"Power games" - Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt
Clara Schumann: Variations de Concert op. 8
Franz Liszt: Transcriptions of three songs by Clara Schumann
Robert Schumann: Carnaval op. 9 in the version by Clara Schumann
Pause
Franz Liszt: Sonata in B minor dedicated to Robert Schumann
The pianist Ragna Schirmer has been highly acclaimed by concert audiences and critics for many years. Her interpretations are characterized by the art of nuance and a love of detail in the search for hidden historical and contemporary references. Numerous prizes and awards, including winning the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig twice, bear witness to the pianist's enduring career.
In unusual projects and moderated piano recitals, she devotes herself to the life and work of Clara Schumann, among others. In her current program Machtspiele, she now adds another chapter, namely the one about Clara Schumann's relationship with Franz Liszt.
Clara Wieck met Franz Liszt in April 1838 at the end of her concert tour in Vienna. Liszt had come to Vienna to give several concerts, including a charity concert for the victims of a flood in Pest. Franz Liszt and Clara Wieck lived in the same hotel and both played music together, including four-handed concerts, privately and at soirées. Clara played him her own compositions as well as her version of Robert Schumann's Carnaval op. 9. Liszt was impressed in a letter to Marie d'Agoult: " Her [Clara Wieck's] compositions are really very remarkable, especially for a woman. They contain a hundred times more invention and true feeling than all of Thalberg's earlier and current fantasies. Clara Wieck greatly appreciated Liszt's virtuoso abilities, but briefly doubted her own as a result of this admiration. She later took a more critical stance towards his eccentric playing style and partial lack of fidelity to the original.
While Liszt always spoke highly of Clara Schumann and championed Robert Schumann's works, Clara's admiration for Liszt cooled more and more. In December 1841, the two still performed together at the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Liszt's works were part of their program until 1847. There was a break (but not on Liszt's part) in June 1848: Liszt was invited to a soirée at the Schumanns' house in Dresden, arrived two hours late and called Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet Leipzig. While Robert Schumann made contact with Liszt again some time after this event, Clara Schumann was severely disappointed.
Liszt's esteem for Clara Schumann did not diminish, however. He even organized a concert for her in Weimar at her request, at which she played the Piano Concerto in A minor op. 54 on 27 October 1854 and Liszt also conducted the Overture to Manfred op. 115 and Robert Schumann's Fourth Symphony in D minor op. 120. In the same year, Liszt wrote a long essay on Clara and Robert Schumann, which was published in three issues of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (No. 23 of December 1, 1854, No. 14 of March 30, 1855, No. 15 of April 6, 1855). After Robert Schumann's death in 1856, Franz Liszt and Clara only met very rarely and from 1860 onwards the distance increased due to the conflicting positions of the Brahmsians and the New Germans. In 1884 Clara Schumann contacted Liszt again by letter; she was working on the publication of Robert Schumann's youthful letters and asked Liszt to send her letters for transcription. However, Liszt had not kept the letters from and to Robert Schumann, which was certainly one reason why the correspondence between Franz Liszt and Clara Schumann ended in 1884.
