17 Feb 2016

Interrupted Cadences - Schumann

From Appointment, 7:00 pm on 17 February 2016

Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck became engaged in 1837. What if she had turned him down and pursued a professional career as a pianist?

What if …? John Drummond explores critical moments in the history of Western music when things might well have turned out very differently.

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann Photo: Commons

Clara Schumann

Clara Schumann Photo: Commons

In April 1835, Clara Wieck returns to Leipzig from her latest concert tour. Suddenly, she has grown up. She isn’t a little girl any more. And she understands more about music than any other girl Robert Schumann’s ever met. On 13 September she has her sixteenth birthday - it is attended by Schumann and Mendelssohn. There is something about her, something special. In November, unexpectedly, Clara and Robert have their first kiss. From now on, everything is different.

Different, and complicated. Her father, and Robert’s teacher, Friedrich isn’t blind. He can see what is happening. And it is the last thing he wants to see happening. His daughter Clara is clearly enormously talented: she has a glittering career in front of her. She is the proof of his teaching skills. She is poised to break through into the rank of the great pianists. Robert, on the other hand, is a failed pianist of unreliable character, with no real prospects. And he suspects that Robert has further problems.

Robert and Clara are forbidden to meet, but manage to find such opportunities as they can, and they exchange letters in secret. Friedrich keeps Clara away on concert tours as much as he can. For eighteen months Robert and Clara scarcely meet at all - they manage to keep a clandestine correspondence going, with great difficulty.

Robert proposes by letter. How will she respond? Will she be willing to make the necessary huge sacrifice - the sacrifice of career and father, or will she abandon her love?