Clara Schumann

Born Clara Wieck in Leipzig in 1819 and died in Frankfurt in 1896, Clara Schumann belongs to German Romanticism as a pianist, composer, pedagogue and editor. Trained from an early age by her father Friedrich Wieck, she pursued a virtuoso career in Europe from childhood and established herself in the great concert halls of Leipzig, Vienna, Paris, Saint Petersburg, and London. Her repertoire evolves from a brilliant pianistic technique marked by the practices of the 19th century toward an increasing emphasis on Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Brahms, contributing to a new model of concert. Married to Robert Schumann in 1840, Clara Schumann continued an essential performing activity for the family economy while defending her husband’s music, then ensuring its transmission after his death. As a composer, Clara Schumann notably left Four Polonaises op. 1 (1831), the Piano Concerto in A minor op. 7 (1837), the Piano Trio op. 17 (1847) and the Three Romances for violin and piano op. 22 (1856), in a dense, lyrical and structured Romantic style. From 1878, Clara Schumann taught at the Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory in Frankfurt, where her pedagogical work extended a demanding practice of interpretation and of the musical text.