Clara Schumann (1819–1896)

Born in Leipzig in 1819, Clara Wieck was trained from childhood by her father, Friedrich Wieck, a famous piano teacher. A child prodigy, she gave concerts all over Europe from the age of eleven and published her first pieces very young; at sixteen she premiered her own Piano Concerto in A minor Op. 7.

In 1840 she married Robert Schumann, her father’s pupil, after a long court battle against her father, who opposed the marriage. The couple had eight children. Clara premiered many of Robert’s works and wrote songs, piano pieces, a piano trio and romances for violin and piano herself.

After Robert’s death in 1856 she composed less and less and devoted herself to her career as a pianist to support her family, performing for more than sixty years. A close friend of Johannes Brahms, she championed his music and her husband’s. From 1878 to 1892 she taught at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where she died in 1896.

Her songs, such as those she published with Robert in the collection Liebesfrühling (Op. 12, 1841), show refined writing, bold harmonies and a piano that converses with the voice.