‘Do you also do music?’ The great Robert Schumann will not amused when a Dutch prince asked him this question. It was after an overwhelming concert by Schumann’s wife, the top pianist Clara. She was the real star of the two at the time.
Robert Schumann, composer, and Clara Wieck, concert pianist and composer, were married from 1840 until Robert’s death in 1856. The marriage was as loving as it was turbulent. Both internationally famous, both excellent in their profession, both therefore sometimes jealous of the other. Later Robert took the young Johannes Brahms under his wing. Who then fell in love with Clara.
In the music performance Wings – Clara and Robert Schumann in love letters and music actors Saskia Temmink and Thom Hoffman tell the story of the Schumanntjes from Clara’s perspective. That story is closely intertwined with their music, which is played in the performance by the Storioni Trio. ‘One of the most beautiful romances in music history: the marriage between two insanely talented people, including the person of Johannes Brahms’, says initiator and violinist of the Storioni Trio, Wouter Vossen.
The narration begins after Robert’s death. ‘We let Clara look back through letters and diary fragments. We looked for music to go with that. We have found a form in which the dialogue between Clara and Robert and the music support each other.’ Clara Schumann was a superstar. ‘There was literally a fight for tickets to her concerts during European tours’, says Vossen.
She was trained for it – her father was an uncompromising drill sergeant with only one goal: to take his daughter to the biggest concert stages in Europe. When Clara was about ten years old, she was already writing music. Hair Polonaise in Es is light-footed like bubbles in spring. ‘Very nice music. Promising, but the work of a child’, says Vossen. At a young age she played her own polonaise for the great violin virtuoso Paganini, who came to visit her father. She was already a star then. She also played for Goethe.’
How good was Mrs. Schumann as a composer? Many musicians walked and walked away with her cheerful piano trio that she composed in 1846. By then she already had children, was a breadwinner and had a gloomy husband by her side. ‘The tormented artist wrote a light and optimistic piece’, says Vossen, ‘that is remarkable.’ Composing was not exactly a women’s profession at the time. One critic wrote: ‘It is impossible to formulate criticism in all seriousness, after all, this is a woman’s work.’
‘I suspect she was disadvantaged’, says Vossen, ‘like: girl, you do that very nicely, but just stick to playing the piano. She has composed very little. I don’t think she has had a chance to blossom as a composer.’ Clara herself put her talent into perspective. In the performance, actor Saskia Temmink has her say: ‘Of course women’s chamber work remains, where it lacks power, and here and there lacks inventiveness.’
But when Robert wrote his own first piano trio a year later, he was inspired by Clara’s work, says Vossen. A melancholy, somewhat sad part of Schumann’s trio can be heard in the performance, after Clara receives the news that her confused husband jumped into the Rhine (1854) and was rescued by some fishermen.
In the meantime, the young super talent Johannes Brahms had made his entrance into the Schumann house, as Robert’s protégé. Robert and Clara walked away with his charm and talent, and their oldest daughter was also impressed by the energetic man with his long blond hair. He looked after the children, helped with the finances and supported Clara after her husband was committed to an institution. And he fell hopelessly in love. In wings Hoffman recites a letter from Johannes to Clara: ‘I just want to write you sweet words. Every word that doesn’t speak of love is a waste.’
Brahms also wrote a piano trio, in 1854, an exuberant piece with which he expelled all his musical energy. ‘Back then he couldn’t make musical choices’, says Vossen. He later rewrote the piece. It got tighter. Nowadays the later version is usually performed, but we play part of the original in the performance, which is more impetuous and more appropriate for that youthful phase in his life.’
What exactly was it like between Clara and Brahms? ‘A woman of less than 40 who becomes a widow: it is in itself not strange that you then do something different,’ says Vossen. “He was madly in love with her and she was very flattered.” But how deep their relationship went, who knows. The answer may lie at the bottom of the Rhine. At the end of her life Clara destroyed John’s letters, he threw hers into the river.
Vleugels – Clara and Robert Schumann in love letters and music† Music theater by Thom Hoffman, Saskia Temmink, Storioni Trio. Premiere March 2 Delamar Amsterdam, then tour.