The weather has shot up exponentially in Rome in the past week. Heavy rain and humidity has preceded it and the rain has subsided but the humidity remains. In my apartment there’s no air conditioning either. I’ll admit, the changing weather has had an effect on my writing habits and left me feeling lethargic!
However, I’ve been reading my book ‘Year of Wonder’ (which I’ve written about here) and I found a piece that’s really energetic and I’m listening to it whilst writing this. I’m hoping it will help me kick out of this stupor! This piece is full of a revitalising energy, is over 3 minutes in length and is beautifully played in the video at the end of this post.
Clara Schumann was born in Leipzig, Germany (September, 1819) and was a fastidious piano player from a young age. This was the result of her father’s organisation of her daily musical learning and from the age of 8 this child prodigy was performing her first concert at the home of the director of a mental hospital at Colditz Castle.
Once there, she was to meet another exceptional piano player 11 years her senior, Robert Schumann. Fast forward ten years and on proposing to Clara he became her husband (much to the disappointment of her father, who was against the marriage as he didn’t approve of Robert).
She led an exceptional life for a woman of her period, in an age where women were neither able to perform in public nor compose music. Clara did both, as well as earnt money for her family by performing concerts! She didn’t do this for the sake of necessity alone, for in her heart she was an artist by training since childhood. To perform music was in her very nature!
Although she was not recognised as a composer during her lifetime, she was noted for her piano playing and her ability to play pieces from memory, producing the standard for concerts afterwards.
There was also a great deal of sadness in her life. When she was 35 years old, her husband, the better-known Robert Schumann died in a mental asylum having previously attempted to commit suicide. She also lost eight of her children prior to her own death and one of her sons also ended up in a mental asylum.
She also had an ill-fated romance with the composer Brahms, which began during the period of her husbands decline in hospital but which came to nothing after his passing when Brahms chose to leave for Hamburg and leave his (up until that point) all-consuming yearning for Clara behind.
Exceptional talent and a fortuitous life do not often go hand in hand and such was the case for both Clara and her husband. Sadly, they aren’t the first and neither will they be the last.
I really enjoyed this piece because it’s full of life and energy and this movement gives it strength that propels you forward but it also has lulls where it is quietly reflective, if only for a brief time in the entirety of the piece. At some points the playing of keys I liken to the flowing of water.
There is much more to write about Clara Schumann, her life and her compositions and I very much look forward to giving her the recognition she is due in a way that (like so many other male and female composers in the past) she wasn’t given in her lifetime!
CLASSICALISTA 