Clara Schumann

Clara Wieck (Leipzig, September 13, 1819 - Frankfurt am Main, May 20, 1896), known as Clara Schumann, was a pianist, composer and German piano teacher. She was one of the great European concert artists of the 19th century and her career was key in the dissemination of the compositions of the her husband, Robert Schumann. Considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence on a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital from exhibitions of virtuosity to programs of serious works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a Piano Concerto (op. 7), chamber music, choral pieces and songs.

He grew up in Leipzig, where his father, Friedrich Wieck, was a professional pianist and teacher, and his mother an accomplished singer. She was a child prodigy, trained by her father. She began traveling at age eleven and was successful in Paris and Vienna, among other cities. She married the composer Robert Schumann and the couple had eight children. Together, they encouraged Johannes Brahms and maintained a close relationship with him. She premiered many works by her husband and Brahms in public.

After Robert Schumann's untimely death, he continued his concert tours in Europe for decades, frequently with violinist Joseph Joachim and other chamber musicians. From 1878, she was an influential piano educator at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where she attracted international students. She edited the publication of her husband's work. She died in Frankfurt, but was buried in Bonn next to her husband.

Several films have focused on her life, such as the first Träumerei from 1944 or one from 2008, Geliebte Clara, directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms. An image by Clara Schumann from an 1835 lithograph by Andreas Staub appeared on the 100 German mark banknote from 1989 to 2002. Interest in her compositions began to revive at the end of the century XX and its 2019 bicentennial prompted new books and exhibitions.

Biography

Childhood as a child prodigy

Clara Josephine Wieck was born in Leipzig on September 13, 1819 and was the youngest daughter of the marriage between Friedrich Wieck and Mariane Bargiel (née Tromlitz). Her father was a renowned piano teacher and had a business selling pianos. scores and pianos, while her mother was a famous singer in Leipzig who performed weekly solos for piano and soprano at the Gewandhaus. Clara's parents had irreconcilable differences, partly due to her father's inflexible nature. Driven by An affair between Mariane and Adolph Bargiel, a friend of Friedrich, the Wiecks divorced in 1825, and she later married Bargiel. Five-year-old Clara remained with her father, while her mother and Bargiel eventually moved to Berlin, limiting contact between Clara and her mother to written letters and occasional visits.

From an early age, Clara's father planned her career and life down to the smallest detail. She began receiving basic piano instruction from her mother at the age of 4. After her mother moved away, she began taking daily one-hour lessons with her father. They included topics such as piano, violin, singing, theory, harmony, composition, instrumentation and counterpoint. She then had to practice for two hours every day. His father followed the methods in his own book, Wiecks pianistische Erziehung zum schönen Anschlag und zum singenden Ton ("Wiecks piano education for beautiful touch and singing tone"). His studies Musical performances came largely at the expense of his broader general education, although he still studied religion and languages under the control of his father's family.

Wieck instilled iron discipline in his daughter and acted as her promotional agent to get her representation in Europe. Clara Wieck made her official debut on October 20, 1828 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, at the age of nine. The same year, she performed at the Leipzig house of Ernst Carus, director of the psychiatric hospital at Colditz Castle. There, she met another talented young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, Robert Schumann, who was nine years her senior. Schumann admired Clara's interpretation of her so much that he asked her mother's permission to stop studying law, which he had never been much interested in, and take music lessons with Clara's father. While she was taking classes, she rented a room in the Wieck house and stayed for about a year.

From September 1831 to April 1832, she toured Paris and other European cities, accompanied by her father. That same year, a work of hers titled Quatre Polonaises pour le pianoforte op. 1. In Weimar, she performed a bravura piece by Henri Herz for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who presented her with a medal with her portrait and a written note that read: "For the talented artist Clara Wieck." During that tour, the violinist Niccolò Paganini, 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 a cholera outbreak. The tour marked her transition from a child prodigy to a young performer.

Success in Vienna

In 1833, he began the composition of a piano concerto, which he finished in 1835 and was published in 1837. He also personally met Felix Mendelssohn and Frédéric Chopin. From December 1837 to April 1838, at the age of 18, Wieck performed a series of recitals in Vienna. Franz Grillparzer, Austria's leading dramatic poet, wrote a poem titled "Clara Wieck and Beethoven" after hearing her perform Ludwig van Beethoven's Sonata Appassionata during one of these recitals. He performed to sold-out audiences. and favorable reviews. Benedict Randhartinger, a friend of Franz Schubert, gave him an autographed copy of the composer's Erlkönig, with a dedication "to the celebrated artist, Clara Wieck." Frédéric Chopin described his performance to Franz Liszt, who attended to one of Wieck's concerts and subsequently extravagantly praised her in a letter that was published in the Paris Revue et Gazette Musicale and later, in translation, in the Leipzig magazine Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. On March 15, they named to Clara Königliche und Kaiserliche Österreichische Kammer-virtuosin ("Virtuoso of the Royal and Imperial Austrian Chamber"), Austria's highest musical honor.

An anonymous music critic, describing her Vienna recitals, said: "The emergence of this artist can be considered an epoch... In her creative hands, the most ordinary passage, the most routine motif acquires a heartfelt meaning, a color, which only those with the most consummate art can give.

Marriage with Robert Schumann

When Clara was 11 years old, a musician nine years older than her arrived to study with Friedrich Wieck. It was Robert Schumann, who was then an unknown character with literary inclinations, who was starting out in composition and who wanted to pursue a career as a concert pianist. Robert stayed to live at his teacher's house, which was common at the time. By then, Clara was already quite mature, probably because of the experiences she had had in her life as a professional concert performer. A warm friendship was forged between Robert and Clara despite the age difference. Soon the friendship turned into love and in 1837 they asked Clara's father for permission to marry, since she was a minor and had to wait until she turned 21 or had her parents' consent, but Friedrich Wieck opposed it, arguing that Robert was an undesirable catch. Robert and Clara decided to go to court and sue him. The judge allowed the marriage, which took place on September 12, 1840, the day before Clara's 21st birthday, when she reached the state of majority. From then on, the couple kept a musical and personal diary overall of their life together. Wieck never doubted Schumann's genius, as Clara's correspondence testifies, but he did not wish to see his daughter, who had been his most expensive investment, with a composer without reputation or recognition, without an income. stable. Wieck believed that Robert would not be able to give Clara a decent life. Then an arduous legal battle began that fractured the "perfect" relationship between father and daughter. Friedrich Wieck could not contain his pride, he challenged the court's decision, but the couple's decision prevailed. Robert managed to demonstrate his moral and economic solvency.

In the first entry of his diary, Robert indicated that it should be like an autobiography of the personal life of the family, especially the couple, and their desires and achievements in the arts. It also functioned as a record of his artistic endeavors and growth. She fully accepted the agreement of maintaining a shared diary as evidenced by her many entries. She demonstrates her loyal love for her husband, with the desire to combine two lives into one artistic one, although this lifelong goal involved risks.

At that time it was common for composers to play their own works, such as Liszt and Chopin. But Robert Schumann injured his hand while trying to use his own invention which he believed would improve the art of playing the piano, and he had to forget his hopes of becoming a virtuoso pianist, so he dedicated himself to writing music and criticism. musical. Clara, from a very young age, began to play in public the works of Robert, who initially dedicated himself to writing exclusively for piano and small chamber ensembles, but who triumphed as a composer with his First Symphony i> as well as with his chamber works. A little later, the couple wrote a set of songs, which Robert published, hiding it from Clara, to present to her on their first wedding anniversary. Thus, of the 12 songs on Zwölf Lieder auf F. Rückerts Liebesfrühling op. 12 (op. 37 by Robert), three are by Clara. Robert's works are full of extra-musical meanings, where Clara appears constantly. An example is in the Carnival op. 9, where there is a piece called precisely "Chiarina", which, like "Chiara" or "Zilia", is one of the names by which Robert referred to Clara. A large part of Robert's works were dedicated to her to his wife. She was also the pianist who premiered her husband's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor in Leipzig in 1846.

The couple remained close both in family life and in their careers. She premiered many of his works, from solo piano works to her own piano versions of Robert's orchestral works.She often took charge of finances and general household affairs. Part of her responsibility included earning money by giving concerts, although she continued to perform throughout her life, not only for the income, but because she was an artist by training and nature. The burden of family duties increased over time and reduced her ability as a artist. As the composer's burgeoning wife, she was limited in her own explorations.

Clara and Robert Schumann had eight children: Marie (1841-1929), Elise (1843-1928), Julie (1845-1872), Emil (1846-1847), Ludwig (1848-1899), Ferdinand (1849 -1891), Eugenie (1851-1938) and Felix (1854-1879). Ludwig suffered from mental illness like his father and, in Clara's words, he eventually had to be "buried alive" in an institution.

The Schumanns met the violinist Joseph Joachim for the first time in November 1844, when he was 14 years old. A year later, Clara Schumann wrote in her diary that at a concert on November 11, 1845, "little Joachim like a lot. He played a new violin concerto by Felix Mendelssohn, which is said to be wonderful.'

Clara rescued her children from violence during the May Rising in Dresden in 1849. On the night of May 3, Robert and Clara heard that a revolution had begun in Dresden against King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony for not accept the "constitution for a German confederation." Most of the family members left and hid in a "neighborhood security brigade", but on May 7, she "bravely" returned to Dresden to rescue her three children who had been left with a maid. and challenged a group of armed men who confronted her. She then left the city through the dangerous areas again.

In May 1853, the couple heard Joseph Joachim perform the solo in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. She wrote that he played "with a finality, a depth of poetic feeling, his whole soul in every note, so ideally, that I had never heard such a violin played, and I can truly say that I have never received such an indelible impression from any virtuoso.". A long-lasting friendship developed between Clara and Joseph, lasting more than forty years. During his career, Schumann gave more than 238 concerts with Joachim in Germany and Great Britain, more than with any other artist. The two were especially known for play Beethoven's violin sonatas.

In February 1854, Robert Schumann had a mental breakdown, attempted suicide and was admitted, at his request, to a sanatorium in Endenich, near Bonn, where he remained 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 take her mind off the tragedy. Brahms composed some private piano pieces to console her: four pieces of piano and a set of Variations on a theme by Robert Schumann on which he had also written variations a year earlier, such as his op. 20. Brahms' music was not intended to be published, but only for her. Brahms later thought about publishing them anonymously, but they were eventually published as his Four Piano Ballads Op. 10 and Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann op. 9. The composer dedicated the variations to the marriage and hoped that Robert would be discharged soon and reunited with his family.

During the entire two years of Robert Schumann's stay at the institution, his wife was not allowed to visit him, while Brahms visited him regularly. When it was evident that Robert was close to death, he was finally allowed to see him. He seemed to recognize her and could only say a few words. Robert Schumann died two days later, on July 29, 1856.

She was the main source of income for her family and the only one after her husband was hospitalized and subsequently died. She gave concerts and taught, and did most of the work of organizing her own concert tours. She hired a housekeeper and a cook to maintain the house while she was away on her long tours. Her eldest daughter, Marie, was a great support and help to her mother and took the position of domestic cook. Marie also discouraged her mother from continuing to burn letters that she had received from Brahms and that he had asked her to destroy. Another daughter, Eugenie, who was too young when her father died to remember him, wrote a book, Erinnerungen (Memoirs), published in 1925, which talked about her parents' relationship and Brahms. Not only her husband died, but so did four of her children. Her firstborn, Emil, died in 1847, aged one. Her daughter Julie died in 1872, leaving two small children, only 2 and 7 years old, later raised by his grandmother. In 1879, his son Felix died at age 24. In 1891, his son Ferdinand died at age 41, leaving his children in his care.

Concert tours

Clara Schumann toured the United Kingdom for the first time in April 1856, while her husband was still alive but unable to travel. She was invited to play at a London Philharmonic Society concert by conductor William Sterndale Bennett, a good friend of Robert. She was displeased with the little time devoted to rehearsals: "Here they call it a rehearsal if you play a piece once. ». She wrote that musical "artists" in the UK "allow themselves to be treated as inferiors." However, she was happy to hear the famous Italian cellist Carlo Alfredo Piatti play with "a tone, a bravura, a certainty, like she had never done before." "I had heard." In May 1856, she performed her husband's Piano Concerto in A minor with the New Philharmonic Society conducted by Dr. Wylde, who Clara said "conducted a rehearsal terrible" and "couldn't catch the rhythm of the last movement." Even so, he returned to London the following year and continued performing in the United Kingdom for the next 15 years.

Between October and November 1857, Clara and Joachim undertook a recital tour to Dresden and Leipzig. St. James's Hall in London, which opened in 1858, organized a series of "Popular Concerts" by chamber music. Joachim visited London annually from 1866. Schumann also spent many years in London participating in the "Popular Concerts" with Joachim and Piatti. The second violinist Joseph Ries, brother of the composer Ferdinand Ries, and the violist J. B. Zerbini often played in the same concert programs. George Bernard Shaw, the noted playwright and also music critic, wrote that the "Popular Concerts" helped greatly to spread and illuminate musical taste in the United Kingdom.

In January 1867, Schumann toured Edinburgh and Glasgow, together with Joachim, Piatti, Ries and Zerbini. Two sisters, Susanna and Louisa Pyne, singers and managers of an opera company in England, and a man named Saunders, made all the arrangements. She was accompanied by her eldest 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, just like Joachim. Piatti, too, is always tremendously loved." Marie also wrote: "For longer trips we had a lounge [car], comfortably furnished with armchairs and sofas... the trip... was very comfortable." On this occasion, the musicians were not "treated as inferiors."

Schumann still performed actively in the 1870s and 1880s. He performed widely and regularly throughout Germany during these decades and had engagements in Austria, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. He continued his annual winter-spring concert tours of England, making 16 of them between 1865 and 1888, often with the violinist Joachim.

He took a break from concert performances, which began in January 1874, and canceled his regular tour in England due to an arm injury. In July, he consulted a doctor, who, after having massaged his arm, advised him to practice only one hour a day. He rested for the rest of the year before returning to the concert stage in March 1875. He had not He recovered completely and experienced more neuralgia in his arm again in May and reported that he "could not write because of my arm." By October 1875, he had recovered enough to begin another tour in Germany.

In addition to solo piano recitals, chamber music and accompanying singers, he continued to frequently play with orchestras. In 1877, he performed Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto in Berlin, conducted by Woldemar Bargiel, his half-brother by his mother's second marriage, and had tremendous success. In 1883, She performed Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the newly formed Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and was enthusiastically celebrated, although she was performing with a very painfully injured hand, having fallen down a staircase the previous day. More Later that year, he played Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, with his own cadenzas, with Joachim conducting the same orchestra, again to great success.

Teaching

In 1878, Clara was appointed the first piano teacher of the new Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. She had chosen the city over other offers from Stuttgart, Hannover and Berlin, because the director, Joachim Raff, had accepted her conditions: no He could teach more than an hour or an hour and a half a day, he was free to teach at home, and he had four months of vacation and free time for short trips in the 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 and she taught only advanced students, mostly young women, while her two daughters gave lessons to beginners. Among its 68 known students who made musical careers were Natalia Janotha, Fanny Davies, Nanette Falk, Amina Goodwin, Carl Friedberg, Leonard Borwick, Ilona Eibenschütz, Adelina de Lara, Marie Olson and Mary Wurm. The Conservatory held events for commemorate his 50th anniversary on stage in 1878 and his 60th career anniversary ten years later. He held the teaching position until 1892 and contributed greatly to the improvement of modern piano performance technique.

Recent years

In 1885, Schumann performed Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, once again conducted by Joachim, and again played his own cadenzas. The next day, she performed 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 concerto was that I was able to give the direction of it to Woldemar, who had longed for that opportunity for years."

He played his last public concert in Frankfurt on March 12, 1891. The last work he performed was Brahms's Variations on a Theme of Haydn, in a version for two pianos, with James Kwast.

On March 26, 1896, she suffered a stroke and died on May 20 at the age of 76. She was buried in Bonn in the Alter Friedhof next to Robert, according to her own wish.

Work

Repertoire as a performer

During her lifetime, Schumann was an internationally renowned concert pianist. Over 1,300 concert programs survive from her performances throughout Europe between 1831 and 1889. She championed the works of Robert Schumann and other contemporaries such as Brahms, Chopin and Mendelssohn.

The Schumanns were admirers of Chopin, especially Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" and she performed the piece herself. When she was 14 and her future husband was 23, he wrote to her:

Tomorrow precisely at eleven o'clock I will play the adagio from Chopin's Variations and at the same time I shall think of you very intently, exclusively of you. Now my request is that you should do the same, so that we may see and meet each other in spirit.

Tomorrow, precisely at 11 o'clock, I'll touch the adage of the Variations Chopin and, at the same time, I will think of you with much attention, exclusively in you. Now my request is to do the same, so that we can see and find ourselves in spirit.

In his early years, his repertoire, selected by his father, was striking and in the common style of the time, with works by Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Adolf von Henselt, Sigismund Thalberg, Henri Herz, Johann Peter Pixis, Carl Czerny and his own compositions. She resorted to including compositions by baroque composers such as Domenico Scarlatti and Johann Sebastian Bach, but she especially performed contemporary music by Chopin, Mendelssohn, and her husband, whose music did not achieve popularity until the 1850s.

At that time, it was common to find prodigious girls who played very difficult works very well and conquered the music-loving public. The majority of these young women, when they reached a certain age, left concert music and dedicated themselves to the home, teaching or other musical activities, away from the stage. Unlike these women, Clara Schumann's career continued in the highest professional levels until a few years before her death. She made around forty concert tours (19 of them in the United Kingdom) and at least 1,312 performances throughout Europe. She was a professional in the economic sense as well: He earned a decent salary, just like the other virtuous men of the time, since for a long time he was the only support for the family.

In 1835, he performed his Piano Concerto in A minor with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Mendelssohn. On December 4, 1845, she premiered her husband's Piano Concerto in Dresden. Following Brahms' advice, she performed Mozart's Piano Concerto in C minor in the court of Hanover and in Leipzig. His busiest years as a performer were between 1856 and 1873, after Robert's death. During this period, he experienced success as a performer in the United Kingdom, where his 1865 performance of the < Beethoven's Piano Concerto in G Major was received with enormous applause. As a chamber musician, she often gave concerts with the violinist Joseph Joachim. In her later career, she frequently accompanied lieder singers in recitals.

Compositions

As part of the extensive musical education that her father gave her, Clara Wieck learned to compose and, from childhood to middle age, produced good production. Clara wrote that "composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one gains hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.". His op. 1 of it was Quatre Polonaises pour le pianoforte composed in 1831 and op. 5 Quatre pièces caractéristiques in 1836, all piano pieces for her recitals. She wrote her Piano Concerto in A minor at age 14, with the help of her future husband. She planned a second piano concerto, but only a "Konzertsatz" in F survived. / i> less than 1847.

After his marriage, he turned to lieder and choral works. The couple wrote and published a joint composition in 1841, arranging a cycle of poems by Friedrich Rückert called Liebesfrühling in Zwölf Lieder auf F. Rückerts Liebesfrühling, his op. 12 and op. 37, respectively, which was a success. 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. She dedicated them to Joachim, who performed them for George V of Hanover, who declared them a "wonderful heavenly pleasure."

As he grew older, he became more preoccupied with other responsibilities in life and found it difficult to compose regularly, writing in his diary: "I once believed that I had creative talent, but I have given up on this idea. A woman should not want to compose. None have been able to do it, so why would I expect it?” Robert also expressed concern about the effect on her songwriting output:

Clara has composed a series of small pieces, which show a musical and tend 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.

Clara has composed a series of small pieces, which show a musical and tender ingenuity as she had never achieved before. But having children and a husband who always lives in the realm of imagination, does not go hand in hand with composition. She can't work regularly and often it bothers me to think how many deep ideas are lost because she can't solve them.

She produced one to eight compositions each year from the age of 11, until she stopped composing in 1848, writing only one choral work that year for her husband's birthday and leaving her second piano concerto unfinished. These two works, although reserved for their op. 18 and 19, were never published. Five years later, however, when he was 34 years old in 1853, the year he met Brahms, he became involved in a series of compositions, which resulted in 16 pieces that year: a set of piano variations on Bunte Blätter op. 99 No. 4 by Robert, eight “Romances” for solo piano and for violin and piano, and seven songs. These works were published a year later, after Robert joined, as his op. 20 to 23.

For the next 43 years of her life, she composed only piano transcriptions of works by her husband and Brahms, including 41 transcriptions of Robert'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 his life, he left several sketches for piano preludes, designed for piano students, as well as some published cadenzas for his concert performances for piano by Beethoven and Mozart.

Most of Clara Schumann's music was never performed by anyone else and was largely forgotten until interest in it resurfaced in the 1970s. Today her compositions are increasingly performed and recorded.

Editor

Schumann was the authorized editor, with the help of Brahms and others, of the works of Robert Schumann for the publishing house Breitkopf & Härtel.She also edited 20 sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti, letters (Jugendbriefe) from her husband in 1885 and his works for piano with fingering and other instructions (Fingersatz und Vortragsbezeichnungen) in 1886.

Clara and Johannes Brahms

Clara Schumann's relationship with Johannes Brahms dates back to the first stage of her life, although she was already married to Robert Schumann. The musician came into the couple's life as a concert pianist and they soon began a cordial relationship. They frequently invited Brahms to dinner and he got along well with their children. However, with Clara little by little a deep intellectual and artistic relationship was forged that took on loving tones. Thus, Brahms wrote to him:

You're such a dear friend to me that I can't express it... If this goes on like this, I'll have to put you someday behind a meal or save to get you in gold.

Brahms used to introduce Clara to his works before premiering them; Many times she was the dedicatee of them and in charge of premiering some of the piano works and they played together on several occasions. His feelings towards her were revealed to her friend the violinist Joseph Joachim in a letter:

I think I don't respect her and admire her as much as I love her and I'm the prey of her spell. I often have to hold myself tightly so I don't surround her in silent arms and even... I don't know, it seems so natural that she wouldn't take it wrong.

In 1855, Brahms wrote to Clara:

I can't do anything but think about you... What have you done to me? Can't you undo the spell you threw me?

When Robert was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after his suicide attempt, Brahms took care of Clara and her children and they lived together in an apartment in Düsseldorf. Robert died on July 29, 1856. On May 31, Brahms openly expressed his feelings to him in a letter:

My dear Clara, I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you and tell you all the good things I want. You are so infinitely dear to me that I cannot express it in words. I wish to call you my dear and many other names, never to stop worshiping you... If things could go further than they are right now... If only I could live in the same city with you and my parents... write me a beautiful letter soon. Your cards are like kisses.

After Robert's death, the relationship became more intense. They traveled to Switzerland together, although they never got married and their intentions in this regard are not very clear. It is difficult to fully understand the couple's relationship, since both agreed to destroy the letters they had been sending to each other for so many years, although Clara kept some of her favorites.

On March 12, 1891, Clara retired from the stage with an arrangement for two pianos of the Variations on a Theme of Haydn composed by Brahms. Five years later she died, which was a hard blow for the composer, who died a year later.

Legacy

Impact during your lifetime

Although Clara Schumann was not widely recognized as a composer for many years after her death, she left a lasting impression as a pianist. Trained by her father to play by ear and memorize, she made public performances from memory at the age of thirteen, a fact noted as exceptional by her critics. She was one of the first pianists to perform from memory and made it the standard. for concerts. She was also instrumental in changing the type of programs expected of concert pianists and instrumental in creating a modern concert repertoire. Early in her career, before her marriage, she performed bravura pieces routines designed to showcase the artist's technique, often in the form of arrangements or variations on popular opera themes, written by virtuosos such as Thalberg, Herz or Henselt. As it was customary to play her own compositions, she included at least one of her own works in each program, such as Variations on a Theme of Bellini (op. 8) and the popular Scherzo (op. 10). However, as she became a more independent artist, her repertoire primarily contained music by notable composers.

He influenced pianists through his teaching, which emphasized expression and a singing tone, with technique subordinate to the composer's intentions. One of her students, Mathilde Verne, took her teaching to England, where she taught, among others, Solomon Cutner. Another of his students, Carl Friedberg, carried the tradition to the Juilliard School in the United States, where his students included Malcolm Frager and Bruce Hungerford.

She was also instrumental in ensuring that Robert Schumann's works were recognized, appreciated and added to the repertoire. She promoted his works tirelessly throughout his life.

In popular culture

Ticket of 100 German frames

Inverse with the image of Clara Schumann's 1835 lithography.

Reverso con el piano de cola que tocó y el exterior del Conservatorio Hoch.

Clara Schumann has been portrayed in film or television series many times. Träumerei, the oldest known film about her, premiered on May 3, 1944 in Zwickau. Possibly, The best-known film is Immortal Melody (1947), starring Katharine Hepburn as Clara, Paul Henreid as Robert, and Robert Walker as Brahms. In 1954, Loretta Young portrayed her in The Loretta Young. Show in episode 26 of the first season of The Clara Schumann Story (first broadcast March 21, 1954), in which she supports her husband's composition career, played by George Nader, along with Shelley Fabares and Carleton G. Young. She also appears in the film Brahms and the Little Singing Girls (1996), with Lori Piitz in the role of the pianist. Two More recent German films are Spring Symphony (1983), starring Nastassja Kinski as Clara, and Helma Sanders-Brahms' 2008 film Geliebte Clara, where Martina Gedeck embodies it.

An image by Clara Schumann from an 1835 lithograph by Andreas Staub appeared on the 100 German mark banknote from January 2, 1989 until the adoption of the euro on January 1, 2002. The back of the banknote It shows a grand piano that she played and the exterior of the Hoch Conservatory, where she taught. The large hall of the new conservatory building is named after her.