“What will become of my work?”: Genius, Gender, and Legacy in the Life of Clara Wieck/Schumann

Clara Wieck/Schumann (1819 – 1896) was a musician living in an era increasingly concerned with posterity and canon formation, yet she believed that as a performer, she was destined for posthumous obscurity. On this matter, she clearly misjudged her historical significance. More than 125 years after her death, Wieck/Schumann is still remembered as a child prodigy whose father trained her to become one of the greatest pianists of the day and whose dedication to the highest artistic ideals was matched only by her unconditional devotion to her husband and children. Wieck/Schumann’s artistic accomplishments as an individual—her remarkable success as a virtuosa and her significant compositional output—are frequently juxtaposed with her roles as a mother of eight and the romantic(ized) partner to fellow composer Robert Schumann. The seeming incongruity of her public and private lives has also lent a certain ambiguity and openness in biographical treatments. As such, Wieck/Schumann has been a canvas upon which writers could project contradictory dogmatic images: eternally faithful and adulterous wife, selfless and neglectful mother, humble and glamorous performer, contentedly domestic and artistically stifled.Through close reading of archival material (diaries and correspondence of Wieck/Schumann and her closest associates) and secondary sources (biographies, historical news and entertainment media, and music analyses), this dissertation traces the origins and evolutions of Wieck/Schumann’s legacies through the dual lenses of gender and genius. This project presents a historiographic study of prescriptive ideologies in Wieck/Schumann biographies with attention to shifts in genre conventions and feminist ideas, engages in psychobiographic analysis of her attitudes toward and justification of her own creativity as a function of her personal relationships, investigates how her image was used in Nazi propaganda with consequent backlash, and culminates in critical consideration of the limitations of biography as a tool to analyze her compositions. Taken together, these components demonstrate the (potentially dangerous) cultural power of biography to perpetuate narratives of gender values and genius with direct implications for the musical and cultural reception of creative women like Wieck/Schumann

Master\u27s Recital

Program listing performers and works performe

Master\u27s Recital

List of performers and performances