Clara Schumann
(1819-1896)

NANCY B. REICH

Clara Schumann, a peer of Franz Liszt and Sigismund Thalberg on the concert stage, was an exceptionally well-educated musician. As a child prodigy, she was as renowned for her compositions as much as for her celebrated virtuoso career. Her creative work was praised by the “new romantic” composers—Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Liszt—as well as by the man who later became her husband, Robert Schumann. Other admirers included Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Louis Spohr, and Gasparo Spontini.

From her letters to friends, there is evidence that Clara Schumann found composing a source of great pleasure; and she declared more than once that only a composer could achieve true immortality. Yet she herself had grave doubts about her role as a composer and was more comfortable in the world of the interpretive artist. The ambivalence she displayed was due, in part, to the societal attitude toward women composers and was certainly influenced by her position as the wife of a creative genius.

From our vantage point, she may not rank with her husband and his friends and contemporaries, Frederic Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn, but their esteem of her work was sincere. Both before and after their marriage, Robert Schumann encouraged and supported his wife’s work: theirs was a true musical union. Robert exchanged musical ideas with her; they studied scores of Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart together; he urged her to compose, to preserve her autographs, and to catalogue her work; he wrote to publishers on her behalf and published two of her works as supplements to Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, the music journal he edited. After his death, she ceased composing and devoted herself to performing piano works she respected; her time was also occupied with the supervision of her seven children, teaching, and editing the music of Robert Schumann.

Until her marriage, just before her 21st birthday, the young pianist wrote only works for performance at her own concerts, events that were carefully planned by Friedrich Wieck, her teacher-manager-father. Almost all of the 182 programs she gave between 1828 and 1840 boasted at least one work by the young Clara Wieck. But beginning in 1839, the year before Robert Schumann’s “song year,” she and her husband-to-be began reading poet ry with an eye to eventual musical settings. Her first published works after she married Robert Schumann were three songs in a collection entitled Zwölf Lieder aus F. Rückert’s Liebesfrühling für Gesang und Pianoforte von Robert und Clara Schumann, brought out in Leipzig by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1841. (The collection is often referred to as Opus 37/12—Robert’s Opus 37 and Clara’s Opus 12.) There was no indication in the first edition as to which songs were Clara’s, but Robert, who enjoyed the confusion of the critics, noted on the flyleaf of his copy that numbers 2, 4, and 11 were hers. Autographs in Zwickau and Berlin attest to her authorship.

“Liebst Du um Schönheit,” with text by Friedrich Rückert, is the fourth song of the collection. The moving inner voices of the accompaniment contrast with the declamatory vocal line, which asks three simple questions then gives the answer in a moving climax. Note the way the piano part takes over the vocal line in m.16, the extension of the phrase to create the climax in mm.34—36, and the piano postlude, as it winds down from the emotional peak of “dich lieb ich immerdar.”

The Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Opus 17, composed in 1846, is decidedly different from Clara Schumann’s earlier works, which were mainly character pieces and virtuoso variations. Robert Schumann, obviously proud of his wife’s work, submitted the Trio to Breitkopf & Härtel and arranged to have it published and ready for her birthday in September 1847. It was her first extended composition written in the traditional four-movement form, the fruits of her studies of the chamber works of the Classical masters and her personal experience performing the trio literature of Beethoven and Schubert.

The movements of the Trio are marked Allegro moderato, Scherzo, Andante, and Allegretto. The first movement, presented here, is in clear-cut sonata form. The opening theme, a lyrical and melancholy eight-measure melody in G minor, is balanced in structure and regular in rhythm. It contrasts strongly with the second theme (m.45), a syncopated descending motive in B-flat major. In the exposition, the violin and piano dominate while the cello plays a supporting role. In the development section (after the double bar), however, the cello takes its proper place in the ensemble and, in a series of sequences and imitative episodes based on the first theme, engages in interchanges with the violin. The recapitulation, preceded by a long pedal on D, is almost literal but with the second subject in the parallel major this time.

Although the Trio was the composer’s first and only published work in this style and form, it is a polished effort, eminently playable, that enriches the repertoire for this combination.

After a hiatus of seven years, Clara Schumann took up her pen again for a birthday gift for her husband. Her Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Opus 20, was written in June 1853 and published in November 1854, after she had met Johannes Brahms. During the summer of 1854, the younger composer also wrote a set of variations (his Opus 9) on the same Schumann theme. Brahms quoted a theme from a childhood work by Clara Schumann (Opus 3) in his tenth variation, thus paying tribute to both husband and wife. In the coda of her Opus 20, Clara Schumann also quoted from her earlier work, and since the quotation does not appear in the 1853 autograph, it seems likely that she inserted the quotation after she heard Brahms play his Opus 9. Like Brahms and Clara herself, in Opus 20, Robert Schumann also refers to Clara’s Opus 3 in his Impromptus on a Romance by Clara Wieck.

The theme of Clara Schumann’s Opus 20 is based on Robert Schumann’s Bunte Blätter; Opus 99, no. 4, a 24-measure piece in simple ternary form composed in 1841, though not published until 1852. Robert Schumann’s melody, presented in its entirety but without designated repeats, appears in each of the seven variations with only slight modifications. Except for minor changes, this regularity applies to the structure and tonality as well. Only Variations 2 and 7 differ in form, and the entire set, except for Variation 3 and the Coda, is in F-sharp minor, the key of the Robert Schumann piece. Unlike Clara Schumann’s earlier sets of variations, Opus 3, Opus 8, and Opus 9, which were designed to please the public by displaying her dazzling technique, this work shows balance, proportion, and control throughout. Here the composer-pianist explores the theme by skillful changes in harmony, texture, motion, articulation, dynamics, rhythmic patterns, and coloration.

Recordings

Clara Schumann, Lieder et Pièces pour Piano. “Liebst du um Schönheit,” Udo Reinemann and Christian Ivaldi. Arion 38575, 1980.

Lieder, Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Josephine Lang, Pauline Viardot-Garcia. “Liebst du um Schönheit,” Katherine Ciesinski and Rudolph Palmer. Leonarda LP1-107, 1981.

Chamber Music by Clara Wieck Schumann. Trio in G Minor. Monica von Saalfeld, Franziska Koscielny, and Gisela Reith. Oryx Romantic 1819.

Chamber Music by Women Composers. Clara Schumann, Trio in G Minor. Macalester Trio. Vox SvBX 5112, 1979.

Robert and Clara Schumann. The Complete Piano Trios. Beaux Arts Trio. Philips 6880 008, 1972.

Chamber Music by Clara Wieck Schumann. “7 Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann, op.20.” Monica von Saalfeld, piano. Oryx Romantic 1819.

Music by Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn. “Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, op.20.” Judith Alstadter, piano. Musical Heritage Society 4163, 1980.

Piano Works by Women Composers. Clara Schumann, “Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann.” Rosario Marciano, piano. Turnabout TV 34685, 1979.

Clara Schumann. Two Romances, Variations, Mazurka. James Sykes, piano. Orion 75182, [1974].

Schumanniana. Variations, op.3 by Clara Schumann; Variations, op. 5 by Robert Schumann; Variations, op.9 by Johannes Brahms. Musicaphon (Bärenreiter) BM30 SL 1916.

Liebst du um Schönheit

Clara Schumann

Reprinted from the edition by Breitkopf &. Härtel, Leipzig, n.d. [ca. 1873].

In m.28, the second note in the vocal line should be A flat, not F.

Trio

Clara Schumann

Reprinted from the edition of 1847, by Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig. By permission of Verlag Walter Wollenweber, Munich, reprint 1972.

Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann

Clara Schumann

Reprinted from the edition by Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1854.