Schumann v. Wieck The Battle for ClaraAuthor(s): Robert Aitken and Marilyn AitkenSource: Litigation, Vol. 28, No. 1, CHANCE (Fall 2001), pp. 55-56, 67-68Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29760255 .

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Legal

Lore

Schumann v. Wieck

The Battle for Clara

by Robert and Marilyn Aitken The love story of Clara and Robert Schumann has become a musical leg? end: Robert, the dashing composer, and

Clara, the brilliant pianist, overcame the

objections of her controlling father to enter an idyllic if ill-fated marriage.

Reality is somewhat more compli? cated. Robert Schumann, early in his career, wanted to marry the young Clara Wieck. Clara was torn between her love for Robert and her loyalty to her father, Friedrich Wieck, a highly regarded piano teacher and an acquain? tance of Beethoven. Wieck had early recognized Clara's talent and had devoted himself to establishing her as a

superstar. Robert and Clara were married in

1840, but not before an acrimonious trial pitted Robert against Wieck, in a

struggle with Clara as the prize. The background was 19th century

Leipzig in Saxony, a male-dominated

society in which Wieck was notable for his encouragement of Clara to compose music as well as to play the piano. This was in an era when the father of com?

poser Felix Mendelssohn's talented sis? ter, Fanny, wrote to her on her 23rd

birthday, "You must ... prepare more

earnestly and eagerly for your real call?

ing, the only calling of a young woman?I mean the state of a house

RobertAitken practices law and Marilyn Aitken is a freelance writer in Palos Verdes Estates,

California.

wife." Nancy B. Reich, Women's Phil? harmonic CD, Notes.

This was also the era in which Neue

Zeitshrift f?r Musik (New Review for Music), a journal of which Robert was the

editor, commented that Clara's music did not really merit a review "since we are

dealing with the work of a woman." Peter Ostwald, Schumann, The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius (1985).

After Clara's parents divorced, her father retained custody. He began her

piano training when she was five years old. Clara was nine when she made her debut at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1828, the same year she met Robert Schumann. He was 18 and studying with her father.

By 1835 Clara was acclaimed

throughout Europe as a phenomenally gifted child prodigy. Her admirers included Goethe, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Paganini. That year, Clara and Robert exchanged their first kiss.

Although Clara was only 16, Robert assumed her father would give them his

blessing. He did not.

Wieck, who had watched Robert's fickle passions and unstable mood

swings, wanted to spare Clara from dis?

appointment. Moreover, he had seen other young women with promising careers give them up under the pressure of combining marriage and career. He worried that Robert would squander Clara's money. He disliked Robert's

indulgence in drink. Most of all, he was

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unwilling to lose control of his creation, his amazingly talented daughter, the flower of Europe. Wieck took Clara to Dresden in

1836 to isolate her and to intercept Robert's letters. His action, of course,

drew the lovers together. Clara smug gled a letter to Robert planning a meet

ing in Dresden. He wrote to Clara

expressing his love. Wieck, discover

ing the meeting, told Clara he would shoot Robert if he ever approached her

again. He wrote an enraged letter to Robert that marked the beginning of a

four-year battle over Clara.

No word passed between Clara and

I

4

9

Robert for more than a year. Then Wieck announced that at Clara's next Leipzig concert, a month before her 18th birth

day, she would play three variations from Robert's symphonic etudes.

Robert wrote to her on the day of the concert, August 13, 1837, and proposed

marriage. The next day, she accepted. On her birthday, Robert wrote to Wieck, asking for his friendship and consent.

Wieck refused both and arranged a con cert tour for Clara to Dresden, Prague, and Vienna. "Am I not a weak girl?" she wrote to Robert. "I have promised my father to be happy and for a few years yet to live for art and for the world."

In Vienna, Clara won enormous

acclaim. By royal edict, she was given the honorary title of "imperial concert

pianist." A Viennese pastry was named after her. A poem written by Austria's

leading dramatic poet, Franz Grill

parzer, was called "Clara Wieck and Beethoven" and immortalized the per formance of an 18-year-old girl. Women

Making Music (Jane Bowers & Judith Tick, eds. 1986).

The struggle continued. Clara was unable to defy her father. Robert was

depressed by the situation and by his relative failure to succeed financially. He warned Clara that he was suffering from "mental illness" and needed to be

dealt with protectively. Clara was in Paris in 1839 on a tour

Wieck had planned as the climax of his and Clara's career. He had sent her with her nanny for a six-month stay, hoping to demonstrate her need for his help. She triumphed alone.

But Wieck continued to cause trou ble. Clara learned of her father's secret

correspondence with Robert, in which her father demanded a list of conditions for his consent to her marriage, includ

ing withholding from Clara the money she had earned, her renunciation of her father's estate, and legal certification of Robert's income. Ronald Taylor, Robert Schumann, His Life and Work (1982).

Although Robert remained her life

long love, Clara was still reluctant to

give up her ties to her father-and to his teaching. "Do you know what I

long for, above all else? A music lesson from my father ... ," she said in a letter

to Robert on June 27, 1839. Bertita

Harding, Concerto, the Story of Clara Schumann (1962).

Robert saw this as a danger signal. He insisted Clara decide: They would

part forever, or she would allow him to

apply for legal consent to marry before she became of age. Clara agreed to mar

riage and, after consulting with a French attorney, M. Adolphe Delapalm, signed an affidavit that Robert had pre pared. Robert gave the affidavit to his

lawyer in Leipzig, Herr Wilhelm Einert, with the suggestion he attempt an out of-court settlement. If that failed, Robert told Einert to file a complaint against Wieck in the Saxony trial court

seeking a court order granting legal per mission for him to marry Clara.

On July 16, 1839, Robert filed a com

plaint against Wieck. What follows here is a chronology of the legal proceedings of this extraordinary trial as outlined in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Stanley Sadie ed.

1980), and the Ostwald and Taylor books mentioned above. Whoever won the trial would determine Clara's future.

Three days after the filing, the court ordered the parties to discuss arbitra tion. In August 1839, Clara returned to

Leipzig. Pursuant to a court order, Archdeacon Rudolf Fischer made two

attempts to effect an arbitration. Wieck did not appear at the first session, and he was late for the second. He stated he would never agree to the marriage.

On September 17, Wieck tried to reach a settlement in the Leipzig court. His demands were exorbitant: Clara would forfeit her earnings for the prior seven years and receive a settlement of two thirds of Robert's capital. The proposal was refused. Next, the case came before the Court of Appeal of Saxony. Wieck did not appear at preliminary hearings to determine whether there was a chance of a mutually acceptable solution.

In October, Wieck failed to appear for the official hearing but claimed that, because he had not attended the meeting of the conciliation tribunal in Septem ber, the proceeding had never taken place. Einert, presenting Robert and Clara's case, pointed out how dishonest

(Please turn to pae 67)

LITIGATION FALL 2001 5 6

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"cooperate with the government." "But

you won anyway!" relator's counsel

exclaims. "We think it's worth briefing for the court," comes the reply. "Unless

you'd like to settle for 7 percent." Qui tarn litigation is a never-ending

procession of chances that both you and

your client have to take: the chance that the relator is not all she claims to be; the chance that the government attorney assigned will not understand, like, or have the resources to support the relator's case; the risk that you will not be able to buttress your pleadings to withstand Rule

9(b) without violating someone's confi?

dentiality (e.g., using their medical

records); or the chance that someone else has already filed the case and there is no

way to find out because any other filing is

probably still under seal.

Are the chances worth taking? You decide. 10

Legal

Lore

(Continued from page 56)

that claim was. The hearing was contin? ued to mid-December. Robert's health declined. He fell into a depression and did no creative work.

On December 14, 1839, Wieck filed another verbose appeal unassisted by counsel. This stalled the proceedings. Again, he failed to appear. The court was asked two questions: Do Clara and Robert have sufficient assets for a suc? cessful marriage, and do they have the

personal capacity for a happy union? Wieck, who had observed Robert for

10 years, stated the following: Robert could not support himself; had squan? dered his inheritance; had "made a mess of his work as editor of Neue Zeit shrift f?r Musik; was "lazy, unreli? able and conceited"; drank exces?

sively; and was a mediocre composer whose music was "unclear and almost

impossible to perform." Wieck attacked Clara, claiming she

was untrained to be a housewife and had unrealistic expectations about the sup? port Robert could provide. He also stated

that her career would suffer if she trav? eled with Robert, who "was incompe? tent, childish, unmanly, in short totally lost for any social adjustment"; could not

"speak coherently or write legibly"; would "always get in her way"; and would insist that Clara give music lessons, which she was unsuited to do.

On December 18, 1839, the parties again appeared in court. Wieck lost con? trol. The president of the court silenced him. Judgment was set for January 4, 1840. In the meantime, Clara and

Robert spent Christmas with Clara's mother in Berlin. On January 4, 1840, the court dismissed Wieck's charges, except for the charge of alcoholism.

On January 26, Wieck filed a legal disputation. He also privately distrib? uted lithographed copies of his original charges to the couple's friends. He cir? culated printed copies of his legal testi?

mony in every city where Clara was scheduled to play.

On January 31, Robert sought to

strengthen his position by conferring with Dr. G.A. Keferstein about receiv?

ing a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Jena without an exam? ination or thesis because of his achieve?

ments as composer, writer, and editor. On February 13, Felix Mendelssohn

agreed to testify for Robert and Clara. Robert filed a refutation that included the following items: an assertion that he could support Clara; a listing of his assets (12,688 Thalers?actually, he was exaggerating, because he included 4,000 Thalers Clara had saved); a sub? mission of a letter from Wieck praising Robert's character and inviting him to be the godfather of Wieck's daughter Cecilie; and a claim that Wieck had been one of his drinking friends. (He asked the court to reserve his right to sue Wieck for defamation of character and did, successfully, a year later.

Wieck was sentenced to 18 days in

prison. There is no evidence that Wieck ever served this sentence).

Several weeks later, Robert submit? ted a letter from Baron von Fricken that stated, "Is old Wieck still so stiff necked? What could have caused him to become so angry with you? Before 1834, he was so excited about you and, so to speak, brought up his daughter for

you." Robert also submitted the degree he had now received from the Univer?

sity of Jena. On March 28, the High Court of

Appeal of Saxony confirmed the Janu

ary 4, 1840, judgment. Wieck had the burden of proof to show that Robert was a heavy drinker but on July 7 failed to

produce evidence of this. On August 1, legal consent to the marriage was

granted by the court. Ten days later, Wieck's allotted time to file an appeal expired. Robert and Clara were free to

marry, and marriage banns were pub? lished on August 16.

Clara and Robert were married in the

village church at Schonfeld near

Leipzig on September 12, 1840. Ironi?

cally, this was one day before Clara's 21st birthday, when she would have been legally free to marry. Clara con? fided in her diary, "A new life now

begins, a beautiful life, a life wrapped up in him whom I love above all things and above myself."

Afterword The Schumanns made peace with

Wieck. On December 15, 1843, Wieck wrote to Robert, assuring the composer of his respect for his talent and fine achievements.

Early in their marriage, Robert and Clara studied music and literature

together. Clara inspired Robert to com?

pose a torrent of brilliant piano pieces and lieder. These vocal compositions featured the poems of Goethe, Heine, Byron, and Burns. According to Harold

Schonberg, "Fantasiest?cke," Schu? mann's great work for solo piano, is one of the pieces upon which all romantic

piano music rests. His piano works are

exuberant, poetic, introspective, grand, and intimate. And, although he achieved success in many musical forms, the 16

songs of "Dichterliebe" rank with Schu? bert's "Winterreise" as the finest of the

song cycles. Wieck was correct in predicting that

Clara would have difficulty maintaining her artistry. Robert needed quiet while he composed, so it was difficult for her to practice. He accompanied her on a

trip to Russia but found it difficult to be

merely Clara's husband. Tours were

arranged for Clara because money was

tight, but she was often unable to com?

plete them because of pregnancies. She

gave birth to eight children, seven of whom survived infancy. Clara accepted her new role. She believed that a com?

poser was more important than an inter?

preter. Robert's needs came first.

By 1853, Clara was composing again. On Robert's 43rd birthday, she

presented him with her new work.

Litigation Fall 2001 Volume 28 Number 1

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"The first songs I have written for seven years and three piano pieces," she recorded in her diary. "Robert was

pleased with them." Then, tragedy struck. Robert, long

suffering from periods of depression, attempted suicide in 1854 and was confined to an asylum at Endenich because of mental illness. He died therein 1856. With the help of close family friend

Johannes Brahms, 14 years her junior, Clara pulled herself together, farmed out the children, and began to tour. She prospered and enjoyed a success? ful career that spanned more than 50

years. Clara had played the first per? formance of Robert's Piano Concerto at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on January 1, 1846, and she continued to be

Robert's greatest promoter. Her con?

certs prominently featured works by him and by Brahms.

As a pianist, Clara Schumann was

indisputably of the highest rank, accord?

ing to The New Grove Dictionary. She was considered the most important "clas? sical" pianist of the 19th century. Harold C. Schonberg, The Great Pianist (1963). Her talent was held to rival that of Chopin and Liszt. Clara's compositions, includ?

ing "Trois Romances," "Sonata in G

Minor," "Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann," "Romance in A

Minor," and "Soirees Musicales," are cur

rentiy available on CD. Clara's friend Fanny Mendelssohn

was finally permitted to appear in pub? lic as a pianist at a Berlin charity con? cert in 1838, and two books of her songs were subsequently published. In 1842, during a visit to Buckingham Palace by Fanny's brother, Felix, the young Queen Victoria sang "Italy," a song by not Felix but Fanny?one of the num? bers written by his sister that Felix had

incorporated into his published works. When he explained the situation, the

queen and her consort looked consider?

ably surprised. Felix always insisted that Fanny was

his superior as a pianist. Critic Henry F.

Chorley heard her play in a family mati? nee and said that if she had been born

poor and had had to earn her living, she would have become as great a pianist as Clara Wieck Schumann. Herbert

Kupferberg, The Mendelssohns (1972). Friedrich Wieck's long life ended

October 6, 1873, at the age of 88. He never found another student with Clara's brilliance. Clara wrote in her

diary after her father's death, "Although we disagreed on many points, this could never affect my love for him, a love which all my life long has been height? ened by gratitude." The New Grove Dic?

tionary of Music and Musicians. Clara died in 1896. Johannes

Brahms, who had loved and admired Clara for more than 40 years, died in 1897. Q

Pro Bono

Practice

(Continued from page 54)

general counsel at large corporations have come to recognize their own pro? fessional obligation to volunteer their services and have expressed interest in the pro bono activities of the law firms

they hire. Several years ago, the general counsel of General Motors, Thomas

Gottschalk, spoke to a gathering of the

managing partners of the District of Columbia's largest law firms and stated

plainly that he takes a firm's commit? ment to public service into account when choosing among law firms.

In addition, the prospect of firm attor?

neys and corporate counsel partnering on pro bono cases presents a good busi? ness development opportunity. In-house

attorneys often are interested in taking on pro bono work but may feel more comfortable when they can co-counsel with a law firm with a well-established

public service program whose attorneys know the ropes. This affords an added

opportunity for firm's lawyers to demonstrate their talent to corporate co counsel.

A law firm's public service activi?

ties, particularly in its local commu?

nity, can put a human face on a profes? sion seen as devoted solely to large corporate clients and indifferent to the

problems of families living in inner

city neighborhoods just blocks from their office. The greater the number of

attorneys in pinstriped suits who take the time to represent an indigent single

mom, the better the firm's image as a

"corporate citizen."

Of course, pro bono work may alien? ate clients. I have heard attorneys dis

cussing their firm's hesitance in taking on controversial or unpopular causes,

fearing a negative client reaction. The

prospect of representing a gay service member may raise the hackles of gov? ernment contracts clients. Death

penalty work gives pause to some firms for similar reasons. It is a question not so much of a conflict of interest but of

perception. Some firms choose to steer clear of more contentious matters, while others remain unconcerned about client reaction.

Many firms also shy away from issues potentially adverse to the inter? ests of their clients, out of concern for the possibility of being asked to argue the other side of the issue in the future. Even where the chance of an issue con? flict is highly remote, numerous firms still refuse to touch certain cases for fear a client or prospective client will take its business elsewhere.

This trepidation about a perceived, not actual, issue conflict surfaces most

frequently in equal employment oppor? tunity cases. There are, however, a sub?

stantial number of firms with very lucra? tive management-side labor practices pleased to take on plaintiff's EEO work. Rather than viewing it as a liability, they see it as an opportunity to build experi? ence and enhance skills. They also believe their corporate clients will see a benefit to being defended by an attorney who has insight into the workings of the

plaintiffs' bar. Rod Boggs, executive director of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban

Affairs, who deals regularly with both

types of firms in referring pro bono EEO cases, cannot recount "a single instance

in which a firm has been hurt economi?

cally, whether through losing existing clients or losing out on new business."

Though perhaps not troubled by the notion of potential issue conflict, many firms nonetheless are cautious about a class action employment discrimination case because of the commitment of time and resources. However, a considerable

number of these cases are resolved

through negotiation or mediated settle? ments achieved relatively quickly. Within the last decade alone, race dis? crimination actions against the FBI, FDIC, DOE, and Amtrak, to name just a

few, have been settled short of trial. The

attorneys who choose to ignore the anx?

iety that comes with class actions have the opportunity to enjoy enormous sat?

isfaction, says Boggs. They are "instru

68

Litigation Fall 2001 ? ? Volume 28 Number

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