Clara Schumann and her Songs

by
Kristin Norderval

Copyrighted by Kristin Norderval
All rights reserved.

My edition of songs by Clara Schumann described below is published by Hildegard Press as Seven Lieder #09102 and includes the songs, this introduction, and translations.

On the first Christmas of their marriage, Clara Schumann presented her husband with a gift of three songs she had composed. They were copied out in fair hand on small paper with ornamental borders, and bound with a ribbon. She inscribed the title page with the words "in deepest humility dedicated to her beloved Robert on Christmas 1840 from his Clara." She was twenty-one.

Robert had been entreating her since March of 1840 to try her hand at lieder composition. He had written to her before their marriage,

"Do you mean to say that you have been idle while I am composing so much? Try your hand at a song! Once you have begun, you won't be able to break free. It is quite seductive."1

to which she replied the following day:

"But I cannot compose; it makes me quite unhappy sometimes, but it really is not possible. I have no talent for it. Do not think that it is laziness. And a song indeed! I cannot do that at all, it needs inspiration to compose a song and fully grasp the meaning of the words."2

But finally in December, just four months after their marriage, she wrote in their Household Diary that she had neglected the piano for eight days in order to compose.

"Whenever Robert went out of the house, I spent my time in attempts to compose a song (something he always wanted), and finally I succeeded in completing three , which I will present to him at Christmas. If they are really of little value, merely a very weak attempt , I am counting on Robert's forbearance and [hope] that he will understand that it was done with the best will in the world in order to fulfill this wish of his - just as I fulfill all his wishes. Be kind, my friend, and have indulgence for this weak gift, which is bestowed with so much love."3

These words seem strangely self-effacing for someone who had been composing virtuoso concert pieces since age eleven, and who had already had most of those works published. She had started concertizing as a child prodigy at age nine, and now ranked, along with Liszt and Thalberg, as one of the world's preeminent piano virtuosi.

At the time she and Robert were married, Clara's catalog of works included several youthful songs (one of which, Walzer , was published in 1833), a Scherzo for orchestra (written at age twelve), and eleven opus numbers of published works for piano, including her Piano Concerto , written first as a one movement Conzertsatz at age fourteen, and later expanded to a full three-movement concerto at age sixteen.

Yet in spite of these accomplishments she was not confident about her composing. Sometimes she would have heated exchanges with Robert over musical differences regarding her works;

" The end, which I liked best, you have completely altered; and yet it impressed every one to whom I played it; the theme seems to me too learned from the outset too little simple and clear..."4

More often she would express doubts and chagrin. On April 23, 1840 she wrote,

"I have written one quite tiny piece, but I do not know what I shall call it. I have a peculiar aversion to showing you anything I have composed, I am always so ashamed."5

Like any artist, Clara at times also expressed insecurities about her playing, but in general she knew her worth as a pianist, and in contrast to her creative efforts, she was confident about her abilities. When she married Robert she was secure in her position as an international artist. Her career had been steadily building since her debut at age nine, had included numerous tours as a child with her father over all of Europe, and had seen her named Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuosa by the Austrian monarch at age eighteen.

Why then was this woman of immense talent, this prodigy performer-composer, so filled with ambivalences and insecurities when it came to her compositions?

It is clear that Clara internalized certain prejudices about female composers, since she belittled her work with such apologetic descriptions as "...but naturally it is still women's work which always lacks force and occasionally invention."6 These words seem out of character for a woman who was anything but meek or uninventive, a woman who was able to defy so many other expectations about what was deemed appropriate for female musicians.

For instance, although Clara lived at a time when few women travelled or conducted business on their own, she managed a lengthy tour to France by herself at the age of nineteen. In a letter to Robert on January 14, 1839, she described some of her responsibilities:

"I have to write every note (which has to do with the concert) myself, send round free tickets, see about tuners and men to carry the piano, and practise in addition."7

Normally her father would have accompanied her and managed the tour, but he had refused to help her further with her career as long as she continued her requests for permission to marry Robert. Clara had been emotionally and musically dependent on her father from a very young age; he had after all single-handedly created her success as a "Wunderkind" through a combination of tortuous discipline and uncompromising belief in her talent. Yet she found the strength to assert her independence, find a travel companion, and tour without her father's help. She then joined Robert in a petition challenging her father in court for the right to marry Robert without her father's consent.

She likewise found strength later to deal with Robert's conflicts about her performing career. Robert vacillated between pride in her artistry (and dependance on her financial contributions to their household), and deep wishes that she might, as he put it, " ...live only for yourself and your house and your husband..."8 While constant pregnancies and the difficulties of caring for eight children curtailed her concertizing to a degree, motherhood did not end her career, as was usually the case for female concert artists in that era. Since Robert was not well suited to travelling, she often toured without him, despite the censure she received. Surprisingly, she consistently concertized well into the last weeks of her pregnancies apparently without criticism.

After Robert's suicide attempt and subsequent commitment to the mental asylum at Endenich, she increased her concertizing to pay the medical and household bills, and after his death she found herself the sole supporter of their seven surviving children. At a time when women had limited employment opportunities, Clara concertized, taught, prepared a complete edition of Robert Schumann's works, was the center of a circle of musicians that included Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms, and unlike other women artists of her era, managed her own career without the help of a male relative. She seemed to pursue all her professional activities relatively free of conflicts about what was considered properly feminine. In fact, in 1879 when Joachim Raff appointed Clara Schumann to a full-time teaching position at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, making an exception to the policy of not hiring women, his rationale was "As for Madame Schumann, I count her as a man."9

Only in regards to composing was Clara not able to transcend the attitudes of her time about women in music. However, her situation is rather more complex than that of a woman unable to overcome prejudice (internal or external) about female composers. It was her specific relationships to the men in her life that determined how those attitudes affected her. Her father, who had believed in her talent and had devoted all his energies to developing it, had managed to instill confidence in Clara for a time when she was young. Robert Schumann also believed in her work and encouraged her to continue composing, but unfortunately he was also a competitor, and this brought its own conflicts. The plaintive, oft-quoted diary entry in November of 1839 speaks for itself of these points:

"...oblivion is the fate of every artist who is not creative. I once believed that I had creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not wish to compose -- there never was one able to do it. Am I intended to be the one? It would be arrogant to believe that. That was something with which only my father tempted me in former days. But I soon gave up believing this. May Robert always create; that must always make me happy."10

When she was having trouble composing or was unhappy with a piece, Clara was apt to consider her difficulties a function of her gender. The frustration she felt likely stemmed from the pressures of her constant comparison with Robert. Composing did not come as easily to her as it did to him, and it was also not her primary passion. Hard as it was to manage a life together as two professional musicians, it must have been even more difficult to try to develop as a mature composer in the same household with a man who would eventually be recognized as one of the great romantic masters of song and piano literature. One might wonder how Clara managed to find the confidence to continue composing at all, especially since Robert had come into her life so early that she hardly had the chance to find her own voice. His presence added an unusual twist to an already atypical childhood.

Born September 13, 1819 in Leipzig to Marianne Tromlitz, a professional singer and pianist, and Friedrich Wieck, a piano teacher and music merchant, Clara grew up among professional musicians, but was left alone so much in her early years that she did not speak until she was four, and until then there was speculation that she was deaf. Marianne left Friedrich when Clara was five and took her infant son with her. Clara and her two younger brothers were awarded to Wieck as his property under Saxon law.

Friedrich Wieck had decided at Clara's birth that he would create in her a virtuosa capable of proving to the world the supremacy of his pedagogical method, and he found in Clara the talent to fulfill that ambition. At age five she began piano study and soon her days were filled with the additional regimen of lessons in harmony, counterpoint, score-reading, orchestration, improvisation, singing, and violin - all with the best available teachers. Under Wieck's supervision, Clara received not only superb piano instruction, but also theoretical training that would have been restricted to her had she studied at the Conservatory in Leipzig, where women were not permitted to take composition classes until the 1870's. Clara's younger brothers were also subject to Wieck's musical training, but as they were less talented than their sister, they often bore the brunt of their father's impatient rage. Clara did not suffer beatings, but Wieck became so invested in her successes as a measure of his own that he spoke of her concerts as "our triumphs," and he began a diary for her in which he himself wrote as though he were his daughter.

This was the world Robert encountered when he came to Wieck's studio to train for a career as a concert pianist. He studied with Wieck for a short time in 1828, and in 1830 he returned and joined the household as a boarder in order to study full-time. But instead of being the favored student as Wieck had promised, Robert found himself thrown into competition with Clara, and indeed far outclassed by this eleven year old child prodigy (nine years his junior) who was already well embarked on a concert career, and who was the real focus of Wieck's attention. In addition to performing, Clara, like Robert, was composing concert works to include on her programs. This of course was expected of virtually all the nineteenth century virtuosi.

One month after Robert had moved into the Wieck household, Clara made a spectacular solo debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and was praised for both her performance and for her Variationen ƒber ein Originalthema . The next year she embarked with her father on a long tour to Paris, and in the following year again triumphed both as a composer and a performer in Zwickau, the town of Robert's birth. She performed as a soloist to great acclaim, and her Scherzo for Orchestra , performed on the same program as the first movement of Robert's G-minor Symphony , was enthusiastically received. 11

Musical competition was an inevitable part of Clara and Robert's relationship as students under the same teacher. But theirs was a meeting of minds as well, and the pattern of studying together, sharing musical ideas, quoting and critiquing each other's works, was to stay constant throughout their years together. The competition between them was also offset by mutual admiration. However much awe Robert may have felt at Clara's precocious genius, Clara felt equally in awe of this intellectual, well-educated older man. Clara's musical education was far superior to Robert's, but he had the advantage of university studies and exposure to a broad literary background.

Robert's hand injury in 1832 alleviated some of their performance competition, for eventually he abandoned his dreams of a concert career and decided to concentrate fully on composition. This marked the beginning of a polarization of their artistic roles, since from that time on Robert depended on Clara to be the interpreter of his works, to literally be his hands. Clara may also have begun at that point to envision their roles as separate: that Robert would be primarily the creative artist and she the interpretive artist.

A change was gradually occurring on the concert stage as well. Works in the new romantic style were replacing the bravura showpieces of the previous generation of composers, and it was becoming less necessary for virtuoso performers to compose their own works to showcase their technical prowess. As tastes shifted, Clara's compositional style and her role as a virtuosa also shifted. Though her works still retained a certain amount of virtuosic bravura, she counted herself among the Romantics. On her concerts however, she offered less of her own work and concentrated instead on promoting works by other composers such as Chopin, Mendelssohn, and of course, Robert Schumann.

Although there is no doubt that both Clara and Robert each pursued their strongest talents in the ensuing years, it seems clear that this gradual polarization of roles, along with the changing role of the virtuoso and Clara's exploration of a new compositional style may have contributed to her growing insecurities about her compositions.

Another change in Clara's life which caused turmoil was the shift in allegiance that she began to make from her father to Robert. Clara later revealed that her interest in Robert began as early as 1832, the year she turned thirteen, and the same year as Robert's hand injury. Although an intimacy and dependency was developing between them during that time, Robert did not actively court her until she was sixteen. The change from familial to romantic love towards Robert, the age difference between them, Wieck's bitter opposition to their union (which forced secret trysts and communication), and Robert's other romantic liaisons provided for a turbulent courtship. Their musical bonds however, strengthened. For both of them, composing became almost as much of a personal communication as letter writing. Their letters carried exchanges of musical themes and codes, and described the programmatic contents of the pieces on which they were working.

When they finally married Clara experienced a difficult shift in roles, from concert artist to wife, and soon thereafter, to mother. For his time Robert was an unusually supportive husband. He understood Clara's need to work, encouraged her to compose, and arranged for the publication of her compositions. But he also expected that his professional needs would take precedence over hers, and he demanded silence in the house when he composed, which severely restricted Clara's practicing. Suddenly her status as an international artist around whom everyone else had revolved, was changed. Now she was expected to revolve around her husband.

Within the year Clara delivered their first child, and seven more children followed within the next thirteen years, one of whom did not survive past infancy. Robert understood that the demands of caring for their children and running a household created time constraints that made composing problematic at best. In February of 1843 he wrote in his personal listing of "Leipzig composers"

"Clara has written a number of smaller pieces, which show a musicianship and a tenderness of invention such as she has never before attained. But children, and a husband who is always living in the realms of imagination, do not go well with composition, She cannot work at it regularly, and I am often disturbed to think how many tender ideas are lost because she cannot work them out."12

It would have been unthinkable in those days to question whether Clara should be the primary caretaker. They did have domestic servants, as was customary for the middle class, and later when her eldest daughter was old enough to take on domestic responsibilities, Clara depended on her to help run the household and care for her younger siblings. Clara also enlisted the help of some of her piano students, but she was still the one ultimately responsible for all aspects of household life.

In spite of domestic responsibilities, Clara managed, for a time at least, to maintain both her performing and her composing. From 1840 to 1846 she composed sixteen songs, (eleven of which were published) a piano trio, and five major works for piano. She gave birth to four of her children during that time, and her concertizing included three major tours, to Denmark, Russia, and Austria.

The years from 1847 on however, were difficult and filled with loss. Both Fanny Hensel, (Felix Mendelssohn's older sister and a composer in her own right) and Felix Mendelssohn, who were close friends of the Schumann's, died in that year -- Fanny in May, and Felix in November. On June 22nd, a month after Fanny's death, the Schumann's first son Emil died, at just sixteen months of age. Clara had presented Robert with one movement of a new piano concerto for his birthday on June 8th, but after Emil's death, she stopped writing and never resumed work on the concerto. Sometime in 1848, Clara wrote three choral works, but following that she composed nothing until 1853. Those years were turbulent: a revolutionary uprising in 1849 caused them to flee their home for a time; their move from Dresden to Dƒsseldorf in 1850 was another uprooting; and Robert's subsequent difficulties with his conducting position in Dƒsseldorf, along with his increasing mental instability, placed tremendous stress on their lives.

In 1853 Clara began composing again, and described how satisfying that was, and what an escape it offered from the cares of the world. Op. 20, 21, 22 and 23 date from that year, and include piano works, romances for violin and piano, and her last songs. After this year of creative activity however, another silent period then ensued until she wrote her last major piano work, the Romanze fƒr Clavier , probably written sometime in 1856 for Brahms. On July 29, 1856 Robert Schumann died, and in the forty remaining years of Clara's life she composed only a cadenza for Beethoven's Piano Concerto in C minor, and a short march written in 1879 for a friend's golden wedding anniversary. (It's possible two cadenzas for Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor were also composed during this time, however the dates of composition are unknown.) At the urging of her daughter she also notated some of her prelude improvisations near the end of her life, however Clara herself did not consider these true compositions, but regarded them rather as warm-up exercises. Clara and Robert Schumann had lived their lives together through music, and composing had been such a primary and personal communication between them that it is not surprising that she stopped composing after his death. Although Clara's friendship with Johannes Brahms for the remainder of her life fulfilled many of her needs for intimate musical partnership, it did not foster the continuation of her composing.

Unpublished Lieder of Clara Schumann
In the first year of their marriage, Clara had turned, as Robert urged her, to lieder composition. The three songs composed for Robert's Christmas gift were her first mature efforts at lieder, and she composed twenty more songs over the next thirteen years. Eleven were birthday gifts to Robert, and two were gifts to her good friend Friederike Serre using texts that Serre had written.13 Only the last songs that she wrote, the six songs of Op. 23, and Das Veilchen , were written not as gifts, but for herself. These songs were written in 1853, after her hiatus of seven years from song composition.

Of her twenty-three mature songs, fifteen were published fairly soon after their completion (as Op. 12, 13 & 23) and one was published independently in Germany. Of the remaining seven, six were never published and one was published only in English translation as "O Thou My Star" for the occasion of an opening of a hospital in London. These are the seven songs which are published in this edition.

It is impossible to know why these particular songs were never published, and impossible to say whether it was Clara herself or Robert who made the decisions. All but one of the songs date from the first six years of their marriage, the time when Robert was actively involved in arranging for publication of Clara's works. Even years later, when Clara was more confident of her abilities, she still depended upon Robert's approval. A letter to her half-sister Marie, shows this well:

"To my great joy, all of the pieces were so well done that there was nothing that Robert wanted to change. So you see, as one gets older there are also many pleasures that only a more mature mind and feelings can bring."14

Virtually all of Clara Schumann's mature instrumental works were published in her lifetime, most often within two years of their completion,15 but a significant percentage of her songs and all of her choral works remained unpublished. Perhaps her conflicts about her work were greater regarding her vocal compositions. This would hardly be surprising, both because Clara was primarily a pianist, and because she began work on her songs in 1840, immediately following Robert's most prolific song writing year. Between February 1840 and January 1841, Robert had composed both the Heine and the Eichendorff Liederkreis cycles, as well as Myrthen , Dichterliebe , Frauenliebe und Leben , and numerous other songs. It is easy to understand the intimidation she must have felt in the face of this super-human achievement.

There are some interesting aspects to Clara Schumann's unpublished lieder which may have influenced either Robert's or Clara's decisions regarding their fate. Some of the unpublished songs are among her most intensely personal works, in fact they may have seemed too personal for publication. For example, of the three songs in Clara's first Christmas gift to Robert of 1840, only Volkslied was not published. The two songs which were published are unambiguous love songs, but Volkslied describes the destruction of two young lovers who secretly elope. The song is eerily simple, foreboding, and beautiful. However, given the long public battle with Wieck over their marriage, it is quite possible that neither Clara nor Robert would want to publish a song that might seem to express insecurities about the future of their relationship. Similarly, among the three songs of Robert's birthday gift in 1843, the only published song is an unproblematic love song. The unpublished ones, Loreley and O weh des Scheidens , are both darker songs of fatality and despair. Likewise Veilchen , the last song Clara wrote, uses Goethe's bittersweet text about love crushed underfoot. Mein Stern , published only in English, as well as Beim Abschied and Die gute Nacht , the other two unpublished songs, are songs of separation and yearning. Although there is also a certain amount of dark, romantic brooding to several songs in Op. 13, in general Clara's published songs are fairly positive evocations of love and nature, while as a whole the unpublished ones express a more sorrowful and pessimistic side of her personality.

The accompaniments for the unpublished songs also show a side of Clara less often seen in her other works. They tend to be less virtuosic, and more expressively romantic in their depiction of text and mood. Clara may not have been secure with the stark simplicity of some of these romantic settings. Only Loreley has the bravura accompaniment typical of many of Clara's published songs and piano works.

There is the additional possibility that these songs remained unpublished due to unresolved musical issues. For example, O weh des Scheidens , which opens dramatically on a diminished seventh chord, originally ended on the dominant, but was revised in her notebook to resolve to the tonic. Clara did choose to end one published song on the dominant chord (Die Lotosblume , Op. 13 No. 6) but it is an unusual choice for an ending, especially as the last song of a set. Perhaps in the case of O weh des Scheidens she was reluctant to repeat herself, but was still ambivalent about her revision.

Finally, concerns about comparison or competition may have influenced decisions on whether or not to publish these songs. Clara was quite aware of professional comparisons, and often took steps to avoid direct competition with others. For instance, she arranged her concert tours so as to avoid overlap with Liszt, and she discouraged her son Felix from pursuing music out of fear that he would not compare favorably with his late father. One can imagine that Clara would not wish to publish songs which might be compared with either Robert's output, or that of other composers, and several of the unpublished songs fall into this category. Veilchen , for example, had been set by Mozart, although Clara was not aware of this when she composed her setting, for which she endured a fair amount of teasing from Robert.16 In Loreley not only are the repeated triplets in the left hand reminiscent of Schubert's Erlkûnig , but Robert had just set Eichendorff's version of the Loreley legend in Waldesgespr...ch , one of the songs in the Eichendorff Liederkreis . Robert also later set the texts of Volkslied and Die gute Nacht , the latter as a choral work. In this case competitive interest in the texts may have been a consideration regarding decisions about publication of Clara's settings.

Making these previously unpublished songs available adds an important dimension to our understanding of Clara Schumann as a composer, and provides an opportunity to re-examine the role composing played in the life of this complex and consummate artist. Any evaluation of Clara Schumann as a composer must of course acknowledge that composing was neither the only outlet for her musical genius nor the most compelling one. She was first and foremost a concert pianist, and her composing was often in response to the prodding of others, whether her father, her public, her husband, or her friends. She was able to channel her compositional talents in other directions after Robert's death, when she stopped composing works of her own, and focused on editing and preparing a complete edition of his works. Yet as these songs show, composing had indeed been a very personal expression for her.

Additionally, there is the issue of maturity. Clara's early virtuosic keyboard works are brilliant showpieces which display a secure command of technique, but they are nonetheless childhood works. Her more mature works are naturally bound to Robert Schumann, with whom she carried on a musical dialogue for over twenty years. The style of her works is unmistakably her own, but one may well ask - how much of that style had she explored before she stopped composing at age thirty-six? There are tantalizing glimpses in some of these songs of possible musical directions she may have followed had she been able to continue working to maturity.

Even though this supremely gifted musician was not able to devote herself more fully to composition, she managed to produce a varied body of work that is both interesting and beautiful, has much to offer, and which enriches the Romantic repertoire. There is evidence in much of her work of a truly unique and personal voice. Her unpublished songs in particular present an interesting facet of her work, showing as they do a side of Clara not normally seen, a side she may have in fact wished to conceal. Perhaps the very ambivalences she had about her composing in general and these songs in particular, are a key to a better understanding both of her work, and of who she was as an artist.

ENDNOTES
1Berthold Litzmann, Clara Schumann: An Artist's Life, Based on Material Found in Diaries and Letters, trans. Grace E. Hadow (London: Macmillan, 1913), I:284. Robert to Clara, March 13, 1840.

2Ibid., I: 242. Clara to Robert, March 14, 1840.

3Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann, the artist and the woman, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 230.

4Litzmann, Clara Schumann , I:242-243. Clara to Robert, June 1840, regarding the third of her Trois Romances .

5Ibid., I:242. Clara to Robert, April 23, 1840.

6Reich, Clara Schumann, 228.

7Litzmann, Clara Schumann, I:184. Clara to Robert, January 14, 1839.

8Reich, Clara Schumann, 92.

9Reich, Clara Schumann, 292.

10Reich, Clara Schumann, 228-229.

11Peter Ostwald, Schumann: the inner voices of a musical genius. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1985) 95.

12 Liztmann, Clara Schumann , I:318-319.

13Friederike and Anton Serre were family friends of the Wiecks, and were among those who helped Clara throughout her life. The Serres had allowed for lover's trysts between Clara and Robert when they were forbidden by Wieck to see each other. They sheltered the Schumann's during the 1849 uprising, and gave them the use of their estate for vacations. Eugenie Schumann also relates in her memoirs that Friederike was named as godmother to Julie.

14Reich, Clara Schumann, p. 230.

15 The exceptions were one sonatine, one romanze, the march written for a friend's anniversary and her prelude improvisations.

16Liztmann, Clara Schumann , II: 37.