Robert and Clara Schumann, the long courtship
"So, one little 'yes' is all you want! What an important little word it is! Surely a heart so full of inexpressible love as mine can utter it freely. I can indeed say it. [...] Your proposal seems daring to me, but love takes small heed of danger, and again I say 'yes'..."
This is how Clara Wieck responded to Robert Schumann's request to hand old Wieck a letter from him requiring the paternal blessing of the lovers' union.
It was a very respectful letter but Clara's father rejected it.
That year, 1837, Clara was in Dresden by order of Wieck. In October she went to Leipzig to give a concert in which she played the Schumann Symphonic Studios, but the lovers could barely see each other. Clara had to leave Leipzig right away. A seven-month tour had been arranged for her.
But Robert was not discouraged. And Clara either. Their relationship, although of a strictly epistolary nature, remained solid, unbreakable. So, in 1839, Schumann made another attempt to get Wieck's approval and wrote him a new letter:
"Two years have passed since my first request, you doubted that she and I could remain faithful ... nothing can shake our faith in future happiness ... Give us peace."
Old Wieck refused again.
Faced with this frank and inconsiderate opposition, Clara and Robert decided to follow the legal route and go to court to get married without Wieck's approval. It resulted in an ordeal. Wieck employed all kinds of tricks to prevent or delay the decision, going so far as to accuse Schumann of being a hopeless alcoholic. Robert was forced to apply for an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Jena, which, if granted, could be presented to the court as proof of his integrity. Mendelsohnn, a friend of the couple, testified in his favour.
Nevertheless, with the accusation of alcoholism Wieck had done himself a disservice. It worked clearly against him and at the beginning of August 1840, the court ruled in favour of the lovers. Robert was in Leipzig but Clara was on tour, working. They met in Weimar and contracted the marriage near Leipzig, on September 12.
In her diary, Clara left us her impressions of that day:
"...We were married at Schönefeld at ten o'clock. [...] There was a little dancing, no excessive gaiety, but every face shone with real satisfaction. The weather was lovely. Even the sun, which had hidden his face for many days, shed his warm beams upon us as we drove to church as if to bless our union. It was a day without a jar, and I may thus enter it in this book as the fairest and most momentous of my life."
The couple gave birth to eight children but happiness would last only 14 years. In 1854 Robert began to suffer hallucinations and ravings. After a frustrated suicide attempt on the Rhine – being rescued by boatmen and taken home – he was taken to an asylum for the insane, where he will remain for two and a half years. Clara wasn't able to visit him because, according to doctors, he could get worse. Clara will see him for one and last time two days before his death, in the company of Brahms. Her diary includes an extensive and detailed account of this last meeting, which ends with these words:
"May God grant me the strength to live without him." The favour was granted: Clara will live 40 further years.
Concert in A minor
In 1841 Schumann wrote a Concert Fantasy that found no publisher. Four years later he added two new movements to the Fantasy: Intermezzo and Finale. Thus was born the Concerto for piano and orchestra in A minor, the only one written by Schumann for this instrument. His first public performance arose, of course, from the hands of Clara Schumann, in December 1845.
Movements:
00:00 Allegro affettuoso - Andante espressivo - Allegro
15:40 Intermezzo. Andante grazioso
21:25 Allegro vivace
The rendition is by the Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich, who managed to play this Concert for a radio station in Buenos Aires when she was ten. Riccardo Chailly conducts the Gewandhausorchester.
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