death. Even her 200^e anniversary did not lead to a tsunami of concerts. Sunday 15 September did see two commemorative concerts in the Old John in Velp and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Clara Schumann was brought up on music. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, was a music publisher, singing teacher, pianist and piano pedagogue; mother Marianne Tromlitz was a singer and pianist. She performed in such important halls as the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and came from a distinguished family of musicians. Her father was city cantor of Plauen and her grandfather was a well-known flutist and composer.

Although Clara's parents shared their passion for music and had five children in a short time, they did not have a happy marriage. The independent mother could not put up with her husband's many tantrums. After eight years of marriage, she filed for divorce, leaving the children with Wieck; Clara was only five years old. She later wrote that she missed contact with her mother very much, no matter how much her father loved her.

Speechless but musical

Clara suffered so much from the tense atmosphere at home that by the age of four she could not talk. It wasn't until she was eight that she finally spoke at the level of her age. Musically, on the other hand, she developed rapidly. Father may have been hot-tempered, but he was a gifted educator. He taught in a playful manner, adapting to the character of his students. Thus, ear exercises and training of dexterity became pleasurable pursuits. In the process, he encouraged his daughter to develop her own feelings.

Soon Clara was able to excel vue (without preparation) playing from sheet, while at the same time she was a great improviser. 'Her ladders swayed from high to low across the keyboard like the waves of the sea,' wrote daughter Eugénie years later. Together with her father, Clara attended concerts; she also played at soirées organised by him. Huize Wieck developed into a hotspot avant la lettre: everyone who mattered came over. This is how Clara learned to play for an interested but critical audience.

Around the age of nine, the violinist Niccolò Paganini predicted her a glorious future because of her delicate playing. That same year, she played at the famous Gewandhaus. Two years followed her official debut there, with works by Carl Czerny and herself, among others. This concert was greeted with stormy applause and marked the start of an international career that would not end until 61 years later.

Prodigy with depth

Clara Schumann toured all over Germany with her father, with performances in smaller towns often defying their stamina. Not only were there battles against rickety, fake pianos, but father and daughter were often forced to live in poor boarding houses. In one of them, Clara's precious concert dress was eaten away by spiders. After this, father Wieck decided to limit performances in the province as much as possible.

He molded his daughter's career extremely carefully; after all, she was not the only child prodigy. True, she possessed a dazzling technique, but he understood that audiences soon tired of empty virtuoso displays. Her programmes featured epathetic popular works alongside more profound pieces by herself, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn. Around the age of 15 (!), she wrote her scintillating Piano Concerto, which rivals Robert Schumann's concerto, but unfortunately is rarely performed.

Ransom Robert

The success of their tours contrasted sharply with everyday life. During one of the soirées, Clara had met the nine-year-old composer and pianist Robert Schumann. Around the age of 11, he moved in with the Wiecks to take piano lessons from her father. Robert and Clara fell deeply in love - much to her father's annoyance. Although Wieck recognised Robert Schumann's talent, he considered him a loquacious man, who smoked and drank too much and lacked discipline.

Wieck's attempts to curb the burgeoning love between his daughter and Robert Schumann failed miserably. In November 1835, they gave each other "a first kiss", after which Wieck threatened to "shoot Robert if he ever tried to meet Clara again". Clara and Robert secretly wrote each other love letters, which were delivered by a common friend. At a concert by Clara on 13 August in Leipzig, she played three of Robert's Etudes symphoniques. A day later, the couple got engaged and Robert officially asked for her hand.

This was followed by an unsavoury period in which Robert forced a marriage to Clara through the courts. This was consummated on 12 September 1840. This 'finally put an end to all those nights of worry, sleeplessly thinking of you, and all this pitiful sorrow', Clara noted in her diary. The couple moved into a flat in Leipzig. - It was only three years later that Clara's father reconciled himself to this marriage. Mainly because he saw that she simply continued her intensive concert career and, moreover, continued to compose.

'Sind Sie auch musikalisch?'

At that time, Clara was many times better known than Robert. She had already travelled all over Europe and as a pianist was placed on a par with such luminaries as Liszt, Thalberg and Rubinstein. People fondly called her 'Queen of the piano'. She played with an extremely lyrical tone and a glowing expression. She packed her audience with a popular-virtuoso piece, but then performed serious works by herself and composers such as Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann. Thanks to Clara, her husband became known throughout Europe: she performed the premieres of almost all his pieces.

How much she surpassed her husband in fame is illustrated by an anecdote about the Dutch King Willem II. During a Clara Schumann concert in The Hague, he asked Robert: 'Sind Sie auch musikalisch, Herr Schumann?'

Had Clara grown up in a family full of tensions, her own marriage was not easy either. Although Robert loved Clara very much, he suffered from depression, which he took out on her. When things were bad for him, he would go on to pick at her play, making her insecure. 'What good is the applause of others, if I cannot please him?' she noted desperately in her diary in 1853.

Still, this year was generally happy: Clara enjoyed having her own room in the Düsseldorf flat the family had moved into shortly before: 'When I can study so much, I feel truly in my element. It is as if I am in a completely different mood, lighter and freer, and everything seems more cheerful and happy,' she wrote. That same year, she composed her beautiful Sechs Lieder aus Jucunde opus 23.

Johannes Brahms

In 1853, the violinist Joseph Joachim also introduced the young Brahms to the Schumann household . The cheerful Brahms was a bright spot for Clara at a time when her husband was becoming increasingly ill. After Robert attempted suicide, he was admitted to a sanatorium in Endenich in 1854. To her despair, Clara was not allowed to visit him, after which she sought comfort from Brahms, which has led to much speculation. According to Clara herself, she had only maternal and friendly feelings for her admirer, who was 14 years younger. However, she was his muse and Brahms also submitted all his compositions to her for assessment.

Despite her grief and the difficulty of supporting herself and her seven children and paying the costs of the sanatorium, Clara Schumann continued to compose. In 1855, she published her Three Romances opus 22, which she dedicated to Joseph Joachim. It was to be one of her last compositions. After her husband's death in 1856, Clara Schumann stopped composing. Why is not known: she remained active as a pianist and pedagogue until the end of her life. In March 1896, she suffered two strokes in quick succession; Clara Schumann died on 20 May that year, aged 77.

Little by little, more appreciation of her music is emerging, thanks to the efforts of feminist musicians and musicologists. Still, Clara Schumann stands at her 200^e birthday still in Robert's shadow. - Who knows, the next hundred years may yet change that.