Frequently Asked Questions about Clara Schumann
Answers to Google's most asked questions about the infamous Madame Schumann
Sometimes for a laugh, I google Clara Schumann to see what people are asking about her. It acts as a kind of cultural temperature check. The results are never what I expect—equal parts amusing and surprising—but they tell me a lot about where the public conscious is around her.
Most of you Clara fans aren’t the ones searching these questions but… do you know all the answers??? Maybe like me you’re curious what future Clara-fans are asking, or you’re game for my sarcastic commentary.
If you’re new to Clara Schumann and full of curiosity—dig in! The most asked questions are super nosey about her private life. Lots of people want to know Clara’s business! (Confession: I do too.)
And now… the number one most googled question about Clara Schumann is…
1. What happened to Clara Schumann after her husband died?
I actually don’t mind that this is the most asked question for Clara. It’s at least an opportunity to be like, yes, she had a life AFTER marriage and children.
Clara Schumann resumed her fulltime performing career as a concert pianist when her husband died. She was only 36-years-old. There was no life insurance, and she became the sole supporter of her 8 children. (No, Johannes Brahms did not give her any money. He was dirt poor with no bank account.) Clara gave concert tours across Europe for decades—a career she’d only been doing part time during her marriage. Each season she went on at least one international tour and gave a minimum of 30 concerts in a dozen different cities. Her repertoire, what is familiar today, was very cutting edges for the time. Clara changed music history with her concerts. At age 59, Clara became the first women piano professor at the Frankfurt Hoch Conservatoire. She made her final international concert tour to the UK at age 69 in 1888.
Question number 2 is better…
2. What was Clara Schumann’s most famous piece?
Clara Schumann’s song, Liebst du um Schönheit from her opus 12 was her most famous piece in the late-19th and 20th centuries. It was published in song anthologies of “the great composers.” In recent decades, her Piano Concerto in A minor, opus 7, has had the most high-profile performances; more major orchestras and record labels are adding the work to their catalogue each season. Her Piano Trio in G minor, opus 17, is respected as the most important work of her catalogue.
Very interestingly, this “most famous piece” question is NOT a top question for Robert or Johannes.
3. Who was Clara Schumann’s husband?
Robert Schumann. (I love this question—obviously!)
4. How old was Clara Schumann when he died?
I’m assuming “he” is Robert? Clara was 36-years-old when her husband died. Robert was only 46 years old. See answer to first question, “What happened when her husband died.”
5. Who was in love with Clara Schumann?
Lots of people were in love with Clara over the course of her 76 years. Most obviously her husband, Robert Schumann, was so in love with her he believed he was incomplete as a person and as a composer without her. Johannes Brahms was 21-years-old when he first wrote he was in love with Clara Schumann. In his 40s, he wrote Clara that he loved her more than anyone or anything on earth, even himself. He also wrote the intermezzos for her in his sixties—love letters in music.
There were others who were head-over-heels for Clara. After her husband died, she rejected marriage proposals from Theodor Kirchner, a former student of Robert’s. Before she married Robert, many young men professed their love for young Clara Wieck, including a Hapsburg Prince when she was 18-years-old. She rejected them all because Robert was always her first love from the age of 13… Yeah, it was kinda sketch cuz he was 22.
6. Did Clara Schumann have a relationship with Brahms?
Yes, but it was very unconventional, not a traditional “romantic” relationship. There were love words exchanged on both sides, but in the 19th century, it was common to tell one’s friends you loved them. If you asked Clara Schumann, she called Johannes Brahms her dear friend. She referred to him in a variety of ways, including “my son” when he was young, and later “my beloved composer.” They knew each other for 43 years, so their relationship went through various stages. They were bonded across the decades by music, composing, and their careers. Clara being 14 years older, with vastly more experience as a composer and performer, was a mentor to young Johannes early in his career. (See my blog post and YouTube video about that.) If Clara and Johannes were ever lovers, if they ever discussed marriage, we will never know because they were very private people. Not even Clara’s daughters knew for sure.
7. What is Clara Schumann most famous for?
What Clara Schumann was most famous for in the 19th century was her epic performing career, Queen of the Piano, the critics called her from a young age. She was revered like a religious figure—a priestess of art. In the first half of her career, this went hand-in-hand with her compositions which she performed on most of her concerts. Her 23 opuses and 32 published works sold well with her publisher Breitkopf and Härtel.
In the 20th century, this changed. After the people died who had known her and heard her play, our culture erased what she’d achieved beneath assumptions that no women in the 19th century could’ve been a great performer and composer. She became most famous as the wife of Robert Schumann and the muse of Johannes Brahms—men who she made famous with her sold out concerts. We would not know Robert’s name without her, and who knows what would’ve become of young Johannes without her guidance. She was more famous than both men for decades.
8. How did Clara Schumann change the world?
I love this question obviously.
Clara was a major curator of the classical music canon over the course of her 60-year performing career, and an immeasurable influence on the most enduring composers of the 19th century and on German Romantic culture in general. Many studied her compositions and drew inspiration from her works. Clara Schumann definitely changed artistic and cultural history with her music.
9. When did Brahms fall in love with Clara Schumann?
October 1st 1853, 20-year-old Johannes Brahms walked into Clara and Robert Schumann’s parlor. By June 1854, he wrote his best friend that he “admired her almost as much as I love and am in love with her.” I wrote an entire blog post allll about the day they met.
Definitely the funniest question when searching CLARA SCHUMANN is…
10. How many wives did Brahms have?
Johannes Brahms did not have a wife, ever. He never married. In his mid-20s, he was engaged to a young singer for a few months, but after he broke that off, within a year he was writing Clara Schumann again about how he loved her. He confessed to Clara multiple times in his life that he was tempted to propose to a young pretty woman but restrained himself. Once Clara Schumann was in her 40s, whenever Johannes expressed loneliness, she encouraged him to marry—with no success.
11. Did Clara and Robert Schumann have children?
Yes, Clara Schumann gave birth to 8 children in fourteen years of marriage. After she had 4 children, by age 26, she started writing things in her diary like “what will become of my career” and “I have every reason to despair” when she found herself pregnant again. To say she had more children than she wanted is an understatement. Her career as a composer and performer was integral to her identity. She never wanted to give it up for children—and never did.
12. Did Clara Schumann have 8 kids?
Yes, Clara Schumann had 8 kids, 10 pregnancies in total, all before age 34. Somehow she still managed to keep composing and performing and teaching lessons and caring for her sick husband anyway—badass super woman.
13. Was Clara Schumann Deaf?
No, Clara Schumann was not Deaf. She began experience hearing loss in her 50s. By her late 60s, she was Hard-of-Hearing and suffered from occasional debilitating tinnitus. She was known in her later years for leaning very close to the piano keys when she played, possibly to better hear the instrument. In her 70s, she had difficulties listening to orchestras because she would hear phantom sounds which were not there.
14. What are 3 fun facts about Clara Schumann?
Young Clara Wieck (her name pre-marriage) played her first compositions for Paganini at age 9. He called her a genuine artist and made her sit on stage with him during his concerts in Leipzig.
Clara Schumann was younger than all the famous canon composers when she published and premiered her first piano concerto at age 16 with Felix Mendelssohn conducting in 1835.
Clara Schumann was the first pianist to program full Beethoven Sonatas and Bach preludes and fugues in concerts, performed from memory. She made popular the tradition of playing full concerts from memory. She made Robert Schumann canon repertoire. She gave Johannes Brahms’s works their first public concert debut. In short, she shaped the canon. We wouldn’t recognize the piano repertoire today without Clara Schumann.
Oops, that’s more than 3—too many fun things about Clara!
15. What was Clara Schumann’s personality like?
Clara Schumann had a very strong personality, though like any normal human being, she was complex. She could be very generous and compassionate toward her friends and loved ones, but she also had exacting standards of discipline for herself and everyone around her. She was very opinionated and never suffered fools, as they say. All her life, she experienced varying amounts of depression and anxiety, including moments of suicidal ideation after her husband’s death and panic attacks back stage during her late career. She was unfailingly loyal to those she loved and would not tolerate any insults toward them, especially toward her husband. Her confidence in her musical taste was unwavering, but her imposter syndrome and insecurity about her own compositions was equally severe.
16. Does Schumann have any living descendants? / Are there any descendants of Schumann?
Yes, there are living descendants of Clara and Robert Schumann in the United States, in Chile, and in Europe. There are so many, it’s hard for historians to keep track of the whole family!
17. What did Clara Schumann do as a child?
Clara Schumann was a historic child prodigy—Clara Wieck, as she was known across the continent, before her marriage. Her father planned for her to be a child virtuoso on level with Wolfgang Mozart before her birth, regardless of gender. Clara Wieck “sacrificed her childhood for art,” she would later say. In other words, she didn’t really have a childhood. From the age of 6, Clara Wieck was playing piano for 3 hours a day and studying music, later composing, for 2 more hours a day. She published her first opus at age 11. By age 14, her concerts were a major source of income for her family.
Obviously I LOVE this one…
18. Was Clara Schumann married?
Yes, Clara Schumann was married to the composer Robert Schumann, who for much of their marriage was known as “the husband of Clara Wieck” since Clara was the internationally famous virtuoso who married the poor little-known composer Robert Schumann in 1840.
The next three questions go together and will have the same answer and seem ridiculous but, if you’re new to theses composers, they are totally reasonable…
19. Were Clara and Robert Schumann brother and sister? / Are Clara and Robert Schumann related? / Was Clara Schumann married to Robert Schumann?
They were married. Clara Schumann was born Clara Wieck, a famous child prodigy, before she married Robert Schumann when she was 20 years old. She spent the next 2 decades putting “born Wieck” on her compositions and concert posters, making the name Schumann as famous as Wieck.
20. Who influenced Clara Schumann?
Clara Schumann was influenced by many composers and musicians in her life. She and Robert matured together as composers, composing their first opuses together while both taking lessons with her father. Frédéric Chopin’s works were very influential on young Clara Wieck—she premiered his music in Germany, the first there to play his “unplayable” works. Felix Mendelssohn moved to Leipzig when Clara was 16, and he became a major musical influence, both an example to her as a pianist and a composer. Pauline Garcia-Viardot also influenced Clara as a composer, particularly Clara’s opus 11 romanzes, when they met as teenagers. Clara was by influenced Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner rather in opposition since their artistic tastes were very opposed. Johannes Brahms didn’t enter her life until she was almost finished composer, but his influence is clear on her final two romanzes. Her playing in the later half of her career was very influenced by her fellow chamber music partner and composer, the violinist Josef Joachim. BUT the influence was mutual—she was also an influence on all of THEM.
21. How old was Clara Schumann when she met Robert Schumann?
Clara Wieck was 11-years-old when Robert Schumann moved into her house to study with her father. Though she was only 9-years-old when he first heard her play at a friend’s house. He was 9.5-years-older than her, already a student in law school. Yes, there was a serious power imbalance in their relationship.
22. What happened to Clara Schumann’s children?
Clara’s daughters—Marie, Elise, Eugenie, and Julie—all became pianists and teachers. Marie and Eugenie were Clara’s assistant teachers at the Frankfurt Hoch Conservatoire. Elise set up her own teaching studio in Frankfurt before she married and had multiple children. Julie, who always suffered from weak lungs though was pronounced the “most beautiful” of the children, married an Italian Count, had two children then died at age 28 while pregnant with her third child.
In the early 1890s, Eugenie ran away to London with her “better half,” soprano Marie “Fillu” Fillunger. She was a successful teacher there before moving back to Switzerland with her Fillu to live next door to her eldest sister Marie. Marie dedicated her life to caring for her mother’s legacy and worked as Clara’s assistant for her entire adult life. The latter half of Clara’s illustrious career was made possible by Marie’s help.
All 4 of Clara’s boys met with tragically early deaths. Her first boy died at only 18-months-old. Her second, Ludwig, was described as “odd” and in his early 20s his mind was deemed “unhinged.” After he survived his first suicide attempt, Clara was forced to commit him to an asylum where he lived out the rest of his life. Ferdinand was a business man and the only one of her boys who married. He had six children before dying in 1891 of complications from an addiction to morphine, stemming from his injuries as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War. Clara assumed the financial responsibility of his children in her 70s.
Clara’s youngest child, Felix was born after his father’s death. He was named after Felix Mendelssohn and the godson of Johannes Brahms. He was a poet and a budding composer before he died of tuberculosis at age 24. Though Johannes set some of his poems to music, to Clara’s joy.
23. How old was Clara Schumann when she died?
Clara Schumann died of a stroke at age 76 in 1896 at home in Frankfurt with her daughters Marie and Eugenie by her side. She is buried with her husband in Bonn.
I’m sort of happy to report that Google’s top questions about Robert and Johannes are no less personally invasion and no more about their music than Clara’s. The only question from their list of question which I’d like to add to Clara is…
24. Was Schumann a genius?
Yes, she was.
Lovely, thank you. I enjoyed reading about descendants. I wonder what a full tree up to today would look like. I hope the book is progressing.