I have always secretly had it in for Clara Schumann. There was that Trio that I was forced to work on for an entire semester and then there is the fact that Clara was performing concerts from memory at the ripe old age of 9, the first person ever to do so. Later, she was accused by critics of showing off and termed “that odious woman” for defying concert convention.

I suppose if she hadn’t done it someone else (say perhaps Liszt) would have stepped in and filled the memorization void. But, the fact is, we mostly have Clara to blame for pianistic feats of memory akin to keeping entire phone books in the brain’s RAM. (rumors that I keep a small female doll and some very sharp pins on my piano are entirely exaggerated) For more on musical memory here is a link to All in the Mind. In this article, Susan Tomes discusses the history and role of memory in musical performance.

I have always loved the music of Robert Schumann. Over the years, I have listened to it, read it, performed it, and taught it. His three musical/literary personas, evidence of a life long struggle with mental illness, still leave me touched and inspired all at once. However, the love story of Clara and Robert has never really been something I could identify with. Perhaps with the arrogance of youth, I felt that no one else (OK no one else old or even dead) could have possibly had similar experiences in love as I or even transcended that experience or I had not yet acknowledged that the real nitty gritty stuff of life has more to do with real love than hormones.

Certainly, I have studied the lives of Clara and Robert. I took an entire graduate history seminar devoted to Brahms and the Schumanns given by Jan Swafford (Johannes Brahms: A Biography). I understood cerebrally that not only was she the rock of the marriage and of his career but also a composer and great pianist in her own right. Clara was, quite literally, the fabric of many of Robert’s compositions. She was also quite capable of telling him to for once write something for her to play that ordinary people could understand. And did we talk about the memorization thing?

Then, last semester I was teaching the Papillons to an adult student. Schumann connects these pieces to Jean Paul’s literary depictions of masquerade or carnaval scenes and also to the transformation of character possible behind the mask. The last piece depicts a scene in which the main character asks for just one sign that the object of his affections loves him. Even though the Papillons were written years before Robert and Clara fell in love, I suddenly found them to be prophetic. So perhaps I am getting all mushy in my severe middle age but yes I finally get it.

Incidentally, there is a great video available of the 2007 production of Twin Spirits. Through readings of letters the love of Robert and Clara is portrayed by Sting and his wife Trudie Styler with Dereck Jacobi and a host of fine musicians.

Share