Creative words of wisdom series #2
Clara Schumann
"The practice of art is, after all, a great part of my inner self. To me, it is the very air I breathe."
Clara Schumann, world class concert pianist, composer and editor, was born Clara Wieck in Leipzig, Germany on September 13, 1819. From her earliest days, she was in the complete control of her overbearing father and piano teacher, Herr Friedrich Wieck. Clara's mother left the oppressive household when Clara was five years old giving her father full opportunity to show the world that he could raise a piano virtuoso. Herr Wieck had the young girl playing publicly by the time she was nine and touring Paris and Germany between the ages of twelve and fifteen. He told her what to play, how to play, how long to practice, what to write in her diary and, eventually, who to love.
In this environment, Clara learned to focus her attention, develop her inner resources and rely on music to escape her difficult surroundings. As she would say, in her diary, in later life, "work is always the best diversion from pain." Clara experienced what many creative people experience --- a feeling in childhood of being "singled out" or "special". This feeling, whether caused by positive or negative events, is essential for an enriched fantasy life. In the case of Clara Schumann, this feeling was a mixed blessing. Although she was forced to endure the loss of her mother from the household, the loss of her nanny, her father's violent temper aimed especially at her brothers, and her father's relentless demands of her talent, she always acknowledged the role her father played in her success as an artist.
Just as her disciplined ability to concentrate and focus on her inner life was an important factor in the development of her talent as a child, it also fostered her career as an adult. After her husband Robert Schumann, died in a mental institution in 1856, Clara realized she could best cope with her grief and raise her seven children by returning full time to the concert stage. Incredibly, she toured Europe to extraordinary review and praise ten months out of every year for forty-five years after Robert's death. She could lose her cares in music amidst the most heart-wrenching of life's circumstances even going directly to the concert hall from her son Felix's deathbed. In her diary, as reported by author Nancy Reich in her book, Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman, Clara wrote that she "played well, without one wrong note!"
