Clara Schumann was a German Composer born September 13, 1819 in Leipzig, Germany. She was born to Friedrich Wieck, a music teacher, and Marianne Tromlitz Wieck, a pianist and soprano. Clara’s mother Marianne was a famous singer in Leipzig at the time. Marianne sang solos on a weekly basis at the well known Gewandhaus in Leipzig. Even before Clara's birth, Wieck had Clara Schumann resolved that if she were to be a girl, he would mould her into a performing artist of the highest rank. Female concert pianists were then still rare, and he knew that an important one would attract considerable attention. Her success would make him famous as the leading piano teacher in all of Europe. In keeping with his plan for his daughter's life, he named her…show more content… Clara’s formal musical education began a few days after her fifth birthday.[8] Wieck's goal was to produce a virtuoso pianist who would also be a well-rounded musician, and he believed that "the whole education, from earliest youth, must have reference to this end.”[9] In keeping with this philosophy, he supervised Clara's every waking moment. Her academic studies were squeezed into the few hours not taken up by music lessons, piano practice, and the long daily walks that her father prescribed for every member of his household. She attended a local primary school for six months in 1825, and was then sent to the Noack Institute, a larger school, for the better part of a year. Her general education was limited to the time spent at these two schools, and her hours of attendance were shortened to accommodate her music studies. She was taught only those subjects that her father deemed necessary for her future career: reading, writing, and, with tutors, a smattering of French and English--the languages she would need for her concert tours.[10] Clara's musical education was extraordinary by any standard. By the age of seven, she was spending at least three hours a day at the piano--one hour for a lesson with her father, and two hours for practice.[11] Formal training in theory and composition began when she was barely ten. Her instructors for these subjects were Christian Theodor Weinlig, Cantor of St. Thomas Church, and Heinrich Dorn, director of the Leipzig Opera. Other Leipzig teachers taught her violin and score reading. Wieck later sent her to Dresden to study advanced composition and orchestration with Carl Reissiger, and voice with Johann Aloys Miksch. She also worked with the finest instructors in the cities where she toured; while concertizing in Berlin in 1837, for instance, she had counterpoint lessons with Siegfried Dehn.[12] On November 8, 1830, the eleven year-old Clara Wieck made her
