Meet Clara Schumann

Clara Schumann was born on September 13, 1819 in Leipzig, Germany. She became one of the 19th century's foremost piano virtuosos, in the same league as her contemporary, Franz Liszt. She was also a brilliant composer and respected teacher. In 1840, she married fellow composer Robert Schumann and together they had eight children. Her career spanned more than 60 years and her compositions include numerous songs, choral music, solo piano pieces, a piano concerto, plus chamber and orchestral works.

To help introduce this great composer to your students, we have created the song "Meet Clara Schumann." This piece is taken from Schumann's Piano Trio In G Minor, which was composed in 1846 and was written for piano, violin, and cello. This work has four movements and our song comes from the third movement ("Andante"). While our arrangement is very close to the original, we set it in F major instead of the original G major to put it in a better singing range. The lyrics speak of beautiful melodies and harmonies that invoke soul and emotion and endless "träumerei," which means "dreaming" in German. By the way, a very famous piece written by Clara's husband Robert is called "Träumerei."

The recorded accompaniment for this song was masterfully played by Steve Potts (piano), Violetta Todorova (violin), and Marjie Hanna (cello). Whether you choose to sing it or just listen to it, it's a great way to start a unit on Clara Schumann and/or classical music. As a matter of fact, we have several other pieces in this genre, as well: "The Chopin Etude" (Vol. 20, No. 4), "The Liszt Rhapsody" (Vol. 22, No. 1), "Mr. Debussy" (Vol. 23, No. 1), "A Lullaby For Brahms" (Vol. 27, No. 4), and "Scott Joplin's Solace" (Vol. 29, No. 1).