Clara Schumann

Photography of Clara and Robert Schumann

Clara Wieck-Schumann's (1819-1896) was also born into a musical family in Leipzig, and her father, s a famous piano teacher, was very ambitious about Clara's musical future. She started performing in public at the age of eight in Leipzig and was remarked by some of the most important cultural figures, such as Goethe and Liszt. Her first published compositions came out in 1829.

At the age of 15 she premiered her Piano Concerto, and when she was 18, Robert Schumann, whom she met as a child already, asked her father for her hand but Friedrich Wieck didn't approve and tried to separate the lovers.

They finally got married in 1840, and Clara Schumann had to gradually give up composing. Even if Robert Schumann believed in Clara's great musical talent, he believed also that a woman is destined for the kitchen and nursery.

They got eight children, and Clara questioned her abilities as a composer, but many of the reasons for not being able to compose were also practical: as a famous pianist, very much in demand, mother of eight children and wife of a man who had growingly difficult mental problems, she simply didn’t have time for it. Also she didn’t take that time because she didn’t believe in herself as a composer, in spite of the good reception of her works and supportive comments from her colleges.

Clara wrote in her diary " I once believed that I had creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not wish to compose-- there never was one able to do it. Am I intended to be the one? It would be arrogant to believe that. That was something with which my father tempted me in former days. But I soon gave up believing this. May Robert always create; that must always make me happy".

I am tempted to include a link to Clara’s Piano Trio but for variety’s sake here is the First movement of her Piano Concerto which we mentioned earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coAULW2ipiY