Clara Schumann's Incredible Piano Trio

Clara Schumann was a brilliant and charismatic figure in 19th Century musical culture. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, relentlessly fostered and exploited her extraordinary gifts as a child: from the age of 9, she was a touring virtuoso pianist, travelling all over Europe. Her success as a musician matched her most famous male contemporaries, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn, all of whom were admirers of her talent. Defying her father’s ferocious opposition, she took legal action in order to marry the brilliant but troubled composer-critic, Robert Schumann. The couple had eight children and Clara had to continue being the breadwinner for the family while her husband experienced increasingly severe setbacks with his mental health. In 1846, whilst pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, Clara made use of ‘idle time’ to compose a Piano Trio in G minor which she presented to her husband Robert Schumann as a 6th wedding anniversary gift on 12 September. The trio is utterly masterly in construction: the handling of form and material is consistently inspired, and the subtle interrelationship of the instruments is richly contrapuntal as well as being intimately expressive. The themes are striking and beautiful and the piano writing is noticeably restrained. Clara’s own assessment of her work however was always critical. She described the trio as “mere woman’s work’ (‘Frauenzimmerarbeit’) lacking power and invention.” Robert Schumann composed his own piano trio the following year, in response to his wife’s masterpiece.

In 1848, two years after the trio was written, Clara single-handedly rescued her family during the Dresden uprising, fearlessly defying a group of armed men. Despite her husband's attempted suicide, incarceration in a psychiatric hospital, and early death in 1856, she continued to perform publicly. Throughout her career, she ignored the ubiquitous disapprobation of her society towards professional women musicians. She pioneered the idea that a performing musician is an artist, rather than an entertainer. She invented the modern recital as a significant musical event in which important work is curated and programmed intelligently and artistically by the performer. She was one of the first pianists to present whole recitals from memory, and she premiered and championed some of the most important music of her time. She was a mentor and friend to talented younger musicians like Brahms and Joachim, and became a widely respected educator in later years. In her old age, on the death of her daughter Julie, she took on the role of being a primary carer to her grandchildren. In 1883, she performed Beethoven's Choral Fantasy with the newly-formed Berlin Philharmonic, with an injured hand, having fallen on a staircase the previous day. Her performance was greeted rapturously by the audience.

In her book, 'Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage' (2001), Elaine Showalter has suggested that feminist icons are "known for the daring and range of their demand for a full life. While women in every era have been instructed or advised to follow rules of conduct, seduction, and success, those who have become feminist icons and heroines were rule-breakers who followed their own paths, who were determined to experience love, achievement, and fame, and who wanted their lives to matter. We do not ask them for perfection. Rather, their fallibility and humanity make them real to us, and even their tragedies are instructive and inspiring for women today who are still trying to combine independence, adventure, and love".

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Reference:
Elaine Showalter, Inventing Herself: Claiming a Feminist Intellectual Heritage, New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.

MUSICAL EXCERPTS USED IN THIS VIDEO

Clara Schumann: Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 17 (1846)
Micaela Gelius, piano.
Sreten Krstic, violin.
Stephan Haack, piano.

#claraschumann #pianotrio #musicprofessor



Edited by Ian Coulter ( https://www.iancoultermusic.com )
Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King

Moving images created by leiapix.com
Falling roses sourced from Vecteezy.com