Rebecca Clarke

Born and raised in England, with a German mother and an American father, Clarke spent much of her adulthood in the United States and she claimed both English and American nationality. Her late Victorian childhood and, in particular, her father’s cruelty, are described in her memoir written in 1969-73. But it is also clear that her family was artistically inclined and her musical studies were encouraged. Clarke enrolled at the RAM in 1903, where she studied the violin. She was abruptly withdrawn from the institution in 1905, when her harmony teacher, Percy Miles, proposed marriage. In 1907 she began a composition course at the RCM, where she was Stanford’s first female student. Again, she was unable to finish her studies, as her father suddenly banished her from the family home.

To support herself, Clarke embarked on an active performing career as a violist, and in 1912 she became one of the first female musicians in a fully professional (and formerly male) ensemble, when Henry Wood admitted her to the Queen’s Hall orchestra. In 1916 she began a US residency that included extensive travel, concertizing and visits with her two brothers. With cellist May Mukle, she performed extensively in Hawaii in 1918-1919 and on a round-the-world tour of the British colonies in 1923.

During these years Clarke achieved fame as a composer with her Viola Sonata (1919) and Piano Trio (1921), both runners up in competitions that were part of the Berkshire (Mass.) Festival of Chamber Music, sponsored by the American patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Coolidge commissioned the Rhapsody for Cello and Piano in 1923, making Clarke the only woman composer the famous Maecenas supported.

Clarke settled in London in 1924, where she performed as a soloist and ensemble player with musicians including Myra Hess, Adila Fachiri, André Mangeot, Gordon Bryan, Adolphe Hallis, Guilhermina Suggia and Mukle. In 1927 the English Ensemble was formed, a piano quartet made up of Clarke, Marjorie Hayward, Kathleen Long and Mukle. Clarke also performed as a soloist and ensemble musician in BBC broadcasts, and made several recordings. The quantity of her compositional output decreased in the late 1920s and 30s, possibly because of the discouragement she faced as a composer.

With the onset of World War II, Clarke found herself in the USA, where she lived alternately with her two brothers and their families. During this period she returned to composing. Her productivity ended, however, when she accepted a position as a nanny in 1942. In a note preserved in a scrapbook of the 1942 ISCM conference (Berkeley, CA), Clarke describes the Prelude, Allegro and Pastorale she had written for the festival, and also mentions her modest circumstances of employment. She was particularly proud that her work was included, as she was one of only three British composers represented and, as she and others noted, the only woman. In the early 1940s Clarke became reacquainted with James Friskin, a member of the piano department at the Juilliard School, whom she had first known as a student at the RCM; the couple married in 1944. Her last compositional projects include God Made a Tree (1954), an arrangement of her song Down by the Salley Gardens and, around her 90th birthday, revisions of earlier scores, including Cortège and The Tiger.

— RebeccaClarke.org

Clara Schumann

Clara Wieck Schumann has often been misleadingly referred to as the wife of composer Robert Schumann, and as one of the leading pianists of her day, rather than as a composer in her own right. Beginning in the last quarter of the twentieth century however, her stature as a composer finally became recognized. Had she been able to devote more time to composition -- she was occupied by maternal matters much of the time, having given birth to eight children -- she might well have risen to the artistic heights of her husband. Some of her later works -- the Six Lieder, Op. 23, for instance -- demonstrate considerable subtlety and depth.

Clara Wieck was born on September 13, 1819, in Leipzig. She began studying the piano with her domineering and difficult father, whom her mother, a talented singer, later divorced. Mr. Wieck was a piano teacher of high repute. Clara gave her debut concert in Leipzig at the age of seven playing Kalkbrenner's duet, Variations on a March from Moses, with him.

In 1830, Robert Schumann began study with Wieck, at which time he first met Clara. At twelve Clara toured Europe with her father, achieving great success in Paris and throughout Germany. By 1837 she was recognized as one of the leading virtuosos in Europe, and her career as a composer was blossoming as well. Her first compositions date from 1830, but her 1836 Soirées musicales, Op. 6, already shows considerable sophistication. In 1837 she and Schumann became engaged, with boisterous objections from her father.

Clara seems to have broken from her father's influence when she toured Paris alone in 1839. The break was made complete the following year when she married Robert Schumann. They would have eight children, and Clara would slowly watch her sensitive husband lose his sanity. The couple at first lived in Leipzig, where both taught at the University.

Clara did not write much in the early years of her marriage, though she did complete the Six Lieder, Op. 13 (1842-1843), and some piano pieces, including the Three Preludes and Fugue (1845). In 1853, the Schumanns moved to Düsseldorf, and Clara had a very productive summer, producing several significant works, including her Op. 20 Variations on a theme of Robert Schumann and the aforementioned Op. 23. In 1854, Robert Schumann suffered a mental collapse and attempted suicide, after which he was committed to an asylum where he lived for the rest of his life. He passed away in 1856.

Johannes Brahms, who had been introduced to the Schumanns in 1853 through the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, became an increasingly important figure in Clara's life. To this day, their exact relationship is unclear, but it is difficult to refute claims they had an affair. Brahms was 14 years Clara's junior, and possibly felt their age difference too great an obstacle for marriage.

Clara composed little in the years following Robert's death, even after her children were grown. She lived in Berlin from 1857 to 1863, at which time she moved to Baden-Baden. After briefly returning to Berlin in 1873, she took a teaching post at the Frankfurt Hoch Conservatory (1878). She continued to concertize until 1891. She died of a stroke on May 20, 1896.

— Allan Cummings

MMF Celebrates Women Composers (part 2)