Essential Clara Schumann
Clara Schumann (née Wieck) was born in Leipzig in 1819 and became one of the greatest piano virtuosos of her time. Her father, Friedrich, recognised her musical talent early on, taking her out of school to teach her himself. She was celebrated as a wunderkind at her first public performances aged just nine.
Read more…Alongside singing, violin and languages, the young pianist also studied composition. Her early compositions include the Four Polonaises Op. 1 (1830) and the 'Caprices en forme de valse' (1832), and her main early influences were such composers as Carl Maria von Weber, Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn and Louis Spohr. She composed mainly piano works, but also chamber music, songs and choral music, as well as a small number of orchestral works, which are mainly lost.
In 1840 she married Robert Schumann, against her father's will, and was also drawn into a close musical relationship: there is a great deal of intertwining and reciprocal quoting and interplay between both artists, such as in Robert Schumann's A minor Piano Concerto, cast in the same key as his wife's earlier Piano Concerto op. 7.