Franz Liszt and Clara Wieck (known as Clara Schumann after her marriage) were widely acknowledged to be two of the greatest pianists of their generation.

Colorised images of Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt © Creedelback/Reddit

Franz Liszt was born in 1811, and Clara Wieck was born in 1819. Both made splashes as child prodigies, but they only crossed paths for the first time in the spring of 1838, when Franz was twenty-six and Clara eighteen.

Their first meeting happened in Vienna in April. No less an authority than Chopin himself had told Liszt about Clara’s gifts, so Liszt was excited to meet his young colleague.

They spent ten days getting to know each other in Vienna. They played for each other and attended each other’s performances, and both came away deeply impressed with each other.

What Franz Liszt Thought About Clara Wieck Schumann

In Vienna, both Franz and Clara wrote to their significant others about their burgeoning friendship.

At the time, Liszt’s partner was author Countess Marie d’Agoult. Due in part to his constant travel, his relationship with her was fracturing, but he continued to write openly and honestly to her about musical matters.

He wrote:

Just one word about Clara Wieck – distintissimo [most distinguished] – (but not a man, of course).

We are living in the same hotel, Zur Stadt Frankfurt, and after dinner we make as much music as possible.

She is a very simple person, cultivated…totally absorbed in her art but with nobility and without childishness. She was astounded when she heard me play.

Her compositions are really very remarkable, especially for a woman. There is a hundred times more ingenuity and true sentiment in them than in all the fantasies, past and present, of Thalberg.

It is interesting to note that although he was greatly impressed by Wieck, Liszt couldn’t help but think of her as a woman artist, not an artist, period.

Clara Wieck-Schumann: Variations de concert, Op. 8

What Clara Wieck Thought About Franz Liszt

Andreas Staub: Clara Wieck, 1839

Meanwhile, Wieck wrote to her fiancé, composer Robert Schumann:

He is an artist whom one must hear and see for oneself. I am very sorry that you have not made his acquaintance, for you would get on very well together, as he likes you very much.

After she played Schumann’s work Carnaval for him, Liszt apparently said, “What a mind! That is one of the greatest works I know.”

Of course, that pleased Clara to no end: she drew deep satisfaction from being the inspiration for and chief interpreter of Schumann’s works.

Schumann: Carnaval, op. 9

What Friedrich Wieck Thought About Franz Liszt

Friedrich Wieck

At this time, Clara and her father kept a joint diary. In it was written:

We heard Liszt. He cannot be compared to any other player – he is absolutely unique. He arouses fear and astonishment, and yet is a very kind artist.

His appearance at the piano is indescribable – he is an original – totally involved with the piano…

His passion knows no bounds; he often injures one’s sense of beauty by tearing the melodies apart and using the pedal too much so that his compositions must become even more incomprehensible, if not to the connoisseur, then certainly to the layman.

He has a great soul; one may say of him, “His art is his life.”

Clara’s father and teacher Friedrich held reservations about Liszt. On April 18, 1838, he wrote:

It was the most remarkable concert of our life – and will not be without influence on Clara, but the old schoolmaster is worried about her getting used to his bad habits and mannerism.

Such “bad habits and mannerisms” included striding onstage and dramatically removing and throwing his handkerchief and gloves on the boards, then playing so aggressively that he’d break multiple strings.

Did Their Personalities Clash?

Obviously, there were temperamental differences between the two artists.

Liszt constantly flirted with women, especially worldly and aristocratic ones. Although he wasn’t married to Countess d’Agoult, he did have two children by her, and would have a third the following year.

Clara Wieck, on the other hand, felt pressure to conform to strict nineteenth-century societal standards and ideals for women, which included chastity until marriage.

Despite those temperamental differences, it was clear that Clara Wieck had made a major impression. Liszt dedicated his fiercely difficult Paganini Etudes to Clara, publishing the first edition in 1838.

Franz Liszt: S.141, Grandes études de Paganini

Meeting Again in Leipzig

Franz Liszt in 1870

In 1841, they met again. Much had transpired over the previous few years.

Liszt’s relationship with d’Agoult was now on even shakier ground (she accused him of cheating on her during his travels).

Meanwhile, Clara Wieck had become Clara Schumann after her marriage to Robert in September 1840. She’d just given birth to her eldest child, Marie, in September.

A few months later, in December, the two virtuosos gave a big joint concert in Leipzig. They programmed Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 and the Overture, Scherzo, and Finale op. 52.

Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 4

The big draw, however, was Clara and Liszt performing a duo arrangement of Liszt’s Hexaméron. Liszt presented her with a bouquet onstage, a gallant gesture that the audience ate up.

Franz Liszt: Hexaméron arranged for two pianos

Unfortunately, the star power and theatrics at the piano meant that not much attention was paid to Robert’s works, which irritated him.

Clara Schumann’s Secret Opinions of Liszt

The Schumanns’ warmth toward Liszt started fading fast.

In December 1841, Clara wrote in the couple’s shared marriage diary about Liszt’s compositions:

A chaos of the worst dissonances with an endless murmuring in the deepest bass and the highest treble at the same time, boring introductions, etc. I could almost hate him as a composer. As a performer, however, his concert on the 13th absolutely astounded me.

She continued in an exasperated tone when describing his obsession with female admiration:

Of Liszt there was not much to be seen, since two women had attached themselves to him. I am convinced that the reason Liszt displays such arrogance at times is really the fault of the women, because they pay court to him everywhere in a way that is intolerable to me and that I also find highly improper. I venerate him too, but even veneration must have a limit.

And about his character:

Liszt came to the soiree late, as always. He seems to enjoy making people wait for him, which is something I don’t like. He strikes me as a spoiled child, good-natured, tyrannical, amiable, arrogant, noble, and generous, often hard on others – a strange mix of characters. Yet we have become very fond of him and he has always treated us in the friendliest way.

Drifting Further Apart

Robert and Clara Schumann

Despite her reservations about him, Liszt and the Schumanns continued visiting each other through the 1840s and into the early 1850s, although not every meeting went well. (For instance, in 1848, Liszt showed up two hours late for dinner, and Robert quarreled with him.)

Liszt appears to have thought more highly of the Schumanns than they thought of him. He was extremely complimentary of Clara’s abilities and championed Robert’s piano works.

In 1854, Liszt dedicated his Sonata in B Minor to Robert Schumann. Unfortunately, this innovative work was received poorly.

On May 25, 1854, Clara wrote in her diary that the sonata was “merely a blind noise – no healthy ideas anymore, everything confused, one cannot find one clear harmonic progression – and yet I must now thank him for it. It is really too awful.”

Yuja Wang Plays Liszt: Sonata B minor

The Final Break

As she got older, Clara went so far as to begin linking Liszt’s music and music-making with satanic imagery.

In autumn 1851, when he played in Düsseldorf, she wrote:

He played, as always, with a truly demonic bravura and possessed the piano really like a devil (I cannot express it in any other way)…but oh, his compositions, that was really dreadful!

In 1852, in Leipzig, after a concert she and Liszt played together, she wrote:

Liszt at his piano…no longer music, but like demonic boozing and bluster.

After he invited her to perform in Weimar in 1854, she attended a performance during which he played Romeo and Juliet by Berlioz in an eight-hand piano arrangement. She wrote of that performance:

His playing sounded like truly hellish, devilish music.

At the time, she was going through hell herself. Robert had attempted suicide in February 1854 by jumping into the Rhine. He agreed to seek inpatient treatment for his mental health issues and moved to an asylum. Clara was put in the nightmarish position of having to support him and their seven surviving children.

Once Robert Schumann died in the summer of 1856, Clara and Franz continued to grow further apart.

With the ascent of Johannes Brahms, who the Schumanns met in the fall of 1853, the battle lines in the so-called War of the Romantics were being drawn.

When it came to debating the aesthetics of new music, and the direction music should go in, Clara Schumann and Franz Liszt found themselves on opposite sides of the artistic battlefield.

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