I find myself leaping about the piano to compensate for having slightly smaller hands than she did. I was intrigued to see that although she was a small, slender woman, she had very big hands – which explains the virtuosity of her music and why some parts are quite tricky to play. Their house – a museum, has items including a model of Clara’s hand, a piano built by one of her cousins, and a dress that she might have worn for travelling. Walking around the small space where Clara lived with Robert and their young family gave me a fascinating insight into her personal life and has really enhanced my understanding of her music. There is a music school next door with a playground that has wind chimes – even now there is still music buzzing around. It is not far from the famous Gewandhaus, where Clara made her concert debut at the age of nine, and from the balcony of their home, you would probably have been able to see the hall. Recently, I had the fortune to visit Clara’s birthplace in Leipzig and the Schumann-Haus, where she and Robert spent the first four years of their marriage. Photograph: Franz Hanfstaengl/Getty Images Hers was beautiful and fascinating music … Clara Schumann at the piano, circa 1870. There’s also her Piano Sonata in G Minor, a beautiful and fascinating work that was never published in her lifetime. Perhaps her best known work is her Piano Concerto, which is of course on the album, as well as that that remarkable Scherzo No 2 – the piece which first hooked me into her musical world. In shining a light on her music I hoped I might also inspire others to perform and programme it more. I delved into her compositions via recordings and sheet music and found some incredible work – much of which I didn’t know – it’s so rarely played in modern concert halls. I decided that for my debut with Decca Classics I wanted to record an album exclusively of Clara Schumann’s music. In fact, people are quick to suggest that Clara was also influenced by Brahms (another classical music hero of mine) but since she was composing long before she even met him, I think it is fairer to say that it was the other way round. In her music, I can definitely hear the influences of Robert, but she also has her own, unique voice. He encouraged her to compose, and she in turn edited his works. It seems that most of Clara’s compositions were actually gifts to her husband. From a very young age she had to spend hours each day practising, and much of her childhood was spent on the road with her father, giving concerts. Her father, Friedrich Wieck, a very overbearing man, was set on creating a concert pianist in Clara – something particularly tough given that it was a male-dominated world at that time. Researching her life, I couldn’t believe that she had managed to sustain such a long and busy concert career, spanning from childhood right into old age, along with having eight children, and a husband who slowly declined into severe mental illness, and eventually died in an asylum when still in his 40s. I like to think of her as the Beyoncé of her day: a successful artist, capable of balancing motherhood with touring, married to a fellow musician and a truly independent woman! What I found most astonishing was her strength. ![]() The more I read about Clara, the more inspiring she was to me. I had of course heard of Clara Schumann – the 19th-century German pianist and composer – but, like many people, simply saw her as the wife of Robert Schumann. ![]() The fiery music drew me in immediately, but I didn’t recognise it and asked what it was. I was listening to music at the kitchen table with some friends, and her Scherzo No 2 came on. I first discovered Clara Schumann’s work only a year ago.
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