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Women of Notes - composing through the centuries. - Page 2

© Kelly Ferjutz

The father of Clara Wieck was an amateur pianist who owned a piano firm in Leipzig, while her mother was a singer and performer. When Clara was five, in 1824, her mother abandoned the family, and three years later Clara's father began the young girl's music training: piano, theory, harmony, counterpoint, composition, singing and violin. By the next year, young Clara was performing for the varied publishers, writers and musicians, who visited her father. Small wonder that during that same year she produced her first compositions, four Polonaises, opus 1.

Two years after that, when Clara was but 11, Robert Schumann came to live in the Wieck household while continuing his musical studies. Clara continued her performing career, traveling throughout Germany and to Paris. During the next few years, she was acclaimed throughout Europe as a prodigy. Then, when she was 18, two things happened: her first tour of Vienna, and a proposal of marriage from Robert. Her father was furious, considering the young man to be not worthy of his daughter. It took three years, and a nasty court battle, but finally Robert was triumphant. During the next 16 years, her life was full of ups and downs, with the births of eight children, concertizing and composing (both her and Robert) and his increasing melancholia. The last two years of Robert's life were spent in an asylum, leaving Clara to manage everything.

As an acclaimed virtuoso pianist, she was in constant demand, fortunately, as the income enabled her to keep her family somewhat together. Finally, all these years later, her compositions are beginning to be heard and recorded. In the ears of some, they outshine those of her husband. In addition to a variety of piano and chamber works (trios, etc.) she was a noted composer of lieder, or songs.

Of course, considering the brevity of this space, we cannot begin to list all the women composers of notes. The previous column had to truncate the material about Florence (Smith) Price. This is just too wonderful to leave out completely, however.

As marvelous as it was, perhaps her greatest triumph was not contained in the Chicago events as noted previously (Feb. 17). In November 1940 the Michigan WPA Symphony in Detroit, conducted by Valter Poole, scheduled two works on one program - her Symphony No. 3 in c minor, and Piano Concerto No. 2 in d minor, with the composer as soloist!

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