Clara Schumann

For the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth, Isata Kanneh-Mason takes us on a journey through the composer’s extraordinary life with her stunning debut album on Decca Classics. Isata will be joining forces with an all-female line-up to champion the significance of women musicians throughout the years, and their influence on the classical musical canon. The recording features Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, written at the age of fourteen, performed by the composer at Leipzig Gewandhaus two years later under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn.

Jennifer Pike, who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition at the tender age of 12, appears to have survived the perils of prodigyhood and entered her early twenties with musical intelligence intact. Here she offers a terrific program of music from the middle of the 19th century; all of it is abstract, but it brings vividly to mind the crucial trio of creative figures who met in the early 1850s: the ailing Robert Schumann, his musically frustrated wife Clara, and the young Johannes Brahms, mooning over the latter.

Jennifer Pike, who won the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition at the tender age of 12, appears to have survived the perils of prodigyhood and entered her early twenties with musical intelligence intact. Here she offers a terrific program of music from the middle of the 19th century; all of it is abstract, but it brings vividly to mind the crucial trio of creative figures who met in the early 1850s: the ailing Robert Schumann, his musically frustrated wife Clara, and the young Johannes Brahms, mooning over the latter. The Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 78, was written some years after that, but it seems to hark back to that time, not least in its dedication to Felix Schumann, Robert and Clara Schumann's youngest child.

The album Solitude features music of Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann. Dutch violinist Niek Baar and American pianist Ben Kim tell us: “Robert Schumann brought us together as duo partners and as friends. His writing, obsessively swinging between fiery turmoil and tender longing, gave us a common language to communicate with one another”. On this recording, Robert Schumann's Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3 are paired with Clara Schumann's 3 Romances, Op. 22. Listening to her romances, we note that Clara quotes Robert's Violin Sonata No. 1. This romantic gesture underlines the artistic bond between Clara and Robert Schumann.