0.10 Appendix 1: musician biographies  (Page 30/37)

Schumann, clara wieck (1819-1896)

Clara Wieck Schumann is one of a small number of women prior to the second half of the 20th century whose musical activities included composition, a reflection of the relatively subordinate role women composers have played in the history of concert hall music. That their creative output has been less than that of men with respect to both quantity and quality is attributable to a number of factors, chiefly attitudes regarding women’s appropriate role in society, presumptions about their inherent intellectual and emotional capacities, their lack of access of education and training, their financial dependence on men, and the exclusion of women from many forms of musical activity. The following assessment appeared in an 1891 article in Women’s Journal:

It is probably true that more women than men have received musical instruction of a sort, but not of the sort which qualifies anyone to become a composer. Girls are as a rule taught music superficially, simply as an accomplishment. To enable them to play and sing agreeably is the whole object of their music lessons. It is exceedingly rare that a girl’s father cares to have her taught the underlying laws of harmony or the principles of musical composition.

In Germany and Italy, the countries where the greatest musical composers have originated, the standard of women’s education is especially low and the idea of woman’s sphere particularly restricted. The German or Italian girl who should confess an ambition to become a composer would be regarded by her friends as out of her sphere, if not out of her mind. When women have had for several centuries the same advantages of liberty, education, and social encouragement in the use of their brains that men have, it will be right to argue their mental inferiority if they have not produced their fair share of geniuses. But it is hardly reasonable to expect women during a few years of liberty and half education to produce at once specimens of genius equal to the choicest men of all the ages.

Unlike most women of her day, Clara Wieck Schumann was carefully trained from the age of five as a pianist and musician by her father, Friedrick Wieck. In other areas, including the so-called feminine arts of sewing, knitting, or crocheting, her education was meager. She made her public debut in 1828, at age nine; the same year she met Robert Schumann, her future husband, who was then eighteen. Robert was to become one of the leading composers associated with musical romanticism. Between 1828 and 1838 Clara launched a highly promising career, and her friendship with Robert deepened into love. Her father vehemently opposed their relationship and, hoping to reassert his control, sent 19-year-old Clara to Paris with a total stranger as a chaperone. To his astonishment, and probably her own as well, she dismissed the chaperone and managed to support herself in the strange city. She presented herself to the French public through successful concerts she arranged, and she found students, composed music, and had her works published. Even today we would find this remarkable, but in 1839 it was an amazing act of courage, especially for a woman.