Clara Josephine Schumann (; ; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the
Romantic era
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
, she exerted her influence over the course of a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital by lessening the importance of purely
virtuosic works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a
Piano Concerto
A piano concerto, a type of concerto, is a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuosic showpieces which require an advance ...
, chamber music, choral pieces, and songs.
She grew up in
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
, where both her father
Friedrich Wieck and her mother
Mariane were pianists and piano teachers. In addition, her mother was a singer. Clara was a child prodigy, and was trained by her father. She began touring at age eleven, and was successful in Paris and Vienna, among other cities. She married the composer
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...
, on 12 September 1840, and the couple had eight children. Together, they encouraged
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...
and maintained a close relationship with him. She gave the public premieres of many works by her husband and by Brahms.
After Robert Schumann's early death, she continued her concert tours in Europe for decades, frequently with the violinist
Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. Beginning in 1878, she was an influential piano educator at
Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt, where she attracted international students. She edited the publication of her husband's work. Schumann died in Frankfurt, but was buried in
Bonn
Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
beside her husband.
Several films have focused on Schumann's life, the earliest being ''
Träumerei'' (''Dreaming'') of 1944. A 2008 film, ''
Geliebte Clara'' (''Beloved Clara''), was directed by
Helma Sanders-Brahms
Helma Sanders-Brahms (20 November 1940 – 27 May 2014) was a German film director, screenwriter and producer.
Biography
Helma Sanders was born on 20 November 1940 in Emden, Germany. She attended a school for acting in Hannover from 1960 to 1 ...
. An image of Clara Schumann from an 1835 lithograph by
Andreas Staub was featured on the 100
Deutsche Mark
The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark (currency), mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it ...
banknote from 1989 to 2002. Interest in her compositions began to revive in the late 20th century, and her 2019 bicentenary prompted new books and exhibitions.
Life
Early life
Family
Clara Josephine Wieck was born in
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
on 13 September 1819 to
Friedrich Wieck and his wife
Mariane (''née'' Tromlitz). Her mother was a famous singer in Leipzig who performed weekly piano and soprano solos at the
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus () is a concert hall in Leipzig, the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics.
History
The first Gewandhaus (''Altes Gewandhaus'')
The ...
. Clara's parents had irreconcilable differences, in part due to her father's unyielding nature. Prompted by an affair between her mother and Adolph Bargiel, her father's friend, the Wiecks were divorced in 1825, with Mariane later marrying Bargiel. Five-year-old Clara remained with her father while Mariane and Bargiel eventually moved to Berlin, limiting contact between Clara and her mother to written letters and occasional visits.
Child prodigy
From an early age, Clara's father planned her career and life down to the smallest detail. She started receiving basic piano instruction from her mother at the age of four. After her mother moved out, she began taking daily one-hour lessons from her father. They included subjects such as piano, violin, singing,
theory
A theory is a systematic and rational form of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the conclusions derived from such thinking. It involves contemplative and logical reasoning, often supported by processes such as observation, experimentation, ...
, harmony, composition, and
counterpoint
In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin ...
. She then had to practice for two hours every day. Her father followed the methods in his own book, ''Wiecks pianistische Erziehung zum schönen Anschlag und zum singenden Ton'' ("Wieck's Piano Education for a Delicate Touch and a Singing Sound.") Her musical studies came largely at the expense of her broader general education, although she still studied religion and languages under her father's control of the family.
Clara Wieck made her official debut on 28 October 1828 at the
Gewandhaus
Gewandhaus () is a concert hall in Leipzig, the home of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Today's hall is the third to bear this name; like the second, it is noted for its fine acoustics.
History
The first Gewandhaus (''Altes Gewandhaus'')
The ...
in Leipzig, at age nine. The same year, she performed at the Leipzig home of Ernst Carus, director of the mental hospital at
Colditz Castle
Colditz Castle (or ''Schloss Colditz'' in German) is a Renaissance architecture, Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz in the States of Germany, state of Saxony in Germany. The castle is between the towns o ...
. There, she met another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening,
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...
, who was nine years older. Schumann admired Clara's playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to stop studying law, which had never interested him much, and take music lessons with Clara's father. While taking lessons, he rented a room in the Wieck household and stayed about a year.
From September 1831 to April 1832, Clara toured Paris and other European cities, accompanied by her father. In
Weimar
Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...
, she performed a bravura piece by
Henri Herz for
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
, who presented her with a medal with his portrait and a written note saying: "For the gifted artist Clara Wieck". During that tour, the violinist
Niccolò Paganini
Niccolò (or Nicolò) Paganini (; ; 27 October 178227 May 1840) was an Italian violinist and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. His 24 Caprices ...
, who was also in Paris, offered to appear with her. Her Paris recital was poorly attended because many people had fled the city due to an outbreak of
cholera
Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...
. The tour marked her transition from a child prodigy to a young woman performer.
Success in Vienna
From December 1837 to April 1838, at the age of 18, Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna.
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Seraphicus Grillparzer (15 January 1791 – 21 January 1872) was an Austrian writer who was considered to be the leading Austrian dramatist of the 19th century. His plays were and are frequently performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna. He ...
, Austria's leading dramatic poet, wrote a poem entitled "Clara Wieck and Beethoven" after hearing her perform Beethoven's ''
Appassionata'' sonata during one of these recitals. She performed to sell-out crowds and laudatory critical reviews; Benedict Randhartinger, a friend of
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...
, gave her an autographed copy of Schubert's ''Erlkönig'', inscribing it "To the celebrated artist, Clara Wieck." Chopin described her playing to
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...
, 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
The New Journal of Music (, and abbreviated to NZM) is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, Julius Knorr and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appe ...
''. On 15 March, she was named a ''Königliche und Kaiserliche Österreichische Kammer-virtuosin'' ("Royal and Imperial Austrian Chamber Virtuoso"), Austria's highest musical honor.
An anonymous music critic, describing her Vienna recitals, said: "The appearance of this artist can be regarded as epoch-making... In her creative hands, the most ordinary passage, the most routine motive acquires a significant meaning, a colour, which only those with the most consummate artistry can give."
Lasting relationships
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann was a little more than nine years older than Wieck. In 1837, when she was 18, he proposed to her and she accepted. Robert then asked her father for her hand in marriage. Friedrich was strongly opposed to the marriage, and refused his permission. Robert and Clara decided to go to court and sue him. The judge allowed the marriage, which took place in
Schönefeld church on 13 September 1840, the day before Clara's 21st birthday, when she attained
majority status. From then on, the couple maintained a joint musical and personal diary of their life together.
In February 1854, Robert Schumann had a mental collapse, attempted suicide, and was admitted, at his request, to a
sanatorium
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence.
Sanatoriums are often in a health ...
in the village of
Endenich near Bonn, where he stayed for the last two years of his life. In March 1854, Brahms, Joachim,
Albert Dietrich, and
Julius Otto Grimm spent time with Clara Schumann, playing music for her and with her to divert her mind from the tragedy. Brahms composed some private piano pieces for her to console her: four piano pieces and a set of
variations on a
theme
Theme or themes may refer to:
* Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos
* Theme (computing), a custom graphical appearance for certain software.
* Theme (linguistics), topic
* Theme ( ...
by Robert Schumann that she had also written variations on a year earlier, as her
Op. 20. The music by Brahms was not intended to be published, but for her alone. Brahms later thought to publish them anonymously, but eventually they were issued as his four
Ballades, Op. 10, and ''
Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann'', Op. 9. Brahms dedicated the variations to both Schumanns, hoping that Robert would be released soon and rejoined with his family.
For the entire two years of Robert Schumann's stay at the institution, his wife was not permitted to visit him, while Brahms visited him regularly. When it was apparent that Robert was near death, she was finally admitted to see him. He appeared to recognize her, but could only speak a few words. Robert Schumann died two days later, on 29 July 1856.
Joseph Joachim
The Schumanns first met violinist
Joseph Joachim in November 1844, when he was 14 years old. A year later, Clara Schumann wrote in her diary that in a concert on 11 November 1845, "little Joachim was very much liked. He played a new violin concerto by
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...
, which is said to be wonderful." In May 1853, they heard Joachim play the solo part in Beethoven's
Violin Concerto
A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) and instrumental ensemble (customarily orchestra). Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up thro ...
. She wrote that he played "with a finish, a depth of poetic feeling, his whole soul in every note, so ideally, that I have never heard violin-playing like it, and I can truly say that I have never received so indelible an impression from any virtuoso." A lasting friendship developed between Clara and Joseph, which for more than forty years never failed her in things great or small, never wavered in its loyalty.
Over her career, Schumann gave over 238 concerts with Joachim in Germany and Britain, more than with any other artist. The two were particularly noted for their playing of
Beethoven's violin sonatas.
Johannes Brahms

In early 1853, the then-unknown 20-year-old
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...
met Joachim and made a very favorable impression. Brahms received from him a
letter of introduction to Robert Schumann, and thus presented himself at the Schumanns' home in Düsseldorf. Brahms played some of his piano solo compositions for the Schumanns, and they were deeply impressed. Robert published an article highly lauding Brahms, and Clara wrote in the diary that Brahms "seemed as if sent straight from God".
During Robert Schumann's last years, confined to an asylum, Brahms was a strong presence for the Schumann family. His letters indicate his strong feelings for Clara. Their relationship has been interpreted as somewhere between friendship and love, and Brahms always maintained the utmost respect for her, as a woman and a talented musician.
Brahms played his
First Symphony for her before its premiere. She gave some advice about the Adagio, which he took to heart. She expressed her appreciation of the Symphony as a whole, but mentioned her dissatisfaction with the endings of the third and fourth movements. She was the first to perform many of his works in public, including the ''
Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel'', a solo piano work written by Brahms in 1861.
Concert tours
Clara Schumann first toured England in April 1856, while her husband was still living but unable to travel. She was invited to play in a
London Philharmonic Society concert by conductor
William Sterndale Bennett, a good friend of Robert's. She was displeased with the little time spent on rehearsals: "They call it a rehearsal here if a piece is played through once." She wrote that musical "artists" in England "allow themselves to be treated as inferiors." She was happy, though, to hear the cellist
Alfredo Piatti play with "a tone, a bravura, a certainty, such as I never heard before". In May 1856, she played Robert Schumann's
Piano Concerto in A minor with the
New Philharmonic Society conducted by Dr Wylde, who as she said had "led a dreadful rehearsal" and "could not grasp the rhythm of the last movement". Still, she returned to London the following year and continued to perform in Britain for the next 15 years.
In October–November 1857, Schumann and Joachim went on a recital tour to Dresden and Leipzig.
St. James's Hall in London, which opened in 1858, hosted a series of "
Popular Concerts" of chamber music. Joachim visited London annually beginning in 1866. Schumann also spent many years in London participating in the Popular Concerts with Joachim and the celebrated Italian cellist
Carlo Alfredo Piatti. Second violinist
Louis Ries (nephew of composer Ferdinand Ries) and violist
J. B. Zerbini usually played on the same concert programs.
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
, the leading playwright and also a music critic, wrote that the Popular Concerts helped greatly to spread and enlighten musical taste in England.
In January 1867, Schumann toured
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
and
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
, Scotland, along with Joachim, Piatti, Ries, and Zerbini. Two sisters,
Louisa and Susanna Pyne, singers and managers of an opera company in England, and a man named Saunders, made all the arrangements. She was accompanied by her oldest daughter Marie, who wrote from Manchester to her friend Rosalie Leser that in Edinburgh the pianist "was received with tempestuous applause and had to give an encore, so had Joachim. Piatti, too, is always tremendously liked." Marie also wrote: "For the longer journeys we had a saloon
ar comfortably furnished with arm-chairs and sofas... the journey ... was very comfortable." On this occasion, the musicians were not "treated as inferiors".
Later life
Concerts
Schumann still performed actively in the 1870s and 1880s. She performed extensively and regularly throughout Germany during these decades, and had engagements in Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland. When in Basel, Switzerland, she often stayed with the
Von der Mühll family.
She continued her annual winter-spring concert tours of England, giving 16 of them between 1865 and 1888, often with violinist Joachim.
She took a break from concert performances, beginning in January 1874, cancelling her usual England tour due to an arm injury. In July, she consulted a doctor, who having massaged the arm, advised her to practice for only one hour a day. She rested for the remainder of the year before returning to the concert stage in March 1875. She had not fully recovered, and experienced more
neuralgia
Neuralgia (Greek ''neuron'', "nerve" + ''algos'', "pain") is pain in the distribution of a nerve or nerves, as in intercostal nerve, intercostal neuralgia, trigeminal neuralgia, and glossopharyngeal nerve, glossopharyngeal neuralgia.
Classifica ...
in her arm again in May, reporting that she "could not write on account of my arm". By October 1875, she had recovered enough to begin another tour in Germany.
In addition to solo piano recitals, chamber music, and accompanying singers, she continued to perform frequently with orchestras. In 1877, she performed Beethoven's
Fifth Piano Concerto in Berlin, with
Woldemar Bargiel conducting, her half-brother by her mother's second marriage, and had tremendous success. In 1883, she performed Beethoven's ''
Choral Fantasy'' with the newly-formed
Berlin Philharmonic
The Berlin Philharmonic () is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world.
Throughout the 20th century, the orchestra was led by conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922� ...
, and was enthusiastically celebrated, although she was playing with an injured hand in great pain, having fallen on a staircase the previous day. Later that year she played Beethoven's
Fourth Piano Concerto (with her own cadenzas) with Joachim conducting the same orchestra, again to great acclaim.
In 1885, Schumann once again joined Joachim conducting Mozart's
Piano Concerto in D minor, again playing her own cadenzas. The following day, she played her husband's Piano Concerto with Bargiel conducting. "I think I played fresher than ever", she wrote to Brahms, "What I liked very much about the concert was that I was able to give Woldemar the direction of it, who had longed for such an opportunity for years."
She 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 a version for two pianos, with
James Kwast.
Teaching

In 1878, Schumann was appointed the first piano teacher of the new
Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt. She had chosen Frankfurt among offers from Stuttgart, Hannover, and Berlin, because the director,
Joachim Raff
Joseph Joachim Raff (27 May 182224 or 25 June 1882) was a German-Swiss composer, pedagogue and pianist.James Deaville'Raff, (Joseph) Joachim' in ''Grove Music Online'' (2001)
Biography
Raff was born in Lachen, Switzerland, Lachen in Switzerland. ...
, had accepted her conditions: she could not teach more than 1-1/2 hours per day, was free to teach at her home, and had four months of vacation and time off for short tours in winter. She demanded two assistants, with her daughters Marie and Eugenie in mind.
She was the only woman on the faculty. Her fame attracted students from abroad, including Britain and the United States. She trained only advanced pupils, mostly young women, while her two daughters gave lessons to beginners. Among her 68 known students who made a musical career were
Leonard Borwick,
Fanny Davies,
John Arthur St. Oswald Dykes,
Ilona Eibenschütz, Nanette Falk (1835-1928),
Carl Friedberg,
Amina Goodwin,
Natalia Janotha,
Adelina de Lara, Marie Olson (1867-1916),
Jane Roeckel,
Franklin Taylor Franklin Taylor (February 5, 1843 – March 19, 1919) was an English pianist, organist, music educator, and writer on music.
Life and career
Born in Birmingham, England, Franklin Taylor showed early promise aa a pianist but had his first training a ...
and
Mary Wurm.
The Konservatorium held events to celebrate her 50th year on stage in 1878 and her 60th career anniversary ten years later. She held the teaching post until 1892 and contributed greatly to the improvement of modern piano playing technique.
Death
Clara Schumann suffered a stroke on 26 March 1896, and died on 20 May at age 76. She was buried in Bonn at
Alter Friedhof next to her husband, according to her own wish.
Family life

Robert Schumann gave his wife a diary on their wedding day. His first entry indicates that it should act as an autobiography of the family's personal lives, especially of the couple, and of their desires and accomplishments in the arts. It also functioned as a record of their artistic endeavors and growth. She fully accepted the arrangement of a shared diary, as evidenced by her many entries. It demonstrates her loyal love for her husband, with a desire to combine two lives into one artistically, although this life-long goal involved risks.
The couple remained joint partners in both family life and their careers. She premiered many of his works, from solo piano works to
her own piano versions of his orchestral works.
She often took charge of finances and general household affairs. Part of her responsibility included earning money by giving concerts, though she continued to play throughout her life, not just for the income but because she was an artist by training and nature. The burden of family duties increased over time and narrowed her ability as an artist. As a flourishing composer's wife, she was limited in her own explorations.
She was the main breadwinner for her family and the sole one after her husband was hospitalized and then died. She gave concerts and taught, and she did most of the work of organizing her own concert tours. She hired a housekeeper and a cook to keep house while she was away on her long tours.
Clara Schumann had eight children in 13 years:
* Marie (1841–1929)
* Elise (1843–1928)
* Julie (1845–1872)
* Emil (1846–1847)
* Ludwig (1848–1899)
* Ferdinand (1849–1891)
*
Eugenie (1851–1938)
* Felix (1854–1879)
Her life was punctuated by tragedy. Her husband was permanently institutionalized after a mental collapse. Her eldest living son Ludwig suffered from mental illness like his father and, in her words, eventually had to be "buried alive" in an institution. She became deaf in later life, and she often needed a wheelchair. Not only did her husband predecease her, but so did four of their children. Their first son, Emil, died in 1847, aged only 1. Their daughter Julie died in 1872, leaving two small children aged only 2 and 7, then raised by their grandmother. In 1879, their son Felix died aged 24. In 1891, their son Ferdinand died at the age of 41, leaving his children to her care.
Their oldest child Marie was of great support and help to her mother, taking the position of household cook. Marie also dissuaded her mother from continuing to burn letters that she had received from Brahms which he had asked her to destroy. Another daughter, Eugenie, who had been too young when her father died to remember him, wrote a book, ''Erinnerungen'' (Memoirs), published in 1925, covering her parents and Brahms.
Schumann famously rescued her children from violence during the
May Uprising in Dresden
The May Uprising took place in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony in 1849; it was one of the last of the series of events known as the Revolutions of 1848.
Events leading to the May Uprising
In the German states, revolutions began in March 1848, start ...
in 1849. On the evening of 3 May, Robert and Clara heard that the revolution against King
Frederick Augustus II of Saxony for not accepting the "constitution for a German Confederation" had arrived in Dresden. Most family members left and hid in a "neighbourhood security brigade", but on 7 May, she bravely walked back to Dresden to rescue her three children who had been left with a maid, defying a pack of armed men who confronted her, then walked back out of the city through the dangerous areas again.
Music
Performance repertoire
During her lifetime, Schumann was an internationally renowned concert pianist. Over 1,300 concert programs from her performances throughout Europe between 1831 through 1889 have been preserved. She championed the works of her husband and other contemporaries such as Brahms, Chopin and Mendelssohn.

The Schumanns were admirers of Chopin, especially of his ''
Variations on "Là ci darem la mano"'', and she played the piece herself. When she was 14 and her future husband 23, he wrote to her:
In her early years, her repertoire, selected by her father, was showy and in the style common to the time, with works by
Friedrich Kalkbrenner,
Adolf von Henselt,
Sigismond Thalberg
Sigismond Thalberg (8 January 1812 – 27 April 1871) was an Austrian composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.
Family
Thalberg was born in Pâquis near Geneva on 8 January 1812. Thalberg asserted that he ...
,
Henri Herz,
Johann Peter Pixis,
Carl Czerny and her own compositions. She turned to including compositions by Baroque composers such as
Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (26 October 1685 – 23 July 1757) was an Italian composer. He is classified primarily as a Baroque music, Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical peri ...
and
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, �joːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety ...
, but performed especially contemporary music by Chopin, Mendelssohn and her husband, whose music did not attain popularity until the 1850s.
In 1835, she performed her
Piano Concerto in A minor with the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra (Gewandhausorchester; also previously known in German as the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig) is a German symphony orchestra based in Leipzig, Germany. The orchestra is named after the concert hall in which it is bas ...
, conducted by Mendelssohn. On 4 December 1845, she premiered Robert Schumann's
Piano Concerto
A piano concerto, a type of concerto, is a solo composition in the classical music genre which is composed for piano accompanied by an orchestra or other large ensemble. Piano concertos are typically virtuosic showpieces which require an advance ...
in Dresden. Following the advice of Brahms she performed Mozart's
Piano Concerto in C minor at the
Hanoverian court and in Leipzig.
Along with
Arabella Goddard she was one of the first woman pianists to perform Beethoven's
Hammerklavier Sonata in public, doing so on two occasions before 1856. Her busiest years as a performer were between 1856 and 1873, after her husband's death. During this period, she experienced success as a performer in Britain, where her 1865 performance of Beethoven's
Piano Concerto in G major was met with enormous applause. As a chamber musician, she often gave concerts with violinist Joachim. In her later career, she frequently accompanied
lied
In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...
er singers in recitals.
Compositions
As part of the broad musical education given to her by her father, Clara Wieck learned to compose, and from childhood to middle age she produced a good body of work. Clara wrote that "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". Her Op. 1 was ''
Quatre Polonaises pour le pianoforte'' composed in 1831, and Op. 5 ''
4 Pièces caractéristiques'' in 1836, all piano pieces for her recitals. She wrote her
Piano Concerto in A minor at age 14, with some help from her future husband. She planned a second piano concerto, but only a ''Konzertsatz'' in F minor from 1847 survived.

After her marriage, she turned to lieder and choral works. The couple wrote and published one joint composition in 1841, setting a cycle of poems by
Friedrich Rückert
Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert (16 May 1788 – 31 January 1866) was a German poet, translation, translator, and professor of Oriental languages.
Biography
Johann Michael Friedrich Rückert was born 16 May 1788 in Schweinfurt and was the e ...
called ''Liebesfrühling'' (''Spring of Love'') in ''Zwölf Lieder auf F. Rückerts Liebesfrühling'', her Op. 12 and his Op. 37. Her chamber works include the
Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17 (1846) and
Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22 (1853), inspired by her husband's birthday. They were dedicated to Joachim, who performed them for
George V of Hanover, who declared them a "marvellous, heavenly pleasure".
As she grew older, she became more preoccupied with other responsibilities in life and found it hard to compose regularly, 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?" Her husband also expressed concern about the effect on her composing output:
She produced one to eight compositions every year beginning at age 11, until her output stopped in 1848, producing only a choral work that year for her husband's birthday and leaving her second piano concerto unfinished. These two works, while reserved for her opus 18 and 19, were never published. Five years later, however, when she was 34 in 1853, the year she met Brahms, she engaged in a flurry of composing, resulting in 16 pieces that year: a set of piano variations on an "Album Leaf" of her husband (his Op. 99 No. 4), eight "Romances" for piano solo and for violin and piano, and seven songs. These works were published a year later, after Robert's confinement, as her Op. 20 through 23.
For the next 43 years of her life, she only composed piano transcriptions of works by her husband and Brahms, including 41 transcriptions of Robert Schumann's lieder (commissioned by a publisher in 1872), and a short piano duet commissioned for a friend's wedding anniversary in 1879. In the last year of her life, she left several sketches for piano preludes, designed for piano students, as well as some published cadenzas for her performances of Beethoven and Mozart piano concertos.
Most of Clara Schumann's music was never played by anyone else and largely forgotten until a resurgence of interest in the 1970s. Today her compositions are increasingly performed and recorded.
Editor
Schumann was the authoritative editor, aided by Brahms and others, of her husband's works for the publishing firm of
Breitkopf & Härtel
Breitkopf & Härtel () is a German Music publisher, music publishing house. Founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, it is the world's oldest music publisher.
Overview
The catalogue contains over 1,000 composers, 8,000 works ...
. She also edited 20 sonatas by
Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti (26 October 1685 – 23 July 1757) was an Italian composer. He is classified primarily as a Baroque music, Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical peri ...
, letters (''Jugendbriefe'') by her husband in 1885, and his piano works with fingering and other instructions (''Fingersatz und Vortragsbezeichnungen'') in 1886.
"War of the Romantics"
In the early 1840s the Schumanns were interested in the works of
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...
and his young composer friends of what eventually became known as the
New German School, but in the second half of the decade they both became openly hostile toward Liszt because of their more musically conservative outlook and beliefs, Clara more so than Robert, as she had long been the more conservative aesthete in the Schumann marriage. By the mid-1850s, after Robert's decline, the young Brahms had joined the cause, and to promote her ideals and protect what she saw as an attack on her husband's beliefs, she, Brahms, and Joseph Joachim formed a group of conservative musicians who defended Robert Schumann's critical ideals of the legacy and respectability of music, the pinnacle of which had been Beethoven.
The opposing side of this "
War of the Romantics", a group of radical progressives in music (most of them from Weimar) led by Liszt and
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
, desired to escape composing under the shadow of Beethoven, but to transcend the old forms and ideas of what music had been and instead create what music ''should'' be for the future. The Weimar school promoted the idea of ''
program music'', while both the Schumanns and Brahms of the Leipzig/Berlin school were strict in their stance that music must and can only be ''
absolute music
Absolute music (sometimes abstract music) is music that is not explicitly "about" anything; in contrast to program music, it is non- representational.M. C. Horowitz (ed.), ''New Dictionary of the History of Ideas'', , Vol. 1, p. 5 The idea of ab ...
'', a term derisively coined by Wagner.
One of Clara Schumann's difficulties with Liszt stemmed from a philosophical difference in performance practice. He believed that the artist, through physical and emotional performance, interpreted music for the audience. When he performed, Liszt flailed his arms, tossed his head, and pursed his lips, inspiring a
Lisztomania
Lisztomania or Liszt fever was the intense fan frenzy directed toward Hungarian composer Franz Liszt during his performances. This frenzy first occurred in Berlin in 1841 and the term was later coined by Heinrich Heine in a feuilleton he wrote o ...
across Europe which has been compared to the
Beatlemania
Beatlemania was the fanaticism surrounding the English rock band the Beatles from 1963 to 1966. The group's popularity grew in the United Kingdom in late 1963, propelled by the singles " Please Please Me", "From Me to You" and " She Loves Yo ...
of female fans of
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...
over a century later. Clara, in contrast, came to believe that the personality of the musician should be suppressed so that the composer's vision would be clearly evident to listeners.
Partisans led active campaigns with public demonstrations at concerts, writings published in the press denigrating reputations, and other public slights designed to embarrass their adversaries. Brahms published a
manifesto
A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...
for the "Serious Music" side on 4 May 1861, signed by Clara Schumann, Joachim,
Albert Dietrich,
Woldemar Bargiel, and twenty others, which decried the purveyors of the "Music of the Future" as "contrary to the innermost spirit of music, strongly to be deplored and condemned". The ''New Weimar Club'', a formal society with Liszt at its center, held an anniversary celebration of the ''
Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
The New Journal of Music (, and abbreviated to NZM) is a music magazine, co-founded in Leipzig by Robert Schumann, his teacher and future father-in law Friedrich Wieck, Julius Knorr and his close friend Ludwig Schuncke. Its first issue appe ...
'', the magazine Robert Schumann had founded, in his birthplace Zwickau, and conspicuously neglected to invite members of the opposing party, including his widow, Clara. Clara Schumann ceased to perform any of Liszt's works, and she suppressed her husband's dedication to Liszt of his ''
Fantasie in C major'' when she published his complete works. When she heard that Liszt and Richard Wagner would be participating in a Beethoven centenary festival in Vienna in 1870, she refused to attend.
In describing the works of the opposing school, Clara Schumann was particularly scathing of Wagner, writing of his ''
Tannhäuser'', that he "wears himself out in atrocities", describing ''
Lohengrin
Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wo ...
'' as "horrible", and referring to ''
Tristan und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance ''Tristan and Iseult'' by Gottfried von Stras ...
'' as "the most repugnant thing I have ever seen or heard in all my life". She also complained that Wagner had spoken of her husband,
Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonie ...
, and Brahms in a "scornful" way. Wagner had poked fun at the musical conservatives in an essay, portraying them as "a musical temperance society" awaiting a Messiah. She held
Anton Bruckner
Joseph Anton Bruckner (; ; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer and organist best known for his Symphonies by Anton Bruckner, symphonies and sacred music, which includes List of masses by Anton Bruckner, Masses, Te Deum (Br ...
's
Seventh Symphony in very low esteem and wrote to Brahms, describing it as "a horrible piece". Bruckner's symphonies were seen as representative of the New Music due to their advanced harmony, massive orchestration and extended time-scale. Schumann was more impressed, however, with the early
First Symphony in F minor by
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...
; this was before Strauss began composing the highly programmatic music for which he later became famous.
Brahms secretly held Wagner's music in high esteem, and eventually publicly praised Liszt's works as well. Several of the proponents and signers of the manifesto, including Joachim, relented and joined the "other side". The controversy eventually died down, but Clara Schumann remained steadfast in her disapproval of the New German School's music.
Legacy
Impact during her lifetime
Although Schumann was not widely recognized as a composer for many years after her death, she had a lasting effect as a pianist. Trained by her father to play by ear and memorize, she gave public performances from memory as early as age thirteen, a fact noted as exceptional by her reviewers. She was one of the first pianists to perform from memory, making it the standard for concerts. She was also instrumental in changing the kind of program expected of concert pianists. In her early career, before her marriage, she played the customary 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. As it was customary to play one's own compositions, she included at least one of her own works in every program, such as Variations on a Theme by Bellini (Op. 8) and the popular Scherzo (Op. 10). However, as she became a more independent artist, her repertoire contained mainly music by leading composers.
Schumann influenced pianists through her teaching, which emphasized expression and a singing tone, with technique subordinated to the intentions of the composer. One of her students,
Mathilde Verne, carried her teaching to England where she taught, among others,
Solomon
Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...
. Another of her students,
Carl Friedberg, carried the tradition to the
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became ...
in America, where his students included
Nina Simone
Nina Simone ( ; born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, pianist, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and po ...
,
Malcolm Frager, and
Bruce Hungerford.
She was also instrumental in getting the works of Robert Schumann recognized, appreciated and added to the repertoire. She promoted his works tirelessly throughout her life.
Film
Clara Schumann has been portrayed on screen many times. ''
Träumerei'' (''Dreaming''), the oldest known Schumann film, premiered on 3 May 1944 in
Zwickau
Zwickau (; ) is the fourth-largest city of Saxony, Germany, after Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz, with around 88,000 inhabitants,.
The West Saxon city is situated in the valley of the Zwickau Mulde (German: ''Zwickauer Mulde''; progression: ), ...
. Possibly the best-known film is ''
Song of Love (1947)'' starring
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress whose Katharine Hepburn on screen and stage, career as a Golden Age of Hollywood, Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong ...
as Clara,
Paul Henreid as Robert, and
Robert Walker as Brahms.
In 1954,
Loretta Young
Loretta Young (born Gretchen Michaela Young; January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1989. She received numerous honors including an Academy Awards ...
portrayed her on ''The Loretta Young Show'' in Season 1, Episode 26: ''The Clara Schumann Story'' (first aired on 21 March 1954), in which she supports the composing career of her husband, played by
George Nader, alongside
Shelley Fabares and
Carleton G. Young.
Two more recent German films are ''
Frühlingssinfonie'' (''Spring Symphony'') (1983), starring
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Aglaia Kinski (; née Nakszynski, ; born 24 January 1961) is a German actress and former model who has appeared in more than 60 films in Europe and the United States. Her worldwide breakthrough was with '' Stay as You Are'' (1978). Sh ...
as Clara, and the 2008 Helma Sanders-Brahms' film ''
Geliebte Clara'' (''Beloved Clara''), where she is portrayed by
Martina Gedeck.
Theater
Clara Schumann's life has been explored in the chamber opera ''Clara'' by composer Victoria Bond and librettist Barbara Zinn-Krieger and the two-act opera ''Ghost Variations'' by composer Tony Manfredonia and librettist Aiden K. Feltkamp. ''Twin Spirits'', a live theatrical performance involving a chamber ensemble of actors, singers, and musicians, also delves into Clara Schumann's life story.
Banknote and conservatory
An image of Clara Schumann from an 1835 lithograph by
Andreas Staub was featured on the 100
Deutsche Mark
The Deutsche Mark (; "German mark (currency), mark"), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later of unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it ...
banknote from 2 January 1989 until the adoption of the euro on 1 January 2002. The back of the banknote shows a grand piano she played and the exterior of Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium. The great hall of the conservatory's new building is named after her.
Media
Compared to her contemporaries, Schumann's music is not often found in media or soundtracks, except in documentaries and educational films. In ''
Geliebte Clara (Beloved Clara),'' selections from ''Three Romances'', Op. 11, are her only compositions displayed in the film, played by pianist Jenõ Jandó. The "Clara"
motiv of five descending notes, initially written by her husband in her ''Romance Varie'' was re-interpreted many times by both her husband and Johannes Brahms. The motif is strongly associated with the love between Clara and Robert; it can be heard throughout the film ''
Song of Love (1947).'' In the British
science fiction television
Science fiction first appeared in television programming in the late 1930s, during what is called the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Special effects and other production techniques allow creators to present a living visual image of an imaginary ...
series
Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
, character
Clara Oswald has a leitmotif which is somewhat similar to the "Clara" motif.
Schumann's music is found in educational material, emphasizing her stature and remarkable presence as a female composer in a male dominated field. Her music is recorded and compiled by artists in the 21st century, such as
Lara Downes's 2019 Album ''For Love Of You'', a compilation of music by Robert and Clara Schumann, released in celebration of the bicentenary of her birth.
See also
*
Schmorsdorf lime tree
Notes
References
Cited sources
Books
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Encyclopedias
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Newspapers
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Online sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
* Beer, Anna: ''Sounds and Sweet Airs: The Forgotten Women of Classical Music''. Chapter 6: "Schumann", pp. 205–41. Oneworld Publications (2016). .
* Boyd, Melinda: "Gendered Voices – The ''Liebesfrühling'' Lieder of Robert and Clara Schumann". In ''19th-Century Music'', Vol. 39 (Autumn 1975), pp. 145–62.
* Burk, John N.:
''Clara Schumann; A Romantic Biography''. Random House NYC 1940.
* Burstein, L. Poundie: "Their Paths, Her Ways – Comparison of Text Settings by Clara Schumann and Other Composers". In ''Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture'', Vol. 6 (2002), pp. 11ff.
* Gates, Eugene. "Clara Schumann: A Composer's Wife as Composer." ''Kapralova Society Journal'' 7, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 1–7.
* Gould, John: "What Did They Play? The Changing Repertoire of the Piano Recital from the Beginnings to 1980". In ''
The Musical Times
''The Musical Times'' was an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom.
It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainzer's Musical Times and Singing Circular'', but in 1844 he sold it to Alfr ...
'' Vol. 146 (Winter 2005), pp. 61–76.
* Kühn, Dieter: ''Clara Schumann, Klavier''. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag (March 2009). . .
*
Mäkelä, Tomi: "Den Lebenden schulden wir Rücksichtnahme, den Toten nur die Wahrheit. Eine Einführung in Friedrich Wiecks Welt der philisterhaften Mittelmäßigkeit und besseren Salonmusik". In ''Friedrich Wieck: Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker
..', pp. 15–49. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang (2019). . .
* Rattalino, Piero: ''Schumann. Robert & Clara''.
Varese
Varese ( , ; or ; ; ; archaic ) is a city and ''comune'' in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, north-west of Milan. The population of Varese in 2018 was 80,559.
It is the capital of the Province of Varese. The hinterland or exurban part ...
: Zecchini Editore (2002). . .
*
* Sémerjian, Ludwig. "Clara Schumann: New Cadenzas for Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor. Romantic Visions of a Classical Masterpiece." ''Kapralova Society Journal'' 17, no. 2 (Fall 2019): 1–9.
* Vloed, Kees van der: ''Clara Schumann-Wieck. De pijn van het gemis.'' Soesterberg, Netherlands: Aspekt (2012). . .
External links
*
The Creative Art of Clara Schumann by Claire Flynn, National University of Ireland thesis, August 1991
Clara Schumann: A Composer's Wife as Composer– by Eugene Gates, ''Kapralova Society Journal''
Clara Schumann website at Geneva Collegewebsite (German and English versions)
* , for piano duet, Clara Schumann's last work
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schumann, Clara
1819 births
1896 deaths
19th-century German classical composers
19th-century German classical pianists
19th-century German women composers
19th-century German women pianists
Chamber virtuosi of the Emperor of Austria
Child classical musicians
Composers for piano
German women classical pianists
German women classical composers
German women music educators
German Romantic composers
German piano educators
Honorary members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
Musicians from Leipzig
Musicians from the Kingdom of Saxony
Robert Schumann
Johannes Brahms
Lieder composers