Great Masters: Robert and Clara Schumann : Their Lives and Music

In this course by Professor Robert Greenberg you meet the Schumanns-brilliant, gifted, troubled, and unique in the history of music. Robert Schumann (1810-1856) and his wife Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896) have earned a distinct place in the annals of Western music. As a couple with a two-career marriage they were highly exceptional in their own time though they seem very contemporary in ours. Robert Schumann is unique by virtue of being the only great composer who was also a great critic. His contributions to the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (New Journal for Music), the periodical he founded in 1834, made him far better known originally as a writer than composer. It also gave him a platform from which he could champion the Romantic ideas that informed his own works and recognize the geniuses of his time. This essay proved a mixed blessing for Brahms, but it clearly showed the quality of Robert's critical judgment. It came at the beginning of a close friendship between Brahms and the Schumann family. This friendship endured through the difficult years when Clara had to concertize continually to support her children after Robert's death. Clara, the only woman who is a subject of the Great Masters series, was one of the most famous pianists and acclaimed touring musicians in Europe when women of her class were rarely encouraged to pursue careers outside the home. She was also a composer of no small talent, though her family commitments and touring schedule kept her from developing her compositional gifts as fully as she might have. In this series you will hear two of Clara's songs as well as one of her piano works.Greenberg, Robert is the author of 'Great Masters: Robert and Clara Schumann : Their Lives and Music', published 2002 under ISBN 9781565855274 and ISBN 1565855272.