19th century musical icon Clara Schumann

Clara Schumann was the wife of composer Rob Schumann and a pianist. In recent years, Clara's reputation as a composer has gradually become apparent.

On March 7, the cover page of Lianhe Zaobao Now interviewed two local female composers to discuss an age-old topic: "In the history of classical music, why are female composers collectively absent?" "As a music lover, I have been thinking about this topic for a long time, and I have accumulated some accumulation in recent years, and I want to contribute a little foolishly.

In fact, the emergence (or scarcity) of female composers is not just a matter of "women's status", it involves the epochal background, cultural background and social background of music history. To analyze the intricate entanglements, we may wish to illustrate them with exemplary figures in female composers.

Interviewee Xu Meiduan mentioned Nadia Boulanger in France, who was the world's leading female composer of the 20th century, no doubt. But to get back to the roots, I'd like to start with this article a 19th-century musical icon– Clara Schumann of Germany (1819-1896): the wife of the composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856), a pianist. In recent years, Clara herself has become known as a "composer".

Music senses matchmaking marriage

Interestingly enough, my "acquaintance" with Clara Schumann began with a story I read in Children's Paradise as a child. In the story, Rob and Clara are a pair of musical lovers who practice piano together at home. Somehow, Rob's fingers were caught in the piano and he was unable to play the piano. Clara comforted him and said, "It's okay, let me be your fingers and play all the pieces you've composed."

The musical story of "Children's Paradise" followed me to Baitou. After reviewing Clara's biography, it was found that the time point was 1831, Clara was 12 years old, and Rob Schumann was already a 21-year-old big brother. At home in Leipzig, Clara and Rob were both piano students of her father, Friedrich Wieck. Clara learned to play the piano at the age of five, and her genius came out early, and in addition to her careful teaching, her father also took her to various concerts. By the age of 12, she had browsed all the musical performances in Leipzig, including the operas of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber and Rossini. Music was in her blood.

Schumann began learning the piano from Vic in 1828 and boarded at his house. Vic is a music teacher, long-sleeved dancer and concert manager. A year later, Schumann left Leipzig to study in Heidelberg, returning to Vic's house in 1830. At the end of September 1831, before Clara toured Paris with her father, she faced the talented eldest brother. Clara's "love" with Rob is built in the perception and intoxication of music. The music they co-created, such as the art suite "Spring of Love", you have me, I have you.

Biographer Nancy B. Reich notes that Clara had said she had fallen in love with Schumann in 1833 (at the age of 14). Schumann not only composed music, but also the editor of the New Music Magazine, pioneering a new wave of literature and art. In her letter to Schumann, she enthusiastically revealed that a kiss at her 16th birthday party in 1835 laid the foundation for her affection:

"When you gave me my first kiss, I thought I was going to faint, and my eyes were blank; I almost couldn't hold on to the lamp in my hand when I led you out."

Schumann also decided to dissolve all of his previous marriages with Another pupil of Vic's teacher, Einstein. The news that Ernstein became a baroness in 1838 became the icing on the cake for the two men.

The two were privately engaged for life, and in mid-1839 Clara went to court to ask for permission to marry Schumann without her father's consent. On 1 August of the following year, the court granted the request. The wedding of Rob Schumann and Clara Vic took place on September 12, 1841, the day before Clara's 21st birthday. After marriage, they lived in Schumann's hometown of Zwikau, and now this "Schumann House" has become a national key cultural relic.

Famous in the history of 19th-century music

Nancy Lech's book Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman was first published by Cornell University in 1985 and an updated 415-page edition in 2001.

In the preface to the reprint, Lech said that since the first edition of the book, the world's interest in Clara Schumann has exploded, her works have begun to be played, recorded, film and television broadcasts depicting her life have sprung up, biographies in several languages have been produced, and music competitions have been held under her name. But then, most of the people who came into active contact with the authors of this book were women's rights activists, all looking at Clara in terms of professional women or single mothers.

So Lech collected information again, re-explored her role in the history of music in the romantic music wave, and published an updated version. To Lech's knowledge, Clara has a total of 23 numbered works, and the same number of unnumbered works. The revised edition catalogues all of her works with a detailed analysis of her works.

The updated edition further explores the biographies of Clara's father, Vic, and her birth mother Marianne, and explores how musicians were shaped. In 1825, when Clara was six years old, Marianne divorced Vic and remarried a pianist. Since then, the little girl has grown up under the strict supervision of her father and stepmother. Clara embarked on a path of self-reliance when she began her concert hall career at the age of 18.

Lech pointed out that because of the divorce, academic predecessors deliberately ignored marianne's important role in Clara's life: Clara's stubborn and non-subservient character came from her birth mother. At the age of 46, the composer Schumann died of a mental illness at the end of July 1856, leaving seven children to be raised by Clara. It was a long and arduous 40 years until she died of a stroke in May 1896 at the age of 77.

Although Clara was separated from her birth mother from childhood, she reconnected with Marianne at the age of 20 and regained her maternal love when she decided to stand on her own. After that, Clara asked her mother for help in every crisis, and Marianne's response was always warm, timely, and selfless. After Schumann's death, his mother's warmth shone even more. Marianne left the world in 1872.

In the pen of many biographers, the composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) began a long-lost sister-brother relationship with Clara. As Elek saw, the Schumanns cherished the talent of the rising star, and after Rob's death, the musical exchange with Brahms became an important spiritual comfort for Clara. However, the heavy performance tasks and life burdens have always maintained a platonic relationship between Clara and Brahms.

Clara said in her diary when she was 20 years old that women should not expect to be able to compose, and that Robb would be happy if she could compose music for the rest of her life. Lech believes that even if composing is left behind, as a piano teacher and performer, Clara Schumann is famous enough to be famous in 19th-century music history. Because her piano performance has become a genre, it has given birth to generations of performers. In her 61-year career, she has established the title of "concert artist" for the music world and the rule that "performers must fully serve the requirements of their creators".