Programme note
Ich stand' in dunklen Träumen, Op 13 No 1
(I stood in darkened daydreams)
Sie liebten sich beide, Op 13 No 2
(They once loved each other)
Liebeszauber, Op 13 No 3
(Love’s magic)
“Not without subtle nuances” is the New Grove’s assessment − delivered not without condescension − of Clara Schumann’s Six Songs, Op 13. Written soon after her husband’s famous Year of Song (1840) Clara’s own year of song yielded rather less in terms of quantity, but then, as she put it, “a woman must not desire to compose − not one has been able to do it, and why should I expect to?”
Why indeed? These were Clara’s years of childbirth, yielding Marie, Elise, Julie, and Emil in quick succession between 1841 and 1846, with four more children to follow. Moreover, she had been an inspired concert pianist − eventually the greatest in Europe − from the age of nine, with a husband who, in order to compose, had the will-power to shut himself off from family life. Yet she, too, had force of personality, nurturing her career as a pianist with tours of Denmark in 1842 and Russia in 1844 and holding (as did her husband) major academic appointments.
If women composers flourish today, it is because they have gained the scope to do so. Yet Clara herself, despite her flair for self-criticism, was no mean composer. It was something her dour, heavy, professorial father actively encouraged in her. Her A minor Piano Concerto, a work of considerable character begun at the age of thirteen, was completed three years later − almost, it seemed, in anticipation of her husband’s much more famous concerto in the same key. Her song sets, Op 12 as well as Op 13, display impeccable taste in poetry, as well as imaginative responsiveness to words.
Of the three songs from Op 13 to be performed today, the first two are based on the ironic wit and pathos of Heinrich Heine, the third on the lyricism of Emanuel Geibel. By 1853, in more spacious domestic surroundings, she had gained new freedom to compose songs and instrumental pieces. But her husband’s suicide attempt in 1854 and commitment to an asylum for the last two years of his life stopped her in her compositional tracks. What she might have achieved as a composer continues to tantalise. What she did achieve as a pianist speaks for itself.
© Conrad Wilson