Tabloid Tuesday: Clara & Robert Scumann and Johannes Brahms

If you thought your trip through the supermarket check-out was ripe with shelves of scandal, you should have seen what was going on in the lives of your favourite composers! This week, we’re featuring Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

Let’s start with a little background. In 1840, Clara and Robert were married after a Romeo-and Juliet-esque affair (minus the Montague’s) in which Clara’s father strongly opposed their union for years prior to it. However, instead of the curtain falling with an empty vial of poison and a dagger in hand, the lovers took the case to court and won. Three cheers for reason and law!

In the year 1853 on September 30^th, Brahms met the Schumann’s for the first time. Robert Schumann was so taken with the young composer that he wrote a prophetic article, Neue Bahnen (New Paths) praising him.

The following February Robert Schumann had his final nervous breakdown, during which he attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge. He voluntarily went into an asylum for the last few years of his life and passed away on July 29, 1856. The news of Robert’s death sent Brahms back to Dusseldorf to assist Clara, who was 14 years his senior, with the children and her home while she was performing. Did I mention that she was a renowned pianist and composer? The Schumann’s were quite the musical family.

So of course, Brahms’ devotion for Clara quickly developed into something more. If you’ve ever read or heard of Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, (fun fact: Goethe was actually an admirer of Clara’s piano stylings) it was kind of like that. For those of you who aren’t familiar with German Romanticism, the short notes look something like this:

Young man falls in madly love with a woman who is already taken. He then spends the rest of the novel weeping “delicious tears” at the hem of her dresses and fainting and falling all over the place because of his extreme excess of manly passion. Ultimately, his beloved would not be with him, and he kills himself. It was incredibly popular all over Europe in the Romantic era, and caused a trend called “Werthermania.” Some scholars suggest this led to a string of suicides to match all the Werther-wannabe’s, while to others (including me), it is clear that that the entire continent grossly misread the novel and that it is actually a deeply satirical critique of the culture of sensibility not to be imitated, but mocked. But I digress.

Unlike the ill-fated young Werther, Brahms, fortunately for us, did not kill himself in light of Clara’s love and devotion, which, unlike the man it was for, was undying. Instead, he met Agathe von Gottingen in 1858 and fell in love with her. This came to nothing, aside from tempering his passion for Clara.

The relationship between Clara and Brahms was rife with minor misunderstandings and some wounds which would never entirely heal, though their relationship remained largely affectionate throughout their lives.

In the spring on 1896 Clara died, and in April of the next year Brahms, too, passed away.

The extent of their relationship has never quite been made clear. They destroyed a large part of their correspondence with one another, so who knows what went on with them? One bit of correspondence we do have is that Brahms wrote to Clara in March 1876: “I love you better than myself or than anyone or anything in the world.”

Now, I have read a lot of speculation on the nature of the relationship between Clara and Johannes. As much as I promised a “tabloid” themed post, I fear I haven’t entirely delivered on the gossip, since what you have above here is the most neutral, objective account of what happened between the Schumann’s and Brahms. So here are some of the juicy things I have read which may or may not be true:

Brahms and Clara would frequently travel together and were often seen hugging and kissing one another in public.

Brahms idealized Clara too much to consummate their relationship.

Lastly, there has been speculation that their relationship was consummated, but few credible sources which make that claim.

This season you can hear the music of Brahms performed by the Kingston Symphony on September 29^th, 2013 in Beethoven & Brahms, on March 2^nd, 2014 in Brahms, Mozart & Elgar, and both Brahms and Schumann on April 13^th, 2014 in Brahms, Schumann & Tchaikovsky.