About the Composer:
Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was a German pianist, composer and one of the most celebrated musicians of the Romantic Era (late 18th to mid 19th Century). She was renowned as a child prodigy under the rigorous training of her father, Friedrich Wieck. She married fellow composer Robert Schumann in 1840, balancing her career as a touring virtuoso (this was a rarity at the time for a woman, of course), with raising her 8 children. A champion of her husband's works and a close friend, perhaps even lover, of Joannes Brahms. Her compositions, mainly piano pieces and lieder (German Art Songs) reflected her technical brilliance and a deep emotional depth. After her husband's death, she continued with her performing and compositional career.
Artistic Director's Notes:
As with so many female composers, I was introduced to Clara Schumann as a music student, almost exclusively in relation, and compared to, to her husband (The same case can be made for Fanny Hensel, although it would be in relation to her brother). I am glad that we are seeing these composers' work standing on their own, rather than as a secondary thought to their "more famous" male relations. As is the case with a lot of female composers through history, the bulk of her compositions were for piano or voice and piano, and that is the case of this work Lorelei. This work was written for her husband's birthday in 1843, and has been viewed by many musicologists as a reflection of her depression, or even more particularly, post partum depression. The title refers to a large rock in the Rhine river, where, according to a tale written in the early 1800s, a spurned woman lured ships onto the rocks with her melodious voice - an obvious reference to Sirens in Greek mythology.
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