Clara Schumann (née Clara Josephine Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896)

Poetics

Volume 37, Issue 1, February 2009, Pages 50–73

Clara Schumann's collection of playbills: A historiometric analysis of life-span development, mobility, and repertoire canonization

• Reinhard Kopiez^{a, 1, ,} ,
• Andreas C. Lehmann^{b, 1},
• Janina Klassen^c

 

doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2008.09.001

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Abstract

Clara Schumann's (1819–1896) important influence on concert life and piano performance throughout the 19th century can still be felt in our times. Virtually all concerts Clara gave between 1828 (at age 9) and 1891 (at age 71) are documented in a historically unique collection of over 1300 printed concert program leaflets (playbills). Combining an historiometric approach with musicological methods, we analyzed those data descriptively and theoretically from the perspective of repertoire canonization. The aim of this study was to document details of Clara's life-time career as a concert pianist, to study her repertoire development in the context of critical life events and personal aesthetic beliefs, and to establish some first comparisons with data from other performers of the time. This study complements existing research on programming and canonization by explaining the cumulative effects of an individual performer's programming decisions. First, the playbills were entered into a database and prepared for computer-assisted analysis. From the 20,000 program entries we extracted those 536 solo piano and chamber music pieces which Clara had performed. Analyses showed that the yearly frequency of concerts reflected her personal circumstances and critical life events. Although Clara performed works by almost 40 composers, the most frequently performed four composers (R. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin) comprised 70% of all performances. Furthermore, although she performed in 160 cities, 50% of her concerts took place in only seven major cities which represented international (London, Leipzig, Vienna) and national (Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt) music centers. Finally, her influential role in the canonization of classical piano music can be explained by biographical circumstances which resulted in particular choices of traditionalist repertoire after Robert Schumann's death (1856). This included decreasing program diversity after 1870 and the avoidance of contemporary composers, such as Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky or Saint-Saens.

Corresponding author at: Hanover University of Music and Drama, Institute for Research in Music Education, Emmichplatz 1, 30175 Hanover, Germany. Tel.: +49 511 3100 608; fax: +49 511 3100 600.

1

These authors contributed equally to this project and are listed in alphabetical order.

Copyright © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Reinhard Kopiez (b. 1959) received a degree in classical guitar, and a master and PhD in musicology. From 2000–2003 he was vice-president of ESCOM. From 2001–2005 he has been president of the German Society for Music Psychology (DGM). He is currently professor of music psychology at the Hanover University of Music and Drama. His latest journal publications concern psychological research on music performance. Together with A. C. Lehmann and H. Bruhn he edited the German standard handbook on music psychology (Musikpsychologie. Das neue Handbuch, 2008, Rowohlt).

Andreas C. Lehmann (b. 1964) holds a music education degree and a PhD in musicology. From 1992–1998, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL). Since 2000 he is professor of Systematic Musicology at the Würzburg University of Music. He is acting president of the German Society for Music Psychology and associate editor of the journal Musicae Scientiae. He recently published a book entitled Psychology for Musicians (2007, Oxford University Press).

Janina Klassen (b. 1954) holds a Masters and PhD degree in musicology. She is professor of musicology at the Freiburg University of Music. Her main areas of specialization are 19th century music aesthetics, musical rhetoric and Clara Wieck Schumann. Her latest book (2008) is entitled Clara Schumann: Musik und Öffentlichkeit [Clara Schumann: Music and the Public].