To Friedrick Wieck gender was no handicap to artistic greatness. His driving ambition for his daughter Clara played a major part in her early achievements. However it was clearly Clara's own exceptional talents that led her to become one of the greatest of 19th-century piano virtuosi. At 11 years old, Clara had already embarked on an international solo concert career and, at a time when creativity was not encouraged in women, she had begun composing piano music to be included in her concert performances. It wasn’t until her marriage to Robert that she composed songs and, in spite of his encouragement, was not convinced of her ability, writing in the joint marriage diary: 'But I can't compose ... I don't have the talent for it .... Composing a song, grasping a whole text, that requires intellect'.
Composing didn't come easily for Clara. She lacked confidence in her own work, and was burdened with household responsibilities. Eventually, she did write songs - songs of the new romanticism with her own individual style and musical language. She found joy in composing and at Christmas and birthdays presented Robert with gifts of her
songs for his approval. An entry in the marriage diary reveals Robert's feelings: 'Clara has written a number of small pieces that show a musical and tender invention that she has never attained before. But to have children and a husband who is always in the realms of imagination do not go together with composing .... ‘
The two Ruckert settings included here Warum willst du and're fragen and Liebst du um Schonheit were, with two others, among her first and arguably her finest. They are reflective in character and suggest a biographical leaning. Originally published together with some songs by Robert and entitled Zwolf Gedichte aus Riickerts 'liebesfriihling', three of them were also published as her own Op. 12. As we might expect of a pianist, Clara's piano accompaniments are often elaborate. Certainly, in Mein Stern! a romantic setting of a poem by her friend Friederike Serre, the piano's busy accompaniment infuses the song with a joyful bubbling energy from start to finish.
In the marriage diary Robert wrote of Sie Jiebten sich beide: 'The best that she has yet composed’. Clara's sensitive and haunting setting of Heinrich Heine's poem about yearning and loss is part of a cycle of Sechs lieder, Op. 13, dedicated to the Queen of Denmark.
Sandra Porter
Sally Beamish's Clara was commissioned by Sandra Porter and Graeme McNaught with financial assistance from Glasgow City Council's Art Development Fund and the Scottish Arts Council. Its text, by writer Janice Galloway, recounts the life of Clara Schumann in an intimate, first-person narrative. Spanning the seven and a half decades from her extraordinary childhood to the long widowhood that followed Robert Schumann’s death, snapshots and recollections are woven into an extended monologue that brims with drama and heart-stopping tenderness.
For the first performance, on National Poetry Day, 12 October 1995, the composer Sally Beamish wrote: ‘ln setting this text, which moves me greatly and which has so many specific points of reference - the most important perhaps being its function as a "commentary" on the Chamisso text of the Schumann song cycle Frauenliebe und -Leben - it was natural for some of those references to find their way into the music. Some are direct quotations from the Schumann setting; some are oblique references (either rhythmic or melodic), and some are passages which simply reflect the compositional flavour of the music of Robert or Clara while remaining fundamentally within my own musical language. The piece is a continuous whole, so individual sections of text - or “songs" - function within that line, moving from a childlike simplicity for Clara's early years to a more complex, passionate expression.’
Robert Schumann married Clara Wieck in 1840. Her father's well-documented opposition to this union had been fierce and unwavering. Eventually, a court of law decided in the couple's favour and, significantly, the marriage took place on the eve of Clara's 21st birthday. Had they wed one day later, paternal approval and their legal battle would have been unnecessary. This was a hard-fought victory and the beginning of a family life that had once seemed impossible. There was much to celebrate.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Schumann's wedding year was also his 'Year of Song', a year in which he set over 120 love poems to music. Among them were eight of Adelbert von Chamisso's nine portrayals of 'A Woman's Love and Life', his ‘Frauenliebe und -Leben'.
This depiction of a 19th-century woman understandably raises 21st-century eyebrows and presents challenges to modern-day performers and audiences alike. A woman's life, we appear to be told, exists through the meaning she invests in and is granted by her man. Without the composer's lyrical and beautifully crafted intervention the work might not have weathered the storms of time, storms of anything from indignation to yawning amusement.
Life begins with her shunning childish things as she finds herself blind to all but the handsome, virile vision of her intended. Unworthy herself, she promises to bless and be happy for that better soul who will surely gain his affection. Dream and reality combine as he declares his love for her alone and presents her with a ring. With her sisters, she prepares for betrothal, humbly, joyfully leaving one family for another. She conceals her tears from her husband and looks to the empty cradle that will, one day, contain his own image. The bliss of motherhood, second to none, is followed, hard-hitting, by the sudden pain of widowhood. She has lived and loved. She is alive no more.
Chamisso's ninth poem, unset by Schumann, would have taken the narrative further. There she would speak to her daughter's daughter, affirming that 'joy is but love, love but joy’, grandmotherly wisdom taking the place of the black veil of mourning. Schumann, instead, chose a wordless song, a reiteration of the first, this time for piano alone. He allows the listener time and room to reflect.
Frauenllebe und -Leben is undoubtedly problematic. As documentation of the customs and mores of the period, it is a vivid, compelling piece of evidence and a reminder of the gender roles that once pertained. Maybe that should suffice. Presented here it may simply serve to put the extraordinary life of Clara Schumann, wife, mother and the 19th century's foremost piano virtuosa onto stark relief.
Above all, should it be possible to suspend notions of gender for its brief duration, it is a piece about human wonder, joy, despair and, yes, love. Its message, heard with neither agenda nor prejudice, is heartfelt and, surely, universal.
Graeme McNaught