Clara Schumann

Clara Schumann, born Clara Wieck in Leipzig, was a German pianist, composer and piano teacher whose 61-year concert career changed the piano recital by giving less room to purely virtuosic works. Trained as a child prodigy by her father Friedrich Wieck, she made her official debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1828 and was named Royal and Imperial Austrian Chamber Virtuoso in Vienna in 1838. She married Robert Schumann in 1840; they had eight children and encouraged the young Johannes Brahms, and she gave the public premieres of many works by both men. After Robert's death she toured Europe for decades, often with Joseph Joachim, and from 1878 taught at Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium in Frankfurt.