CLARA SCHUMANN,
née Wieck

September 13, 1819 - May 20, 1896

As an infant she is left to the maid.
At three, she takes walks with her parents lasting for hours.
Only at four does she start speaking.
When she is four her parents divorce. She is allowed to go to Plauen with her mother.
On her fifth birthday she has to return to her father.
He begins her piano training.

1828
At nine, she has her debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
1830
She is eleven when her father publishes her Op. 1. At twelve, her father takes her to Paris.
She plays one of his compositions for the first time – his Papillons, Op. 2.
She dedicates her Op. 3 to him.
At 15 she composes a piano concerto.
1835
The first kiss in November
Premiere of her piano concerto Op. 7.
When she is sixteen, her father forces her to break off all contact with Robert.
Just before her eighteenth birthday, she performs a composition by Robert in public.
Secret engagement
September 13, 1837
On her eighteenth birthday, Robert asks in writing for her hand. Friedrich Wieck rejects him.
At eighteen, she celebrates great triumphs in Vienna and Prague.
She is named imperial and royal chamber virtuosa.
Bellini Variations Op. 8, Souvenir de Vienne Op. 9, Scherzo Op. 10
At nineteen, she travels to Paris without her father.
Clara and Robert take Wieck to court in order to be married.
Her father disowns Clara.
Her mother takes her in.
1840
The court issues them permission to marry.
September 12, 1840 - Wedding
She turns 21, he is 30.
The couple moves into the Inselstraße
1841
Lieder, Scherzo Op.14
First performance as Clara Schumann

Publication of the Liebesfrühling under both names

Birth: Marie
1842
Journey together on concert tour to Hamburg
She travels on alone to Denmark
1845
Sechs Lieder, Op.13
Birth: Elise
1843
Birth: Julie
1846
Birth: Emil
Miscarriage

Journey together on concert tour to Vienna
1847
Piano trio in G minor, Op. 17
Death of Emil
1848
Birth: Ludwig
Three songs for mixed choir
1849
Revolution
Birth: Ferdinand
1850
Move to Düsseldorf
Joint concerts in Leipzig, Hamburg, and Bremen
1851
Birth: Eugenie
1852
Miscarriage.
At 33, she feels she is at the end of her strength.
1853
She begins to compose again.
Songs, romances for piano and violin
Beginning of a friendship with Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim.

Journey together on concert tour to Holland
February 27, 1854
Birth: Felix
Publication of her Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 20 She resumes her career as a performing pianist.
1856
At thirty-six, she performs for the first time in England. She places the two youngest children in the care of her mother, the older ones into boardinghouses, and goes on concert tours in order to earn a living for herself and her seven children.
1857
At thirty-eight, she moves to Berlin.
1862
At forty-three, she buys a house in Baden-Baden.
Family life during the summer months. She hopes to find a new partner in the composer Theodor Kirchner.
At forty-five, she separates from him.
At fifty-one, she has to place her son Ludwig in a sanatorium.
October 24, 1878
At fifty-nine, she celebrates her 50th anniversary as a performing artist at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
She buries her youngest son, Felix.
At sixty-seven, she has her son Ferdinand, who is addicted to morphine, declared legally incapacitated.
She assumes responsibility for the 6 grandchildren.
At sixty-eight, she performs in England for the last time.
At sixty-nine, she celebrates her 60th anniversary as an artist.
She is seventy-one when she gives her last public concert.
She has to bury her last son.
May 20, 1896
At the age of seventy-six, Clara Schumann dies in Frankfurt am Main and is buried next to Robert Schumann in Bonn.