The Girlhood of Clara Schumann - Clara Wieck and Her Time #264567

In placing before English-speaking readers an account of the girlhood of the famous pianist whose art and personality are vividly remembered by the older generation of the music-lovers of to-day, I can in no wise claim that I am able to offer any hitherto unpublished particulars of biographical interest. For the main facts of that portion of my work which deals with the personal events of Clara Wieck's life I am indebted to the first volume of Berthold Litzmann's "Clara Schumann, ein Kunstlerleben" (three volumes), which, founded on the diary and correspondence of the great artist, is, from the purely biographical point of view, exhaustive. There is, however, another standpoint from which Frau Schumann's early career may be studied; one that has been left unconsidered by Litzmann and that was, perhaps, necessarily excluded from the scope of his work by the mere bulk of the personal material at his command, yet of great interest to music-lovers: the standpoint of musical history. The years covered by Clara Wieck's activity as u pianist coincide with a clearly-defined period in the progress both of creative and executive art, with the developments of which her achievement stood in distinctive and important relation. To show precisely what that relation was is one of the main purposes of tho following pages. This part of the subject has not, so far as I am aware, been discussed in any previously published work, and its treatment has involved considerable search in original records.