The 39-year-old pianist Alexandra Dariescu has been concertizing since her debut, at age nine in her native Romania. She has dozens upon dozens of concertos at her fingertips. Her repertory is richly laced with commissions and long-neglected treasures. Yet on the cusp of the pandemic, she discovered a new favorite with quite some lore behind it.
We’re talking the Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 7, by the 16-year-old prodigy Clara Wieck. Already a seasoned pro of international renown, Wieck introduced it on November 9, 1835, with the top-flight Gewandhaus Orchestra of her native Leipzig, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn, who was 10 years Clara’s senior and himself one of the supreme prodigies in the history of music.
As confirmed by Dariescu’s recent recording on the Signum label with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of the Chinese-born New Zealander Tianyi Lu, the piece makes quite a statement. The opening Allegro maestoso is shoulders-back, ceremonial but festive, leading to a dreamy romance for the keyboard in communion with a single cello. And to conclude, there’s a polonaise fit to crown a coronation ball. Since 2018, Dariescu has toured her fresh, authoritative reading of Clara’s concerto to a dozen cities on three continents, from Melbourne to Bucharest to St. Petersburg, Florida. Frequently, the performances mark a local premiere for Clara, a local debut for Dariescu, or both, as will be the case at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra on January 9.
Going on 200 years since the first performance, Mendelssohn needs no introduction. But what ever happened to Clara? In 1840, she married Robert Schumann, who needs no introduction, either. The union lasted 16 years and produced eight children, but Robert fell prey to mental disease (likely bipolar disorder) and died wretchedly at age 46. Clara lived for another 40 years.
No one’s idea of a Hausfrau, she kept her brood afloat by touring, teaching, and editing. Always, Robert’s rhapsodic, often wayward repertoire remained a pillar of her own. Thanks to Clara’s advocacy, his Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 54—written 10 years later than hers, in the same key—holds its own with Tchaikovsky’s First, in B-flat Minor, op. 23, and Chopin’s First, in E Minor, op. 11, as one of the supreme Romantic exemplars of the genre. And for the record: it was Clara’s playing at a private soirée when she was nine and Robert was twice her age that induced him to toss his law books in favor of musical studies with Clara’s father.
“I’ve done a bit of digging,” Dariescu said recently from her home in London, where she is a professor at the blue-ribbon Guildhall School of Music & Drama, “and I got in touch with a great-great-great-granddaughter of the Schumanns’, who lives in the States. ‘Without Clara,’ she said, ‘we wouldn’t have Robert—because Clara was his greatest advocate. She was performing everywhere when no one knew who he was. Without her, his music wouldn’t have seen the light of day.’”
Curiously enough, though Dariescu learned Robert’s piano concerto years before she came to know Clara’s, she never took it into her active repertoire. Is there a particularly feminine appeal in this or other scores by women composers she plays?
“No,” Dariescu says, “I have to say no. Music transcends anybody. There’s nothing that says, ‘Oh, this is female, this is male.’ Clara herself said that no woman before had ever written music for a living. Might she be the first one ever? She didn’t think she possessed the skills. Yet the concerto is just incredible music, full of confidence. I will say that it’s also one of the most difficult concertos for me to play—because of the size of Clara’s hands! She had huge hands, which I don’t.”
Alexandra Dariescu will perform Clara Wieck’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, opus 7, at the Stockholm Concert Hall on January 9
Matthew Gurewitsch writes about opera and classical music for AIR MAIL. He lives in Hawaii
