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Clara Schumann's collection of playbills: A historiometric analysis of life-span development, mobility, and repertoire canonization

2008; Elsevier BV; Volume: 37; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.poetic.2008.09.001

1872-7514

Reinhard Kopiez, Andreas Lehmann, Janina Klassen,

Diverse Music Education Insights

Clara Schumann's (1819–1896) important influence on concert life and piano performance throughout the 19th century can still be felt in our times. Virtually all concerts Clara gave between 1828 (at age 9) and 1891 (at age 71) are documented in a historically unique collection of over 1300 printed concert program leaflets (playbills). Combining an historiometric approach with musicological methods, we analyzed those data descriptively and theoretically from the perspective of repertoire canonization. The aim of this study was to document details of Clara's life-time career as a concert pianist, to study her repertoire development in the context of critical life events and personal aesthetic beliefs, and to establish some first comparisons with data from other performers of the time. This study complements existing research on programming and canonization by explaining the cumulative effects of an individual performer's programming decisions. First, the playbills were entered into a database and prepared for computer-assisted analysis. From the 20,000 program entries we extracted those 536 solo piano and chamber music pieces which Clara had performed. Analyses showed that the yearly frequency of concerts reflected her personal circumstances and critical life events. Although Clara performed works by almost 40 composers, the most frequently performed four composers (R. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Chopin) comprised 70% of all performances. Furthermore, although she performed in 160 cities, 50% of her concerts took place in only seven major cities which represented international (London, Leipzig, Vienna) and national (Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt) music centers. Finally, her influential role in the canonization of classical piano music can be explained by biographical circumstances which resulted in particular choices of traditionalist repertoire after Robert Schumann's death (1856). This included decreasing program diversity after 1870 and the avoidance of contemporary composers, such as Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky or Saint-Saens.