![]() Before long though, the couple's financial situation - and her determination - led to her comeback: Her first concert as Clara Schumann came in the autumn of 1840. Robert Schumann initially hoped his wife would discontinue concertizing and concentrate on her duties as spouse. The court ruled in their favor, and Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck married on September 12, 1840, one day before her 21st birthday. Secretly engaged to be married in August 1837, the two fought for the right to marry in court. When Friedrich Wieck got wind of it, he forbade any sort of contact between the two, organizing concert tours for his daughter and supervising her day and night. Intimate friendship evolved into love when Clara was 16. She was nine years old when they first met, he a 19-year-old student of law living for a year in the Wieck household to take lessons from her famous father. Liszt, Mendelssohn, Goethe, as well as Paganini and Chopin knew the young girl. Trying to play in Clara's footsteps can leave a modern concert pianist exhausted Image: Schuhmannfest German pianist Ragna Schirmer, who has performed original programs in the Clara Schumann anniversary year, admitted to being "exhausted" afterwards. Among her pieces was an A Minor Piano Concerto filled with cascading runs and daring leaps on the keyboard, premiered by Clara Wieck on Novemas a 16-year-old. Her concert programs, which often included her own works, must have been impressive. In 1838 Franz Liszt called her "a very simple person, very well raised, no coquette, totally absorbed in her art, but in the most noble sense." Felix Mendelssohn described her as shy and quiet. Those who met her in person came away with a different impression. "The girl has more strength than six boys combined," wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe after a concert in Weimar. Sometimes the piano had to be brought along.Ĭlara Wieck's playing was described as feisty and passionate. Often lasting two or three months, the journeys in a coach were strenuous. Soon afterward, Friedrich Wieck had his daughter's opus 1 published, "Four Polonaises."įather and daughter went on extended concert tours - first in Germany, later to Paris and other foreign destinations. Even the young girl looks ambitious and self-confident in this image Image: SchuhmannfestĪt age nine, Clara gave her piano debut in the Leipzig Gewandhaus. He also had her schooled in composition and in foreign languages, complemented by long walks and physical exercise, which built the child's strength. He gave her tutelage in piano playing according to his own personally developed method from age five. ![]() Her divorced father, Friedrich Wieck, was a well-known piano teacher and founder of a piano factory. This notable person was born in Leipzig on Septemas Clara Wieck. Beyond that, though, Clara Schumann left an indelible mark on music life, one still palpable today. Her image is nearly universally familiar in Germany - at least to those who were around before the euro was adopted in 2002 - as "the woman on the 100 Deutsche Mark bill" that was introduced in 1989. New biographies and diaries of her youth have been published, and Clara Schumann's compositions, long forgotten, are turning up on playbills. ![]() In the latter city alone - her birthplace - there are some 170 events honoring Schumann in 2019. In the Clara Schumann anniversary year, there are special concerts everywhere in Germany and exhibitions in Zwickau, Frankfurt, Bonn and Leipzig. ![]()
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