Clara Wieck Schumann Biography

Clara Wieck Schumann was a distinguished German musician and composer of the Romantic era. She lived during a time when female musicians of her caliber were extremely rare to find and despite being one of the few women in a male-dominated field, she enjoyed a productive career that spanned six decades. An accomplished pianist, she changed the format and repertoire of the piano over the course of her long career and left behind an important body of compositions. Born to a highly ambitious musically inclined father, she was trained for success from a young age. Her father had decided even before her birth that he would make his child a performing artist of the highest rank. As a little girl she received training in piano, violin, singing, theory, harmony, composition, and counterpoint, and started performing at the age of eight under her father’s watchful eyes. She fell in love with one of her father’s students, Robert Schumann, and married him despite her father’s disapproval. She continued her career as a performing artist and composer after marriage and skillfully juggled her responsibilities as a professional, wife, and mother. She played a major role in getting the works of her husband recognized and herself produced a small, but significant body of musical compositions.