• Clara Schumann’s life - her music, relationships and fame - is detailed in countless books, movies and more.

• Born Clara Wieck, at age 9 she gave her debut recital on piano. At 16 she premiered her own Piano Concerto and soon was an internationally renowned concert pianist.

• She first met Robert Schumann when she was just nine years old when he took piano lessons from her father.

• They married in 1840 just before she turned 21. Up to that time they had already collaborated on compositions.

• In The New York Times in 2019, Sacramento pianist Lara Downes said of the bond between the two:

“Their music is so profoundly connected that you really can’t separate the one from the other….From the very beginning, they were so deeply enmeshed, always listening and sharing, consulting and collaborating. It’s like all of the music they produced carries both sets of genes, and that’s so beautiful.”

• In 1853 Robert and Clara met the unknown 20 year old Johannes Brahms who played his piano music for them and were impressed.

• Robert would be institutionalized for psychological problems in 1854, passing away in 1856.

• Brahms became Clara’s lifelong friend. 

• In her more than 1000 concerts throughout Europe into her later years, she performed not only her own music but always championed the music of her husband plus other friends and contemporaries such as Brahms, Chopin and Mendelssohn.

• Clara Schumann suffered a stroke in early 1896 and died a couple months later on 20 May at age 76. She was buried next to her husband.
• After the death of her husband, Clara stopped composing but did resume an active career as a concert pianist for the forty years she lived after Robert's death. But during their marriage when Clara was pregnant with their fourth child, and taking it easy at home, she composed what some consider to be her supreme achievement, her Piano Trio in G-minor. It's today's Midday Masterpiece.