The Schumanns - Robert and Clara

Robert and Clara Schumann - A Love Story

(c) By Agnes Selby, Guest Writer.

Clara Schumann, nee Wieck, was a composer whose work has only recently become appreciated by audiences the world over. She was a dutiful daughter, a mother of eight children, a loyal friend and a loving wife. But first and foremost she was a concert pianist - 1,299 programs are preserved in the Robert Schumann house in Zwickau which encompass the years from the time of her debut at the age of nine to her last concert in Frankfurt when she was 71 years old.

Born on September 13th, 1819, to Friedrich Wieck and his wife Marianne, she was destined at birth by her father’s will to become a “Wunderkind.” By the age of five she could already perform ‘dances’ and spent hours practicing exercises. At about this time, Clara’s mother, tired of Wieck’s relentless daily sarcastic criticism, chose to leave Wieck and return to her own parent’s home thereby leaving Clara and her three brothers in the care of their father. The trauma resulting from this abandonment by her mother caused Clara to quite literally lose her faculty of speech, which she did not regain until she was reunited with her mother during the summer of 1825.

At the end of that summer of 1825, Clara returned to her father’s house and her piano lessons began in earnest. Her mother later remarried and moved to Berlin with her new husband, Adolf Bargiel. It would be four years before Wieck would find a wife who not only gave him more children but also was prepared to look after Clara and her brothers. Her step-mother Clementine, aged 20 years, was no substitute for her real mother. In later years, when Clara was free of her father’s influence, the closeness between mother and daughter was re-established, giving both women a sense of great happiness.

[Note: Today, September 13, 2017, I've accessed and inserted this video in remembrance of Clara Schumann's birthday anniversary (born: September 13, 1819): Schumann's Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op.11, performed by pianist Murray Perahia, uploaded in Youtube by Ashish Xiangyi Kumar. / Tel]   

Wieck was an innovative teacher, whose modern approach to teaching included daily exercise in the fresh air and no repetitive practice of scales. He believed in technique but did not consider it the be-all and end-all of the art of pianism. He believed that technique was only a means to an end and phrasing and musicality were of greater importance.

The repertoire Wieck preferred Clara to play was aimed at astounding her audiences. No compositions by Beethoven, Mozart or Schubert were included in the repertoire which she took on tour for her performances from Germany to Paris. Instead she performed showy compositions by Field, Kalkbrenner, Czerny, Pixis and Moscheles. Clara’s performances as a “wunderkind” also allowed her father to gain a reputation as a great teacher and enriched him to the extent that he could open a number of shops which sold pianos and other musical instruments. Clara’s youthful compositions were published by Hofmeister. She proudly sent these to her mother in Berlin with accompanying letters of longing.

In 1830, Robert Schumann entered Clara’s busy but lonely life. Since 1828 Schumann had been studying Law in Leipzig. His bookseller father had encouraged him to study music and the arts, but after his father’s death, his mother and older brothers decided that instead of the precarious career of a professional musician, law would be a safer option. During a summer trip to Heidelberg, Schumann came to the conclusion that the study of law was not for him and in a letter to his mother he said: “There certainly can be no greater misery than to look forward to a hopeless, shallow, miserable existence… ” and begged her to write to Wieck and ask for his advice.

Schumann’s unhappy and confused mother complied with his request, the result being that Schumann arrived at Grimmaische Gasse No 36 to become Wieck’s resident pupil. Robert’s extravagant spending, his drinking and his mood changes did not endear him to Wieck but he did his duty and instructed his adult pupil well. Schumann was impressed with the eleven year old Clara. His diary reveals the following observation: “What a creature Clara is! She certainly talked more cleverly than any of us… whims and fancies, laughter and tears, death and life, mostly in sharp contrasts change in this girl with the speed of lightning”.

He himself was a strong influence on her. Never encouraged by her father to read, Schumann introduced Clara to the poetry of Byron, E.T.A Hoffmann and a host of other younger poets and writers. He also wrote stories for her and her brothers which made the children’s’ “flesh creep”. The following poem is indicative of the type of stories with which he entertained the Wieck children. “At night when you were very small I oft came dressed as a spectre tall And rattled at your door – You bade me begone, and shrieked, afraid!”

Schumann wrote to his mother in Zwickau how much he liked Clara, the child, and what good friends they had become – ‘like brother and sister’. When Frau Schumann heard Clara perform in Zwickau she told Clara she hoped that when she grew up she would marry her beloved Robert.

Schumann’s “Davidsbund”, a name adopted by a group of his friends who supported the performance of classical music, opened Clara’s eyes to the brave new world for which Schumann’s recently founded magazine, the “Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik”, was fighting. Mendelssohn’s arrival in Leipzig was a further catalyst. In her teens, influenced as she was by Schumann, she began exploring the works of other composers rather than solely the bravura music prescribed by her father. She discovered the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. All this angered her father, for the “dross” Schumann referred to in his publication directly referred to Wieck’s choice of Clara’s repertoire. Schumann made Clara an Honorary Member of “Davidsbund” where she was often referred to as Chiara or Zilia.

On April 21, 1834, Ernestine, the illegitimate daughter of Baron von Fricken, came to live with the Wiecks as a resident pupil. She was 17 years old and Clara adopted her as her very best friend and often spoke to her glowingly about Schumann. However, there was trouble on the horizon. According to a letter from Clara to Schumann, “I had not long to wait before she became more and more fond of you, and soon it got to the pitch when I had to call her when you came. I was glad enough to do so then, for I was only too pleased that she liked you. You always talked to her alone when she came, and you only talked nonsense to me. I was not a little hurt by this…”

The fourteen-year old Clara suffered more pangs of jealousy. In letters from her concert tours she wrote to Schumann: “But is it permitted Herr Schumann, to take so little notice of a friend that you do not even write to her? Every time the post arrived I hoped to get a letter from a certain Herr Enthusiast, but ah! I was disappointed”.

As for Schumann, soon after meeting Ernestine, he wrote to his mother that she was “just such a one as I might wish to have for a wife”. An engagement was imminent. Wieck sent the greatly unsettled Clara to Dresden, ostensibly for further composition studies under Karl Reissiger, the conductor of the Dresden opera. A brief return to Leipzig for the christening of another baby step-sister, Caecilie, for whom Ernestine and Schumann stood as godparents, brought home to Clara the reality of the situation between the couple. The Baron soon removed Ernestine from Leipzig so that she should not be compromised before the engagement was officially announced and Wieck organised a concert tour for Clara to get her out of the house.

Schumann visited Clara and her father soon after their return and Clara confided to her diary: “…you came into the room and hardly gave me a passing greeting. Oh! I love no one as I love him, and he did not even look at me”. Nor was it a consolation to find him writing variations on a theme by Baron von Fricken, subsequently to emerge as the Etudes Symphoniques. Schumann also finished another set of variations on the letters of Ernestine’s birth place Asch which would later be published as Carnaval.

However, Ernestine was no longer in the house and Clara began to notice subtle changes in Schumann’s behaviour towards her. For his part, Schumann realised that Clara was no longer a child with whom he could just “laugh and play”. Music, for the moment, was a cloak under which deeper feelings lay hidden. At the end of summer, Schumann dedicated his Sonata in F sharp minor to Clara. Slowly the idea of marrying Ernestine was abandoned. In November 1835, before Clara and her father left Leipzig for another extended tour, Schumann arrived at the house and, finding her alone,took her in his arms and kissed her.

The next instalment of this story is perhaps better known. When Schumann asked Wieck for Clara’s hand, Wieck’s reaction was to forbid any further contact between them. He threatened to shoot Schumann if he ever tried to approach Clara again. Self-interest may also have played its part in Wieck’s reaction. Clara was on the brink of an illustrious career. She was only sixteen and her father did not want to see her career lost in the duties of housekeeping and caring for Schumann and the children she would most likely bear. The income generated by Clara’s tours was calculated to support the ever increasing Wieck family.

However, Robert managed to smuggle letters to Clara through friends. In June 1836 he sketched his Phantasie in C and wrote to Clara: “…the first movement is the most passionate I have ever composed – a deep lament for you”.

Wieck’s relentless planning of concert tours and strict supervision over Clara’s freedom of movement inevitably put a strain on the father/daughter relationship. Wieck sent Clara to Dresden as a guest of the music loving family of Major Serre and his wife. The consequences of this long and happy summer were not what Clara’s father had imagined. A certain Ernst Adolf Becker, a magistrate of mature years and a great admirer of Schumann’s compositions and of Clara’s playing, now became the conduit for communication between Clara and Schumann. Schumann again sent a letter to Wieck asking to see him. On September 18, 1837, a few days after his interview with Wieck, Schumann wrote the following to Clara:

“My conversation with you father was terrible. Today I am so dead, so degraded that I can hardly conceive a beautiful thought. He treats me like dirt beneath his feet.”

While Wieck witnessed Clara’s crying and apathy, he was again planning a concert tour culminating in Vienna. It had always been his dream to conquer Vienna and here was his opportunity. As the influential music critic, Bauerle, put it: “Vienna is to decide whether this modest young artist, who in Germany ranks beside Liszt and Chopin, can be mentioned in the same breath as Thalberg”. The six concerts Clara performed in Vienna brought her accolades from the critics and public alike. The greatest honour was bestowed on her by the Emperor when he nominated Clara “Kammervirtuosin of the Imperial Household”.

Yet, Schumann was never far from her thoughts. On their return journey to Leipzig, she broached the subject of her marriage again with her father. Wieck was now aware of the fact that Clara and Schumann had become secretly engaged on August 14, 1837 and threatened to disinherit her if she married Schumann, promising to drive them from Leipzig to spare himself the shame of their marriage. He threatened to take Schumann to court and shame him publicly with stories of Schumann’s earlier life of dissipation.

In 1839 Robert Schumann and Clara wrote a petition to the Court of Appeals to marry without the consent of Friedrich Wieck. The Court consented to the marriage despite hysterical outbursts from Wieck.

Robert and Clara were married on September 12, one day before her twenty-first birthday.

Clara wrote in her diary:

“What am I to say about this day? We were married at Schonefeld at 10 o’clock. First came a chorale, Heaven avert this calamity! I could not bear it". 

Clara’s mother attended the wedding on this happiest day and she also stood calmly by her daughter’s side when the calamity Clara feared overtook their lives in the form of Schumann’s illness.

Video Credit:

Robert and Clara Schumann by A. Menzel.

 

(Note: Article by Agnes Selby, author of Constanze, Mozart's Beloved. Reprinted in full on request, kindly provided by the author, Mrs. Agnes Selby, 24 April 2011. Thanks a lot, dear Agnes.)  

 

(c) April 2011. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.