Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman

Clara Schumann, age 38, Munich. Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl, 1857. Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau.

CLARA SCHUMANN

The Artist and the Woman

Revised Edition

NANCY B. REICH

Cornell University Press

ITHACA AND LONDON

In memory of

Haskell A. Reich,

1926–1983

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface to the Revised Edition

Preface to the First Edition

Acknowledgments to the Revised Edition

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

Chronology

Abbreviations

PART I. The Life of Clara Schumann

1. Prelude: The Wiecks of Leipzig

2. Clara’s Career Begins

3. Robert Schumann and the Wiecks

4. The Break with Wieck

5. The Marriage

6. The Dresden Years

7. Düsseldorf and the Death of Robert Schumann

8. The Later Years

PART II. Themes from the Life of Clara Schumann

9. Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms

10. Other Friends and Contemporaries

11. Clara Schumann as Composer and Editor

12. The Concert Artist

13. Clara Schumann as Student and Teacher

Catalogue of Works

Notes

Bibliography

Illustrations

Clara Schumann, 1857                                        frontispiece

Marianne Tromlitz, June 7, 1816

Friedrich Wieck’s letter to Marianne Wieck, November 7, 1825

Cover of Clara’s diary

Clara Wieck, age 8

Clara Wieck’s piano, Gewandhaus concert, October 20, 1828

Program, Clara Wieck’s first Gewandhaus concert

Clara Wieck, 1832

Clara Wieck, 1835

Robert Schumann, 1839

Clara Wieck, 1840

Friedrich Wieck, ca. 1853

Clara and Robert Schumann, 1847

Six Schumann children, 1855

Clara Schumann with Marie

Marie Schumann

Elise Schumann

Julie Schumann

Ludwig Schumann

Ferdinand Schumann

Eugenie Schumann

Felix Schumann

Clara Schumann, 1878

Clara Schumann, 1854

Johannes Brahms, 1853

Concert program, March 12, 1891

Concert program, January 13, 1833

Autograph, Volkslied

Preface to the Revised Edition

In the fifteen years since the first edition of this biography was published, interest in Clara Schumann has exploded. Performances, editions, and recordings of her music, films, dramas, radio and TV programs inspired by her life, piano competitions in her name, dissertations, scholarly papers, articles in the scholarly and popular presses, program notes, publication of letters, biographies in several languages and revisionist biographies, all attest to the significance of and fascination with Clara Wieck Schumann as an artist and as a woman.

Some part of the fascination was generated by the feminist movement, which stirred the demand for courses in women’s studies, women’s history, and gender studies now found in universities around the globe. Clara Schumann—career woman and single mother—was an ideal subject for students interested in women, history, and music. Indeed, many of the lecture invitations I received the first few years after the publication of the book were from groups more interested in women’s issues than in music history. As awareness of her accomplishments grew, however, she increasingly came to be seen not only as a symbol of women achievers but as an acknowledged composer of the new romantic school of the early Romantic period and a towering influence on pianists in the nineteenth century.

The need for a new edition has grown more pressing as a result of the publication of a variety of significant documents—letters, medical reports, and music—that were in private hands and unavailable when I was working on the first edition. The publication in 1994 of excerpts of the medical log kept by Robert Schumann’s physicians in Endenich, Clara Schumann’s correspondence with Dr. Härtel of the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel (published in 1997) and with the List family (published in 1996), and the letters and diaries of her granddaughter Julie (published in 1990) were among the documents that, though they did not change my basic conceptions of the character and personality of Clara Schumann, have informed this revised edition and enriched my understanding and admiration of this remarkable woman.

The many new publications of the music of Clara Wieck Schumann, especially the editions by Gerd Nauhaus, Janina Klassen, and Joachim Draheim, and the increasing number of genuinely artistic performances of her works have led to a reassessment of her as a composer. Though I do not analyze her works in this book, it is my hope that the extended Catalogue of Works, which lists new editions, and the citations to the scholarly literature will enable performers and listeners to locate her compositions and the new studies they have inspired.

The centenary of the death of Clara Schumann in 1996 was the occasion for many festivals and conferences at which scholars, young and old, presented the latest findings on the multifaceted musician. The publications that ensued (cited in the bibliography) have also facilitated this edition, and it is hoped they will dispel the myths and legends that continue to proliferate.

To the frequent comments about the lovely romantic story of Clara and Robert Schumann, I can answer that it was indeed a romantic story, but it was only one aspect of a long and difficult life. Too often the tragedies endured by Clara Schumann are forgotten: the final heartbreaking years of Robert Schumann’s life; the pressures of carrying on a public career to pay for the hospitalization of a mentally ill husband and to support a family; the burdens of a widow raising and educating seven children ranging in age from two to fourteen; the deaths and illnesses of four adult children. In 1985 I wrote of a life of triumph and tragedy, but now I recognize that the tragedies suffered by this courageous woman far outweighed the triumphs, and that her life can more accurately be described as a story of great talent, struggle, and survival.

Political events of the past decade have greatly aided the preparation of this revised edition. Almost all the sources used for the first edition were in the libraries and archives of the former German Democratic Republic, and though I was granted entree to them on my many research trips to that country and found librarians and archivists universally friendly and cooperative, the same could not always be said of the agencies that governed study and research. Photocopying was unavailable, so documents and music had to be copied by hand. Searches at border crossings became explanatory ordeals. For this edition, I had the great privilege of accessing Clara Wieck’s girlhood diaries (Jugendtage-bucher) on my computer, a luxury unthinkable in the early 1980s. The access to sources and the publication of the Robert Schumann Tagebücher and the first two volumes of the Robert and Clara Schumann Briefwechsel also have made the task of correcting errors and filling gaps much easier.

My own research after the publication of the first edition has contributed to this revision a greater awareness of the impact of class and gender on music history, of Clara Wieck Schumann’s relationship with the Mendelssohn family, and of the enduring influence of Clara Schumann on pianists and pianism throughout the world.

I was fortunate to have many doors opened to me after the publication of Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman in 1985 and its publication in England in 1985 and 1987 (Gollancz and Oxford University Press), in Japan in 1987 (Ongaku No Tomo Sha), and in Germany in 1991 (Rowohlt Verlag). I met Schumann relatives, scholars, and music lovers from four continents who have shared with me their knowledge of and experiences with Clara and Robert Schumann and their music. Their help and the generosity of friends and colleagues whose interest continually rekindled my enthusiasm and excitement for this project have enabled me to present a more complete portrait of Clara Schumann.

NANCY B. REICH

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

Preface to the First Edition

Though much has been written about Clara Schumann, she is still, more than 165 years after her birth, known to us only through the eyes and minds of her own era. She is viewed even today as her nineteenth-century contemporaries saw her—as a saint or priestess, as a dedicated wife, mother, and musician. In seeking a modern approach to this great artist, I have examined new sources and reexamined the old. This study has deepened my regard for the artist and woman; it has also convinced me that she is worthy of the truth. Such a quest calls for the tools of musicological scholarship, the insights of psychology, and sensitivity to the history of women and their place in nineteenth-century musical history.

All of her biographies, even the most recent (published in English, French, German, Danish, and several other languages—testimony to the continuing interest in Clara Schumann), have been based on Berthold Litzmann’s Clara Schumann: Ein Kunstlerleben, published between 1902 and 1908, and on her correspondence with Johannes Brahms, which was published in 1927.

Litzmann’s three-volume, 1,459-page biography, written under the supervision of Marie, the eldest Schumann daughter, and authorized by the Schumann family, is a major source for scholars of nineteenth-century music, and indeed has been a major source for my own book. Litzmann, a literary scholar and friend of the Schumann family, sifted through thousands of letters and all of the diaries of Robert and Clara Schumann as well as court orders, travel notebooks, household books, old programs, music autographs—all the papers that Robert Schumann meticulously filed and treasured. The two volumes of letters exchanged by Clara Schumann and Brahms between 1853 and 1896, to which Litzmann alone was granted access, remains a precious record of the lives of two great musicians. Litzmann’s objectivity, understanding, and warmth were in no way reduced by the Teutonic thoroughness with which he performed his task. The many English admirers of the art of Clara Schumann eagerly awaited translations of the letters and of Litzmann’s biography; they were published almost simultaneously with the German editions. Unfortunately, Grace Hadow’s admirable translations of the biography (1913) and letters (1927) are sharply abridged versions of the originals and thus omit many details vital to a complete understanding of the woman and her time.

A review of the original sources, moreover, reveals many nuances overlooked by Litzmann, who omitted much information, perhaps to protect the persons involved or perhaps because he believed it was not worth consideration. The translations suffer even more, less from the language conversion than from the shortening of the biography by one-third and of the correspondence by half. Hadow hews close to the facts, but so much is omitted that serious readers cannot depend on the translations. The same can be said of many other translations of Schumann sources. For these reasons, I have used only the German publications and provided my own translations for all material quoted. All citations are to the German works. (The Memoirs of Eugenie Schumann are the only exception, for reasons made clear in the bibliography.) I was most fortunate in being able to consult the first volume (1832–38) of the recently published critical edition of the letters of Clara and Robert Schumann, edited by Eva Weissweiler. Wherever possible, I have referred to this volume rather than to Litzmann’s edition, as it offers an unabridged transcription of the correspondence. The volumes covering the later years are not yet available, and as I was unable to consult the surviving original letters, I have relied (cautiously) on Litzmann and on Wolfgang Boetticher’s Robert Schumann in seinen Schriften und Briefen for quotations from letters after 1838.

A remarkable series of scholarly publications of Schumann documents from the archives of Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, has been appearing since 1971. These documents, meticulously edited according to contemporary scholarly procedures, have changed the course of Schumann research. Readers are no longer limited to family-authorized publications or to studies flawed by the prejudices of their editors. Through the courtesy of Martin Schoppe and Gerd Nauhaus of Robert-Schumann-Haus, I have had the good fortune to study many of the documents—the household books and marriage diary, for example—before publication, and to read others, including the diary of Clara Wieck and the Wieck and Schumann family papers, whose publication is scheduled many years hence. I have also examined many hundreds of letters stored in archives in Europe and the United States, as well as published collections of correspondence involving the Schumanns. As a consequence I have gained an enormous respect for Litzmann but also an added dimension of understanding of the woman who was artist, wife, mother, teacher, editor, and a creative partner of Friedrich Wieck, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms.

Since the reader may obtain from Litzmann (or the Hadow translation) a day-by-day chronology of Clara Schumann’s life, I have not attempted to duplicate this detail or repeated many of the legends familiar to readers of the Schumann literature. Although Part I is organized chronologically, I have focused on what I see as key issues in the life of Clara Schumann—her close bond with her father, her relationship with her mother, her education and the development of her unparalleled career, her agonizing struggle for independence, the choices she was forced to make between family and career, her responses to motherhood, the changing balance in her family life, and her strategies for coping with the illness, suicide attempt, and hospitalization of her husband. During the forty years left to her after his death she built and maintained a career in Europe and England second to none. This rich life I have treated in Part II, where four major areas of her life are explored in detail: her friendships, her creative work, her life on the concert stage, and her activities as a teacher. In each of these chapters I have attempted to answer the many questions raised by musicians in regard to her contributions and influence, to offer information that has not previously been available, and to place Clara Schumann in perspective in the musical life of the nineteenth century. Readers may be surprised to see Brahms relegated to one chapter in her life; it was a most significant chapter, to be sure, but it was not the consuming central relationship that so many people have suspected.

My search for materials for this biography began inadvertently: in 1973 I came across the unpublished correspondence (1858–96) between Clara Schumann and Ernst Rudorff, who had been her student for a short time and who later taught her daughter Eugenie. There were many ties between Frau Schumann and the younger man. As head of the piano department of the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, Rudorff was a member of the inner circle of musicians and friends on whom she most depended. The Rudorff correspondence was a starting point; from there other collections of published and unpublished correspondence gave me insights to the personality and character of Clara Schumann not yielded by Litzmann.

Major sources for this study are listed in the bibliography, but a few documents, published and unpublished, which have been particularly meaningful must be mentioned here. All the papers and materials in Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, particularly the unpublished diaries of Clara Wieck, offer the researcher a wealth of previously unknown information—names, places, dates—as well as a new perception of the character and personality of Clara and of Friedrich Wieck, her father. The letters of Friedrich Wieck, edited by Kathe Walch-Schumann and not available in their entirety until 1968, provide a clearer picture of the man, a figure not treated with particular sympathy by Litzmann and never revealed in his true light. Joseph Joachim’s correspondence with Brahms, Rudorff, and Clara Schumann, the letters of the Joachim family, the Schumann family correspondence, the Ferdinand Hiller correspondence, and the correspondence between Clara Schumann and Ernst Rudorff have illuminated music and concert life of the nineteenth century as well as the personal relationships of all involved.

Some of the letters that proved most significant to me appeared in articles in long-forgotten German music periodicals: the wonderful letters of Clara Schumann to Emilie Steffens (Chapter 6), for example, and her letter to Selmar Bagge (Chapter 10). Other writings from well-known volumes overlooked by previous biographers—a description of Clara in 1854 by Hedwig Salomon (Chapter 7), a letter of Clara to Emilie List about her sixteenth birthday party (Chapter 4), an indignant letter to Hiller about her treatment in Düsseldorf (Chapter 7), a letter from Amalie Joachim to her husband in 1872 (Chapter 8), and entries from Ruppert Becker’s diary (Chapter 7)—reveal a more human Clara Schumann, a woman who comes to life through her own words. These documents have been translated, most for the first time, and many are given in their entirety.

Students of women’s history know that female influences, even in the lives of prominent women, are usually overlooked. This has certainly been the case in studies of Clara Schumann. Robert Schumann plays an inordinately large role in most biographies of Clara Schumann written by both men and women; and the place of Clara Wieck’s mother, Marianne, and her significance in the life of the young pianist has never been explored. Indeed, Marianne is virtually ignored by Litzmann once she has borne Wieck’s children and left his home. Perhaps the early divorce was an embarrassment to the Schumann family and thus to Litzmann. It is my hope that with this study Marianne Bargiel has been restored to her rightful place in the story of her daughter’s life. In this task I was aided by Herma Stamm-Bargiel, who kindly shared pictures and family documents of the Bargiel family with me.

Locating the compositions of Clara Schumann has not been an easy task, but here, too, the archives at Robert-Schumann-Haus have provided valuable materials. The collection of autographs and prints of Clara Schumann’s music in Zwickau and the exciting discovery in the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, of her song autographs collected into one notebook (listed in the Catalogue of Works), as well as Robert Schumann’s instrumentation of the last movement of her concerto, enabled me to date her works and prepare a more complete catalogue of her works than any that has appeared previously.

Musical examples in Chapter 11 are taken from the first editions of Clara Schumann’s works and from the Dover reprint (1972) of Robert Schumann’s Werke, edited by Clara Schumann (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1879–93). Example 7 is from Johannes Brahms: Samtliche Werke, edited for the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna, by Hans Gal and Eusebius Mandyczewski (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1926–28). Examples 8 and 10 are from Schumann, Impromptus, edited by H. J.Köhler (Leipzig: Peters, 1979), 29.

The spellings of names and musical titles varied considerably in the nineteenth century. Clara Schumann, for example, always spelled her name with a C whereas Robert Schumann used both C and K in writing his wife’s name. I have attempted to establish consistency in the spelling of names by using the spelling given by the individual himself or herself or in official documents of the period.

In their search for great women of the past, feminists have rallied round the figure of Clara Schumann. It must be pointed out, however, that she was not a feminist in the modern sense of the word. She had little interest in women’s rights or the struggle for recognition that other creative German women were just beginning to launch in the mid-nineteenth century. She concentrated on her own career and her many obligations as she endeavored to reconcile the conflicts that inevitably arise when a woman steps out of her conventional place.

Clara Schumann was always her own person, perceiving herself as an artist who was a woman, and eternally grateful for the art that was to sustain her through a lifetime of tragedy and triumph.

NANCY B. REICH

Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

Acknowledgments to the Revised Edition

I am grateful to the friends and colleagues who were so helpful when I was preparing the first edition and were there for me as I began the task of assembling new material for this revised edition.

Gerda Lederer, Herbert Weber, and Josef Eisinger have generously offered expert assistance with transcriptions and translations. I am especially grateful to Dr. Eisinger for his translations of the reviews in the Catalogue, a task I could not have undertaken without his help.

My thanks to the staff of the Music Library of Columbia University; Special Collections, Oberlin College Library; Theodore Finney Music Collection, University of Pittsburgh; Rigbie Turner of the Pierpont Morgan Library; Bernhard Appel and Matthias Wendt of the Robert-Schumann-Forschungsstelle, Dussel-dorf. Inge Hermstrüwer of the Heinrich-Heine-Institut and Martin Schoppe, former director of Robert-Schumann-Haus, both scholars who were unfailingly helpful, have died in recent years; they are sorely missed.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kindness of Gerd Nauhaus and the staff of Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau. I also wish to express my appreciation to Gustav Abel, John Daverio, James Deaville, Claudia De Vries, Joachim Draheim, Valerie Goertzen, Helma Kaldewey, Janina Klassen, Claudia Macdonald, Margit McCorkle, Monica Steegmann, and Maria Zduniak for their comments, suggestions, and generosity in sharing information. Again, many thanks to Mi-Won Kim for her readiness to undertake still more musical examples and to Barbara Salazar, who edited both editions with skill and patience.

Friends and family have been supportive and encouraging. My thanks to Anna Burton, M.D., for her wise counsel; to Styra Avins for many stimulating discussions; to Adrienne Fried Block and Judith Tick for advice, hope, and confidence; to my daughter Susanna for loving interest and concern; and to Maurice M. Rapport for his patient understanding during the many months of work on this edition.

N. B. R.

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

My profoundest gratitude goes to Anna Burton, M.D., for her friendship, continuing support and sympathy, and the stimulating and fruitful collaboration we have had over many years. An accomplished musician and practicing psychoanalyst, she was a true silent partner in the creation of this book. Dr. Burton never spared herself in helping me think through and understand problematical situations and questions that arose during the course of my research. Her wisdom and penetrating insights have informed every page of this book.

I gratefully thank the many colleagues in both Europe and the United States who have aided this endeavor: Martin Schoppe and Gerd Nauhaus, who generously opened the archives at Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau, to me and who have been helpful in every possible way; Hans JoachimKöhler, Leipzig, and Renate and Kurt Hofmann, Hamburg, for enlightening conversation; R. Klaus Müller, Käte Pittasch, Leipzig; Brigitte Berenbruch, Bonn; Helga Heim, Hamburg; Maike Holling-Suhl, West Berlin, whose friendship and devoted interest have made my research in Europe so gratifying and productive; Janina Klassen, Kiel; Maria Parkai-Eckhardt, Budapest; and Peter Cahn, Frankfurt, who have generously shared information with me; and Eva Weissweiler, Cologne, who kindly sent me her transcriptions of Clara Schumann’s letters to Bettina von Arnim.

I thank also Imogen Fellinger, whose family connections with the Schumanns go back several generations, for her guidance and assistance, and Herma Stamm-Bargiel, who provided me with copies of unpublished sketches of the Tromlitz family, shared information about her Tromlitz and Bargiel descendants, and kindly gave me permission to reproduce the picture of Marianne Tromlitz.

I am very appreciative of the hospitality and kindness of Johannes von Gott-berg, who granted me access to the Rudorff archives and gave me permission to quote excerpts from letters of Clara Schumann to Ernst Rudorff.

Among friends and colleagues in the United States, warmest thanks to Marianne von Recklinghausen Bowles and Gabriele Wickert for their expert assistance with translations, and to Adrienne Block, Gary Golio, Mary Ann Joyce, Gladys Krasner, Karen Miller, Susanna Reich, Judith Tick, and Rachel Wade for unflagging encouragement, counsel, and assistance over many years. I have had stimulating and provocative conversations with Dr. Peter Ostwald, who was writing his Robert Schumann biography during the years I was working out ideas about Clara Schumann, and I thank him for his interest and encouragement.

I am grateful to Rufus Hallmark, Mildred Parker, and my colleagues at the Stanford Center for Research on Women, especially Susan Bell, Karen Offen, and Marilyn Safir, for helpful suggestions. To Ralph Locke and Jurgen Thym for information about the Dickinson Collection, many thanks.

I have used the facilities of many libraries and archives and appreciate the gracious assistance of the following individuals and music libraries in the United States: Ruth Hilton and the New York University Music Library; Rigbie Turner and the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Bernard Wilson and the Newberry Library, Chicago; and the staffs of the music libraries of Columbia University, the Eastman School of Music, Harvard University, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, Queens College, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Yale University.

I thank colleagues in European libraries who have been kind and helpful: in England, the staff of the Music Division of the British Library; in West Germany, the Stadtgeschichtliche Sammlungen, Baden-Baden; the library of the Hochschule der Kunste, West Berlin; the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung und Handschriftenabteilung, West Berlin; the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, West Berlin; the Musikbucherei Schumannhaus and the Stadtarchiv, Bonn; the Musikwis-senschaftliches Institut der Universitat, Cologne; the Heinrich-Heine-Institut and the Universitatsbibliothek, Düsseldorf; the Stadt- und Universitatsbib-liothek, Frankfurt am Main; the Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek, Hamburg; the Kestner-Museum, Hannover; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; and the Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart. In the German Democratic Republic, I have had kind and patient assistance from the staffs of the Deutsche Staats-bibliothek, Musikabteilung, Berlin; the Universitatsbibliothek, Leipzig; and Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau. I also thank the staffs of the archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna, and the Biblioteka Jagiellońska, Krakow.

Many thanks to Margit McCorkle and the staff of the Brahms Cataloging Project for placing their library and working papers at my disposal in Vancouver.

I am deeply grateful to Barbara Salazar of Cornell University Press for her patience and expert guidance. To Alan Lippert and Michael Lippert for technical assistance, and to Mi-Won Kim for preparing the musical examples, much appreciation.

Portions of Chapters 1 through 4 have appeared in substantially different form in The Musical Quarterly, Summer 1984. I am also grateful for the cooperation of Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden, publishers of Berthold Litzmann’s biography of Clara Schumann and his edition of the letters of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, and I thank the following institutions for permission to publish excerpts from letters and to reproduce pictures in their possession: Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin/DDR, Musikabteilung; Robert-Schumann-Haus, Zwickau/DDR; Staatsbibliothek, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, West Berlin; Schumannhaus, Bonn; Heinrich-Heine-Institut, Düsseldorf; the Newberry Library, Chicago; and the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

I acknowledge with thanks a grant for college teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities, travel grants from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society, and assistance from the Faculty Service Committee, Manhattanville College.

This book could not have been written without the steadfast encouragement, faith, and devotion of my late husband, Haskell A. Reich.

N. B. R.

Chronology

Abbreviations and Sources

PART I

THE LIFE OF

CLARA SCHUMANN

CHAPTER 1

Prelude: The Wiecks

of Leipzig

On January 9, 1838, a poem, Clara Wieck und Beethoven, appeared in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Kunst.¹ Written by Franz Grillparzer, Austria’s leading dramatic poet, the verse linked the name of the great composer with that of a young woman who had just given her third Viennese recital at the age of eighteen. Grillparzer’s response to her performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op. 57, the Appassionata, reflected the wild enthusiasm the young pianist aroused in Vienna.

Clara Wieck had arrived in the Austrian capital from her native Leipzig with her father, Friedrich, in December 1837. From her first concert on the fourteenth in the Musikvereinsaal to her last appearance in April, when she played for the emperor in the Burg, she was greeted with the kind of adoration the Viennese reserved for artists of the rank of Niccolo Paganini and Sigismund Thal-berg.² Music lovers fought to buy seats in the overcrowded halls where she played; critics vied with one another in expressions of admiration. At her fourth concert, frenzied applause recalled her to the stage thirteen times. Princes and barons invited her to play at their palaces and showered her with jewels and treasure. The empress herself let her deepest satisfaction be known with a gift of fifty gold ducats.³ Recalling Clara’s reception, Eduard Hanslick, the Viennese critic and music historian, described her as not a wonderchild—and yet still a child and already a wonder.⁴

On March 15, 1838, she received the greatest honor Austria could bestow: she was named Königliche Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin (Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuosa), a distinction without precedent for an eighteen-year-old who was, moreover, a Protestant, a foreigner, and a female. The emperor had agreed to make an exception for Clara Wieck. On March 21 the emperor dubbed her Wundermadchen and assured her that he had made the award with great personal satisfaction.⁵

Who was Clara Wieck? How did this slender, oval-eyed daughter of an unknown Leipzig piano teacher and music dealer manage to reach such heights of artistry? The question is still more intriguing when we consider that this girl, born in an age when musical talent in a female was generally regarded only as an asset in the marriage market, subsequently built a glorious career that spanned over sixty years, a career that influenced the concert and musical life of the nineteenth century. Acknowledged as the peer of Franz Liszt, Thalberg, and Anton Rubinstein, she was a thorough professional and a working wife and mother, managing the manifold problems of career, household, husband, and children. At twenty-one she was married to a major composer; at thirty-seven, a widow with seven children, she became involved in a lifelong friendship with another major composer. Furthermore, the indefatigable Clara composed music (twenty-three published opus numbers and an equal number without opus numbers),¹ taught, and was responsible for the authoritative edition of the Collected Works of Robert Schumann.

This remarkable woman was a creative partner of three men: Friedrich Wieck, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. The first, her father, sole teacher, and concert manager, much maligned for the role he was later to play in the romance between his daughter and Robert Schumann, was a self-made man and self-trained musician, obsessive and ambitious. Convinced that gender was no handicap in the race for artistic greatness, he gave Clara the instruction and musical understanding that carried her beyond the ranks of the merely gifted to a position in the constellation of the great nineteenth-century virtuosi. His discipline and pride in her achievements provided the practical sense and stability that sustained her through personal and artistic crises. Wieck firmly believed that his pedagogical genius alone was responsible for the creation of the young pianist who generated such excitement in Vienna in 1838, overlooking entirely the role of Clara’s mother, the girl’s own remarkable talents, and the series of circumstances, at once tragic, auspicious, fortuitous, and predictable, which went into the making of the Queen of the Piano. Wieck was at first, of course, the dominating figure in her life, but Clara soon grew to be the more significant, and he eventually shone only in the reflected glory of her light.

FRIEDRICH WIECK, 1785–1873

Friedrich Wieck, the youngest son of a merchant in Pretzsch, a small town about forty-five kilometers from Leipzig, was born in 1785 into a family with declining fortunes and very little interest in music.⁶ Always passionately fond of the art, he studied where he could. At age thirteen he was given the opportunity to attend the Thomas-Schule in Leipzig, but was forced to return home after six weeks because of illness. A weak and sickly youngster, he remained in Pretzsch until 1800, when he went to the Torgau gymnasium to prepare for the university and his eventual goal, the ministry. In Torgau and later at the University of Wittenberg, where he matriculated in 1803, his musical education was haphazard. His only formal piano lessons were some six hours with Johann Peter Milchmeyer, who was in Torgau for a short time to give lessons to the wife and children of a well-to-do townsman.²

When Wieck completed his theological studies at the university and had preached the obligatory trial sermon in Dresden, he left theology and turned to the traditional occupation of the German university graduate who had neither money nor connections: he became a Hauslehrer, a private tutor in the home of a wealthy family. Over the next nine years he worked for several aristocratic families in Thuringia. His first position was with a baron von Seckendorff in Querfurth, where Adolph Bargiel, the music teacher of the Seckendorff children, became a close friend. Bargiel will appear again at a critical point in Wieck’s life.

Conscientious, observant, and intelligent, Wieck was a perceptive teacher. He understood the latest thought in educational psychology (dominated, at that period, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his Emile and such educators as Johann Basedow and Johann Pestalozzi) and applied it successfully to his students. The young teacher speculated on such concepts as individualized learning and the critical role of motivation in teaching. And, like other progressive educators of his time, he placed great importance on regular physical exercise in the open air. His daughter’s musical education, which was to begin in 1824, was influenced by his reading and experiences as a Hauslehrer.

In keeping with the rationalist spirit of the time, the young man insisted that the goal of moral training should be to educate the child to be a good person. Religion should not be a matter for the mind but should come from the heart, he wrote. He was particularly concerned with Ehrtrieb (which can be loosely translated as a striving for a higher state) and how it could be used as a positive force by the teacher. He cautioned that great care had to be exercised so that Ehrtrieb would not degenerate into mere ambition, a passion for glory, vanity, boastfulness, and malicious pleasure in denigrating others. Consistency, however, was not one of Wieck’s virtues. In view of his later preoccupation with his daughter’s musical career and bitter anger at her, his own Ehrtrieb seems to have been easily sullied by ambition.

Wieck came to music late. During his years as a tutor, he had little exposure to events in the musical world; his experience was limited to small-town musicians and church choirs, perhaps a performance of a neighboring nobleman’s Kapelle. He did not attend a large-scale public concert until he was well into his twenties.

Since symphonic and choral works were performed only in a few large German cities in the early years of the nineteenth century, opportunities to hear a Beethoven symphony or a Haydn oratorio simply did not exist in the provincial centers where Wieck was working. In 1811 the young tutor heard, probably for the first time in his life, orchestral works by Beethoven, Louis Spohr, and Mozart, and the Haydn oratorio Die Schöpfung (The Creation). His copy of the program, preserved by his family, testifies to his attendance at the second German Musikfest, a two-day music festival in which forces from a number of Thuringian towns joined to play large works.⁷

Where and when Wieck learned enough theory to compose and enough about piano technique to set himself up as a teacher are still not clear. Yet by 1815 he was confident enough to dedicate and send a group of his songs to Carl Maria von Weber. To Wieck’s delight, the composer took the time and trouble to write a detailed criticism of the works.⁸ After publication, the songs were reviewed in a Leipzig journal, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung.⁹ Some shortcomings were noted, and Wieck was advised to study voice because his vocal lines were unnatural and hard to sing. At the same time, however, the critic noted that the songs showed some indications of talent. Wieck must have been gratified to see that his work was taken seriously and that a career in music appeared to be possible.

Wieck left his tutorial post and, applying his keen intelligence, energy, soaring ambition, and native talents to music, undertook a new vocation at the age of thirty. In 1815 he was established in Leipzig—with the financial help of a friend—as a piano teacher and owner of a piano store and music shop.

Although the actual date of his settling in Leipzig is not known, it must have been well before the April 19, 1815, issue of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, which referred to him as the popular Leipzig music teacher. Wieck’s business—which he kept going until 1840, when he moved to Dresden—was called a Piano-Fabrik, usually translated as piano factory. The enterprise was not a piano factory, however, but a store in which he rented and sold pianos, and tuned and repaired them as well. The term Fabrik was justified in part by his explanation that he stood behind every piano he sold.¹⁰

Leipzig was the natural place for an ambitious man to establish himself. Located in a flat basin at the confluence of several rivers and the crossroads of ancient north-south and east-west roads, the city had no natural beauty to recommend it, but from the time of its founding in the twelfth century it had been an important trading and cultural center. Though situated in Saxony and subject to its ruler, Leipzig was governed by a town council of middle-class citizens, mostly merchants and manufacturers, which had considerable political and fiscal independence. The semi-annual trade fairs that for more than five centuries had drawn buyers and sellers from all over Europe gave the city a cosmopolitan air and international renown. Leipzig’s musicians were always particularly busy during the fair, for visitors enjoyed musical interludes in their business affairs. The founding of the university in 1409 and the establishment of the printing industry in 1480 contributed to the city’s importance as an intellectual and cultural center.

In settling in Leipzig in 1815, then, Wieck had established himself in the right place at the right time. It not only was a metropolis with a strong commercial and middle-class tradition but one in which music had always had a special position and musicians a favored status. In 1841 a citizen wrote, In our Leipzig, music . . . the interpreter of all human feelings, was held in high esteem and cultivated with an unmistakable preference.¹¹

An active musical life had been recorded in the city since the thirteenth century. Music composed for daily and ceremonial events and performed by town-appointed musicians was described as early as the fifteenth century, and by the seventeenth century private citizens and university students had joined together in a collegium musicum, one of the first in Germany. Cultivation of the musical art was well established when Johann Sebastian Bach was employed by the town council in 1723. Unlike Dresden, the nearest large city and the royal seat of Saxony, with a courtly musical tradition and court-sponsored musical activities, Leipzig was a commercial center whose musical life served the needs of middle-class families.

The unusual interest and pride in church music, the traditions associated with the university (where music had been taught as a discipline since its founding), and the musical activities of the middle class encouraged the growth of such institutions as the Grosse Concert, a concert organization created by merchants in 1743, and its successor, the Gewandhaus Concerts, founded in 1781. The Gewandhaus Concerts, in which Clara Wieck was to play more frequently than any other pianist, was governed by a directorate of twelve townspeople, six from the learned professions and six from the mercantile community. In an age when most European musicians were household servants who performed for their aristocratic patrons and invited friends, the establishment of a concert hall in a commercial building and the administration of the concert organization by a group of middle-class citizens was an augury of the coming century, when concerts would be open to all who could afford the price of tickets.³ From its inception the Gewandhaus was the leading musical organization in Leipzig. Other musical groups performed in the city, but the Gewandhaus concerts were and remain a unique Leipzig institution.

Theater and opera productions had never flourished in the serious Leipzig community as they did in the court cities of Dresden and Weimar. Until a Leipzig city theater in which both dramas and operas were produced was founded in 1817, audiences in the commercial center were entertained by visiting troupes from Dresden. But Wieck attended the theater regularly, and saw to it that his daughter knew the great dramas of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller as well as the popular operas of the day. The young girl heard an astonishing number of operas; by the time she was twelve she had seen almost every work presented in Leipzig, including operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Rossini.⁴

Printing establishments had existed in Leipzig since the invention of type. At the end of the eighteenth century, eighteen general presses, each employing seventy to eighty people, affirmed the status of literacy and education in this region.¹² A typical Leipzig event that Clara attended was the Gutenbergfeyer, on June 24, 1840. Processions, music (by Felix Mendelssohn), speeches, fireworks, a great dinner for 3,000 people, and the unveiling of Johann Gutenberg’s statue celebrated the four hundredth anniversary of Gutenberg’s invention of movable type. Toasts were drunk while music was printed on presses set up in the great square.¹³

In 1815, the year Wieck came to Leipzig, the city, which then had a population of 35,000, was recovering from the upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars. Parts of Saxony had been occupied by French troops, but at the so-called Battle of the Nations, fought on the flat meadowlands surrounding the city, the French were decisively defeated. Peace was restored and commercial life resumed.

Several concerns in Leipzig were already catering to the prosperous musical amateurs but there was always room for another aspiring dealer. In his store in the Hohe Lilie, not far from the main square, Wieck taught, kept his shop, and lived from 1818 to 1821.⁵ An enterprising businessman, he sold and lent music, music books, and periodicals. In addition to pianos, he sold a keyboard instrument known as the physharmonica and such contraptions as the Handleiter (wrist guide), trill machines, finger stretchers, silent fingerboards—all devices intended to speed up music learning and teach correct habits to the large numbers of eager middle-class keyboard amateurs.

By the 1820s Wieck was traveling to Vienna regularly to buy pianos. He became friendly with the piano manufacturers Conrad Graf and Andreas Stein, corresponded with the pianist Carl Czerny, and met Beethoven.¹⁴ Wieck impressed Leipzigers with his energy and ambition, and it was