(1) Childhood

Clara was born in Leipzig on September 13, 1819, the eldest daughter of her father, Friedrich Wieck, and her mother, Marianne. When she was five years old, her parents divorced, and Clara and her younger siblings separated from their mother to live with their father. Her father, Wieck, a piano teacher, chose the name "Clara," which means "brilliance" or "celebrity." Wieck was convinced that his daughter would become a great virtuoso, true to her name, and began her piano lessons when she was five. Under her father, who also ran instrument manufacturing and music publishing businesses alongside his piano teaching, Clara received an exceptional musical education from an early age in a highly privileged environment. Wieck also emphasized language education, including English and French, and made daily long walks a routine to build her physical stamina.

(2) Beginning of Career

After several private performances, Clara, just nine years old, finally appeared in a concert at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in October 1828. This was her first public performance and marked the beginning of her career. At this time, Clara performed Kalkbrenner's Brilliant Variations on a March from Rossini's Opera 'Moses' Op. 94. In 1830, she gave her first recital, also at the Gewandhaus, and the following year, she embarked on a concert tour with Wieck to Paris, the center of the musical world. En route, she had the opportunity to perform twice before Goethe in Weimar and before Spohr in Kassel. She stayed in Paris for two months, appearing in several private soirées and public concerts. In addition to experiencing cutting-edge music at concerts held there, she met Mendelssohn, Kalkbrenner, Herz, and Chopin, and re-encountered Paganini, receiving much inspiration. After returning to Leipzig, she continued her performance activities while studying music theory, composition, instrumentation, and violin. Around this time, she had already published several works for solo piano, including Four Polonaises for Piano Op. 1, published in 1831.

Clara achieved brilliant success one after another in her active performance career across Europe, but the pinnacle of her career in her youth was the Vienna concert tour of 1837-38. Grillparzer, a prominent Austrian dramatist, published a poem titled Clara Wieck and Beethoven, greatly praising Clara. She was also awarded the most prestigious title in Austria, "Royal and Imperial Chamber Musician." This was an exceptional honor to be bestowed upon someone so young (18 years old), a foreigner, a Protestant, and a woman. The Emperor called Clara a "child prodigy."

(3) Marriage to Robert Schumann

Clara and Schumann first met in 1828. Subsequently, Schumann, aspiring to be a musician, began serious musical education in 1830 while lodging at the Wieck household. They both took daily lessons from Wieck and practiced diligently. In 1835, when Schumann broke off his engagement with Ernestine, their relationship rapidly grew closer. Clara was 16, and Schumann was 25. Wieck, noticing their relationship, vehemently opposed it and tried every means to separate them. In 1837, they became engaged, but they could not obtain Wieck's permission, and the rift between them deepened. In 1839, Clara embarked on her second concert tour to Paris without Wieck accompanying her. She had to manage all the managerial duties that her father had previously handled by herself. Clara not only achieved concert success but also met Zimmermann and Alkan, and diligently promoted Robert's works, including Toccata Op. 7. This experience of doing everything without her father brought about significant growth for Clara. Robert and Clara, believing reconciliation with Wieck was impossible, took the matter to court after Clara's return. In 1840, the court granted permission for their marriage, bringing an end to the long and intense conflict with Wieck. They married on September 12, 1840, the day before Clara's 21st birthday.

Their newlywed life, which began in Leipzig, was filled with happiness. They soon started a marriage diary (Ehetagebuch), where they deepened their mutual understanding by recording various emotions and events, as they were not very articulate. In Leipzig, two children were born (Marie and Elise). While their marriage stimulated each other's artistic activities, Clara was not without dissatisfaction. In addition to being busy with housework and childcare, she could not secure enough time for her own practice and composition because she was not supposed to disturb Robert while he was composing. Clara was constantly troubled by the daily routine of managing unfamiliar household duties while supporting her emotionally volatile husband and having her musical activities restricted. However, even under these circumstances, she continued to strive, and starting with her first concert as Clara Schumann on March 31, 1841, she continued her performance activities throughout Europe.

In 1844, the family moved to Dresden. The reason was to help Robert recover his physical and mental health, as he was in a depressive state due to illness. Dresden, located on the beautiful Elbe River and surrounded by mountains, had cleaner air than Leipzig. Clara's role here was to support her husband, and her own career took a backseat. For the first two years in Dresden, Clara's performance activities were limited to Dresden and Leipzig, but from 1847 onwards, she resumed vigorous performance activities, helping to support the family finances. Furthermore, due to Robert's recurring illness, Clara became involved in many of his tasks or took them over. Robert became increasingly dependent on Clara. During the first two years in Dresden, important works such as Three Preludes and Fugues for Piano Op. 16 and Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello Op. 17 were composed. Here, they were also blessed with four more children (Julie, Emil, Ludwig, Ferdinand; however, Emil died the year after his birth).

In 1850, Robert was invited to be the music director in Düsseldorf, so the family moved to that city on the Rhine. Clara was also welcomed there as a pianist, having opportunities to perform with orchestras under her husband's baton and appear in numerous concerts, in addition to giving piano lessons. In 1853, the family moved to a new apartment, where Clara finally had her own study. She could now devote herself to practice and composition without disturbing her husband. Clara resumed composing in this room, and in a three-month period that year, her last group of works was created: Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann Op. 20, Three Romances for Piano Op. 21, Three Romances for Violin and Piano Op. 22, and Six Songs Op. 23. As a pianist, she performed in Düsseldorf and its vicinity, accompanied her husband's rehearsals, and played for choirs. Also in 1853, she met the violinist Joseph Joachim and the young Johannes Brahms. Joachim became a trusted musical colleague with whom she performed many times, and Brahms became her "best friend" (as they themselves stated), deeply connected both personally and artistically. Brahms devotedly supported Clara through her subsequent tragic life as if he were a family member, and Clara, in turn, depended on him and found solace in his music. Clara, influential in the music world, constantly promoted Brahms's works and helped them become widely known. The exact nature of their relationship cannot be definitively determined because all evidence has been destroyed, but this complex relationship continued until Clara's death.

Meanwhile, Robert's condition rapidly deteriorated from 1852. By the end of 1853, he had virtually resigned as music director. In 1854, his hallucinations and headaches intensified, and in February, he attempted suicide. The following month, he was taken to a mental hospital in Endenich, near Bonn. During Robert's hospitalization, Clara and the children were forbidden to visit him. To maintain the family's livelihood and to distract herself from her grief, Clara continued her extensive performance activities. In June 1856, as Clara was about to conclude her first trip to England, she received news that Robert was critically ill. Clara visited her husband many times, but permission to see him was finally granted only two days before Robert's death. On July 27 and 28, Clara spent time with her husband for the first time in about two and a half years. And on the 29th, Robert finally passed away. More than anything, Clara was relieved that her husband was finally freed from his suffering. The couple had been blessed with two more children during their time in Düsseldorf (Eugenie and Felix), but their youngest child, born in 1854, never met his father.

(4) After Robert's Death

Clara became a widow at 37 and had to raise seven children alone. During the winters, she planned concert tours, traveling throughout Europe. She visited England almost every year, and her 1864 tour to Russia was a great success. Clara became her own manager, exchanging extensive business correspondence. She also continued her efforts to promote Robert's works as before. During the summers, she used the time for preparation for tours, rest, and spending time with family and guests. After Robert's death, Clara moved to Berlin in 1857 to live with her mother Marianne, then to Baden-Baden in 1863, and back to Berlin in 1873.

In the 1870s, a series of misfortunes struck Clara's family. First, in 1870, her son Ludwig entered a mental hospital, and his younger brother Ferdinand was conscripted into the Franco-Prussian War. In 1872, her mother Marianne and daughter Julie passed away, followed by her father Wieck in 1873, and her son Felix in 1879. In such tragic circumstances, playing the piano always brought Clara solace. And she was always grateful for being a pianist, which somewhat alleviated her suffering.

Amidst these events, when the Frankfurt Music School (now the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts) opened in 1878, Clara was appointed head professor of the piano department. At that time, she was the only female professor. Clara held this position until 1892. She also held grand 50th-anniversary concerts in 1878 and 60th-anniversary concerts in 1888. In addition to her teaching and performing activities, in 1879, she began the work of editing her husband Robert's complete works for publication. Clara meticulously examined her husband's autographs and first editions for the editing process. With Brahms's cooperation, Robert's complete works were published from 1881 to 1893. In addition, Clara's Instructive Edition (Instruktive Ausgabe), which frankly presented her own ideas, was published in 1886. This edition, limited to Robert's piano works, included Clara's additions and changes to tempo and metronome markings, dynamics, fingering, and pedal indications. Besides the scores, she also edited Robert's early letters, publishing them in the same year as the instructive edition under the title Youthful Letters (Jugendbriefe).

Clara, who led a brilliant career as one of the world's greatest pianists, gave her last public concert in Frankfurt in 1891. Even after that, suffering from rheumatism and hearing loss, she continued to perform privately, improvise, teach piano, arrange, and edit scores until the very end. In 1896, Clara suffered a stroke and passed away on May 20.

(5) About Her Works

Of Clara's works, 23 have opus numbers (though 18 and 19 are missing), comprising 15 piano pieces, 3 songs, and 3 concertos and chamber works. Her early piano pieces, starting with Op. 1, are virtuosic and melodically pleasing, written in imitation of the works of virtuosos who were part of young Clara's repertoire. Also, here and there, one can observe shared melodies and musical ideas with Schumann's works (for example, the descending octave figure after the prelude in Romantic Waltzes for Piano Op. 4 is also used in the "German Waltz" from Schumann's Carnaval Op. 9). Piano works such as Four Characteristic Pieces Op. 5 and Soirées Musicales Op. 6, written around 1836, show similarities to works by Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann. Clara, who had direct contact with them and understood the prevailing trends of Romantic music at the time, was naturally able to incorporate their styles into her own works. Both works are typical character pieces of the 1830s, overflowing with romantic sentiment and literary imagination. Especially in Op. 5, she depicts bizarre scenes inspired by Goethe's Faust through sound, marking her inclination towards Romantic literature that Berlioz enthusiastically admired. And these also have direct connections to Schumann's works. The Piano Concerto Op. 7 is also known as a work where Schumann assisted with the orchestration. It consists of three movements, but the entire work is performed continuously without interruption, with the first movement transitioning into the second during the development section. This original structure and the unity of all movements achieved through the skillful handling of themes make it noteworthy as a masterpiece by the 15-year-old Clara. After her marriage in 1840, her first published work, like her husband's, was a song, which was incorporated into Schumann's Op. 37 and published (Three Songs Op. 12). Also, after marriage, the results of their diligent study of counterpoint and classical works are evident in Three Preludes and Fugues Op. 16 and Trio for Piano, Violin, and Cello Op. 17. The Trio, in particular, is an outstanding masterpiece among Clara's works up to that point, adhering to classical tradition while overflowing with romantic emotion. 1853 was Clara's last creative period, during which works from Op. 20 to 23 were written all at once. In Six Songs Op. 23, the melodies of the voice and piano are independent, and the accompaniment rhythms are highly diverse.

Clara constantly lacked confidence in her own creative abilities. This was also due to the societal attitudes of the time, which were cool towards women making a name for themselves as composers. In Clara's diary entry from January 1839, the following can be found: "I once thought I had creative talent, but I have given up on that idea now. A woman must not wish to compose. There has never been a woman who could do it." After her husband's death, Clara did not devote herself to composition.