MARIE WIECK
The birth of Clara Wieck, on September 13, 1819, took place at Leipsic. That city had not yet entered upon the period of musical greatness that it was soon to enjoy. The day of Beethoven and Schubert was apparently passing, and only the lighter and more trivial styles of composition held sway. Her father, however, Friedrich Wieck, was a piano teacher of extensive reputation and most excellent qualities, and did his best to raise the standard of the place. From him, and from her mother as well, the young Clara inherited her innate musical taste. But the maternal influence was not of long duration, for domestic troubles soon caused the separation of Wieck and his wife, the latter marrying the father of Woldemar Bargiel, while the former also entered into a second union, with Clementine Fechner at Leipsic. A daughter of this second marriage, Marie Wieck, won some fame as a pianist, but was far surpassed by her elder half-sister.
Clara did not at first show signs of becoming a child prodigy, but in her fifth year she gave indications of possessing musical talent, and her careful father proceeded at once to develop her powers. So successful were his individual methods that in four years she was able to play Mozart and Hummel concertos by heart, and ready to sustain her part in public. Her first appearance was in conjunction with Emilie Reichold, one of her father's older pupils, with whom she played Kalkbrenner's variations on a march from "Moses." One important paper of the time spoke of her success as universal and well deserved, and did not hesitate to predict a great future for her under her honoured father's wise guidance.
Wieck has been the subject of much criticism on account of his supposed harshness and severity. In the matter of Clara's musical training, however, these charges cannot be sustained, as one of her own letters will show. "My father has come before the world in an entirely false light," she writes, "because he took art earnestly, and brought me up to regard it earnestly. People have no idea how utterly different from the usual standards must be the whole education and career of any one who wishes to accomplish something worth while in art. In connection with artistic development, my father kept the physical development especially in view also. I never studied more than two hours a day in the earliest times, or three in later years; but I had also to take a daily walk with him of just as many hours to strengthen my nerves. Moreover, while I was not yet grown up, he always took me home from every entertainment at ten o'clock, as he considered sleep before midnight necessary for me. He never let me go to balls, as he judged I could use my strength for more important things than dancing; but he always let me go to good operas. In many free hours I used to grow enthusiastic over piano arrangements of operas and other music. One cannot do that when one is tired out. Besides that, I had, even in earliest youth, intercourse with the most distinguished artists. They, and not dolls, were the friends of my childhood, though I was not deprived of the latter. Those people who have no comprehension of such a serious bringing up ascribed it all to tyranny and severity, and held my accomplishments, which may indeed have been more than those of a child, to be impossible unless I had been forced to study day and night. As a matter of fact, it was wholly my father's genius for teaching that brought me so far, by cultivation of the intellect and the feelings united with only moderate practice."
"To my pain," she continues, "I must say that my father has never been recognized as he deserved to be. I shall thank him during my entire lifetime for the so-called severities. How would I have been able to live through a career of art, with all the heavy difficulties that were laid upon me, if my constitution had not been so strong and healthy because of my father's care?"
About this time there came upon the scene a youth named Robert Schumann. Born in 1810, of a family that was literary rather than musical, he had obtained some knowledge of the art with his father's consent. After the death of the latter, his mother would not hear of his choosing a musical career, but insisted on his studying law. This he did at Heidelberg, in a rather original manner,—taking long walks, reading Jean Paul's works, and practising piano nearly all day. In the summer he met Wieck, whom he adopted as a teacher, and in this way he came to know the learned pedagogue's talented daughter.
Her musical education was now beginning to bear fruit. In the concert tours that she began soon after her first triumph, she never allowed herself to be carried away by the fondness of the public for mere display, but always aimed at something higher. Instead of making a show of her technical attainments, she consecrated her powers to the cause of true art. It required great courage to uphold her standard, for she came upon the scene at a time when only phenomenal playing, bristling with seemingly unconquerable difficulties, won the public homage and the public wealth. Herein both she and her future husband showed themselves actuated by the very highest motives.
Unfortunately for the romantic side of the story, theirs was not a case of love at first sight. No less than five years after their first meeting, we find Schumann deeply interested in a certain Ernestine von Fricken, another pupil of Wieck. It is stated that the beautiful numbers of the "Carneval" were due largely, if not wholly, to her inspiration, which at that time reached its highest point.[4] The letters A, S, C, and H (the German way of notating B) represent the Bohemian town of Asch, where she was born, and are also the only musical letters in Schumann's own name. He himself noted this coincidence in a letter to Moscheles, and built the themes of the various numbers almost wholly upon them.
However this may be, he certainly had a great admiration for Clara even in her early years. He took piano lessons of her father, and became for a time an inmate of their house. He owed much to the teaching, but still more to the stimulating artistic society of the Wieck family.