Friedrich Wieck’s teaching method was guided by what were considered very modern principles at the time:
2 hours of practice – 2 hours of taking walks.
“My father is not letting me practice myself to death, musically, but instead is training me with care into a soulful manner of playing.”
Clara Wieck received training in needlework and, starting at the age of 6, she received an elementary education at a private girls’ school.
“I attended this institution everyday, however only for 3 – 5 hours, since my father had me start playing the piano for two hours each day starting at this age; he also gave me a daily lesson for one hour, almost without exception, and this usually between 8 and 9 o’clock in the morning – often also another from 4 to 5 o’clock [in the afternoon]”
Soon Wieck took over her general education together with a private tutor,
“so that even with the few hours that are in a day, her scientific education can keep up with the artistic one, and so that time still remains to explore nature and to strengthen one’s body, while other children sit on school benches and have to sweat for 9 hours a day in such institutions – the price of this all being a loss to their health and a joyful youth.”
Wieck, Friedrich, Clavier und Gesang, Didaktisches und Polemisches, Leipzig 1853
“In 1827, my musical sense began to develop further and faster and my musical ear could discern between keys pretty well just by hearing them; I was also not unfamiliar with the first elements of theory, [...], modulated into all major and minor chords through the lead tone of the dominant, wherever I should and wanted to go. But my playing also got better, my touch improved, strong and secure, and the strength of my fingers increased such that I was then able to play difficult pieces for two hours in a row with a good deal of endurance; and my father sometimes praised my aptness for a natural and good presentation, which always delighted me – however, I would often then become obstinate and unruly in my wishes (according to my father).”
Film: Spring Symphony
Friedrich Wieck began a diary for his daughter and made entries in it under her name until, under his watch, she could take over making further entries.
The diary documented the learning progress and served as a record of achievements. In the beginning Clara was trained together with two other girls according to the piano method of Johann Bernhard Logier. Parallel to this, Wieck developed his own method.
Mariane Bargiel (née Tromlitz, div. Wieck). Unmarked portrait tableau, Berlin around 1830. Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig 8884.2. Photograph: Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig, M. Wenzel.
Mariane Bargiel took Clara with her to her parents’ house in Plauen. She had already given Clara her first piano exercises in Leipzig “with a stationary hand”. On her 5th birthday, against her mother’s wishes, the child was obliged to return to Leipzig. Her father wanted to train his daughter to become a pianist, in fact, one with a specific feminine image.
Mariane Bargiel married a second time and had four additional children together with Adolph Bargiel (she had five with Wieck, of which three survived). At first, she taught lessons together with her second husband in Leipzig, then in Berlin. After Bargiel’s stroke, she had to feed her new family by giving piano lessons.
“It is as if the child had a long story to tell – one born out of pain and passion – and yet – what does she know? – music.”
Cäcilia. “Ein Taschenbuch für Freunde der Tonkunst”, 1833
“On November 8 [1830] the 11-year-old pianist, Klara Wieck, gave a concert in Leipzig. The extraordinary accomplishments which were apparent in her playing as well as in her compositions evoked general admiration for the young artist and won her the greatest applause.”
(November 10 issue, 1830)
“I gave father 20 g. for his trouble, and I was sorry that he did not want to take more. But from now on I will often be treating my close companions to cake in the garden.”
Clara Wieck also received voice lessons, violin lessons, lessons in harmony, score study, instrumentation, as well as composition lessons.
As part of her education, she regularly attended concerts and operas, gave piano and singing performances in small circles, gave concerts in a private setting at home or at an acquaintance’s, she took French lessons and also was instructed on how to handle money.
First composition at age nine: a waltz for her old nurse.
The art of singing is the “necessary foundation for beautiful and fine piano playing”.
Wieck, Friedrich, Clavier und Gesang, Didaktisches und Polemisches, Leipzig 1853
Friedrich Wieck refused the idea of using mechanical instruments, but for his daughter’s early training, he followed the Logier Method, named after piano pedagogue, Johann Bernahrd Logier (1777-1846), who was especially successful in England. Characteristic for this method were group lessons as well as linking piano playing to music theory from the very beginning. A notorious feature of the method was the use of a so-called chiroplast – a wooden device that was meant to control the hand position and expand the reach of the fingers. Friedrich Wieck’s diary entries do not give a clear indication of the extent to which this device played a role in his daughter’s early lessons. However, Robert Schumann, who decided to become a professional musician at the age of twenty, wished to make up in short time for those things he had not learned as a child, as opposed to Clara Wieck, and built himself his own apparatus, in order to strenghten and train his fingers into independence. The sad result is shown in the filim Spring Symphony (1983).
“On December 14, 1837, Clara Wieck gave her first concert in Vienna. A rose half blossomed with all of the appeal of a bud and yet with the full fragrance of an unfolded Provence rose! Not a child prodigy – and yet still a child and already a prodigy. Once again it was an unimagined display of virtuosity: after Thalberg’s lovable display of virtuosity had charmed the distinguished salons, (…) it appeared now in Clara Wieck as girlish innocence and poetry. With all the magic that this poetry lent to Clara’s personality and presentation, her virtuosity remained the actual reason and measure of the tribute of adoration paid to her at that time.”
Eduard Hanslick
“Dresden, March 19, 1830
My dear wife,
Yesterday Klara played for the most distinguished connoisseurs of Dresden […] Duchess Einsiedel took the ring off her finger and put it on Klara’s, Duchess Bohl gave her her small kerchief, which pleased her etc. – That she could compose, however, no one would believe, since that has never been the case for young ladies of this age. When she had finished improvising over a given theme, though, everyone was beside themselves. […] They all screamed and stormed at me, that I should publish my method. [...] In haste your Fr. Wieck”
Friedrich Wieck to his second wife Clementine
“On t. 20th I played at the Gewandhaus for the first time in public in the concert of Dem. Perhaler from Graitz [Graz]. In this concert arranged by my father, lots of new pieces were presented, [...] I played Kalkbrenner’s Variations à 4 m. [for four hands] o. 94 to the now popular march from Moses [Rossini] [...] – I played the right part. It went very well, and I did not play any wrong notes, but got much applause [...] By the way, we played on the grand piano of cherry wood, built for me by Andreas Stein; it has 6 octaves.”
“The 29th. [of October, 1828] My father, who had long given up hoping for a change of mind on my part, remarked again today that I was still so lazy, careless, sloppy, headstrong, disobedient etc., that I was literally like this in my piano playing and studying and because I played Hünten’s new Variations Op. 26 so badly in his presence, and had not even repeated the first part of the 1st variation, that he tore up the copy before my eyes and does not wish to give me one more lesson from this day forth and I am no longer allowed to play anything but the scales, Cramer Etudes [...] and Czerny trill exercises. In my early 8 o’clock lesson, my brothers are now to learn the piano and my father will start with them tomorrow.”
“T. 5th my father started giving me lessons again, after I had given him my firm promise to change my ways.”
Outward journey: Weimar - Erfurt - Gotha - Arnstadt - Gotha - Kassel - Frankfurt - Darmstadt
Return journey: Metz - Saarbrücken - Frankfurt - Hanau - Fulda
A gift from Goethe to the twelve-year-old Clara Wieck with the dedication “To the artful Clara Wieck”.
The following quote from Goethe was written Clara’s diary: “that girl has more strength than 6 boys put together”.
Wieck’s holistic method to education corresponded to contemporary ideas of reform in music education.
“The focus of the considerations was the child. His or her genuine, unspoiled nature and, in particular, the child’s openly displayed general intellectual and musical aptitude were apparent and recognized. To form and educate them was capital for the future, and was at the same time the most beautiful educational task.”
(Sowa)
Sowa, Georg, Anfänge institutioneller Musikerziehung in Deutschland (1800-1843). Pläne, Realisierung und zeitgenössische Kritik, Mit Darstellung der Bedingungen und Beurteilung der Auswirkungen, Regensburg 1973
The motto of the age-appropriate method of music education for the developing child, promoted by Wieck, was: increased effectiveness of the training through an upbringing aimed at instilling self-discipline.
“I have dedicated nearly 10 years of my life to you and your education;
Consider the obligations you have.”
Friedrich Wieck’s entry into his daughter’s diary on the day of her confirmation, January 12, 1834
On t. 4th of October we went to Paganini’s at ½ past 10 o’clock in the morning. He recognized my father from Berlin and I had to play the Polonaise in Eb Major, which I had composed for him, on a bad old pianoforte with a black claviature [...] this pleased him very much and he intimated to my father the words [“] I was called to art because I have the feeling for it”. He also allowed us to attend all of his rehearsals, which we did.