Musical Times Publications Ltd.

Some Reminiscences of My Music Studies with Clara Schumann

Author(s): Marie Fromm
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 73, No. 1073 (Jul. 1, 1932), pp. 615-616
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/918290
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 THE MUSICAL TIMES-JULY
SOME REMINISCENCES OF MY MUSIC
STUDIES WITH CLARA SCHUMANN
BY MARIE FROMM
Imagination conjures up the life of a student
abroad as a whirlwind of delightful activities-
endless playing or singing, concert after concert to
be heard for next to nothing, operas in plenty, a
charming and more or less satisfied teacher, work
whenever one feels inclined (very important, this),
cosy tea-parties in one's bed-sitting room with
other girls to share the fun-in short, a life of
pleasurable excitement and adventure. Alas for
the stern realities ! Thus I sighed when, after
weeks of delirious anticipation and hope, I was
at last ushered into the august presence of our
Conservatorium Director, Joachim Raff, and a
little later into that of Clara Schumann herself.
Behold the terrified little flapper, hardly fifteen
years old, trembling before the greatest pianist of
the day, making her first real step in musical
training with the 'Moonlight' Sonata! I had
thought this was easy enough to play, but a month
later I was still struggling with the first movement,
heartily wishing I were dead. Everything was
wrong, the arms stiff, the finger articulation totally
inadequate, no knowledge of the structure of the
muscles or of their uses, and as for singing tone-
I twisted my pigtails together in an agony of puzzle-
ment. We were told not to practise more than
four hours a day. At the same time things were
expected of us that a daily six hours could barely
accomplish.
To begin with we had to practise scales for an
hour, thinking hard and listening to the tone still
harder-if that were possible. After that came
studies, then part of a concerto or sonata, or a big
piece or two. We had two lessons a week, with
three other pupils in the room in order that we
might profit by each others' struggles; the
audience would also include the pupils of Madame
Schumann's two daughters.
Nowadays there is a widespread idea that the
training given by Clara Schumann was of a type
that is now ' old-fashioned ': that the arms were
held stiffly, and other misrepresentations of the
same kind.
People who condemn Clara Schumann's school
of playing are very often those who were with her
for only a short time, with the result that their
ideas were only half developed, or wrongly applied.
Yet they call themselves Schumann pupils. I
myself have met a 'Schumann pupil' who had
had only one lesson ! Another lady ascribed a
persistent cramp in the arm to the Schumann
method. How long was she with Madame
Schumann ? Was she ever really a pupil of
Clara's, or did she have lessons from one of her
daughters, or from another pupil ? Miss Fanny
Davies, who was studying with Madame Schumann
at the same time as myself, is a very good example
of easy muscular movement and finely developed
finger technique. Leschetizky was a fine teacher;
so was Liszt (when he took the trouble). L. Deppe
and Caland were the last exponents of this per-
fectly simple and natural way of playing. For
simple and natural it is, as is proved by the fact
that all great concert pianists of to-day play in
this way, whether they themselves realise it or not.
(I was told that Backhaus, on being asked how he
did it, replied that he didn't know.)
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1 1932 615
It took me a long time to realise all that Madame
Schumann tried to convey. Long I struggled to
make my fingers obedient in the scales and runs,
and many tears I shed over the touch and tone-
quality, for the old lady (she was very old when I
was with her) was an iron task-master, and there
was much that she said that I did not grasp at the
time, but which became clearer and clearer as the
years went by. As a matter of fact, the very
foundation of her training was that the arm must
be absolutely loose, not a single muscle in upper or
lower arm or wrist strained or forced, the fingers
kept loose in the knuckle-joints, all power and
quality coming from the back muscles. It is very
certain that in any case in which the training has
proved a failure, the fault was not in the method
but in its application.
Pianoforte playing is the study of a lifetime, a
slow and infinitely careful process. It may take
months to understand and apply one single point,
such as the working of the muscles of the back
in conjunction with the arm and fingers. To
bring the sinews under delicate control and to
learn to be conscious of the nerves of the finger
tips is a long and difficult process; and then the
fingers would be useless if the back did not supply
the necessary support and add its quota to the
quality of tone.
It was a deeply interesting study, and we often
had our moments of sheer pleasure and delight.
All the great artists visited Madame Schumann's
house, and it was delightful to hear her play
sonatas with Joachim, or duets with Brahms (who
was a shockingly bad pianist himself). I remember
a lot of us spending a Sunday afternoon at her
house, hearing Clara Schumann and Brahms play
the 'Hungarian Dances.' He took the bass,
pounding away somewhere near the right notes,
while she, of course, was perfect. We sat in
respectful silence, and after No. 6 or 7, he adjusted
his eyeglass and said cheerfully: 'Well, Clara,
shall we inflict a few more on the little girls ?'
Brahms, with his noble face and long, flowing white
beard, seemed like a hoary patriarch. It was
amusing to watch him conducting Haydn's ' Toy '
Symphony, in which we girls took various parts
with Madame Schumann and her daughter at the
pianoforte. He was as simple as a child, and played
games with us. Very different was Hans von
Billow, who visited Frankfurt with the Duke of
Meiningen's magnificent orchestra, which he con-
ducted. He was unbearably vain, and looked
like a Mephistopheles-a giant in stature as in art.
Beautiful were the evenings when Raimund von
Zur-Miihlen sang Schumann's songs. He was at
that time the greatest Lieder singer in Germany
next to Stockhausen. These were times of pure
delight, and I am grateful now to the great artist
who gave them to us-grateful both for these
privileges and for the severe training of which they
were an adornment.
The examinations of the pupils who competed
for the five scholarships given by the Conserva-
torium were terrible ordeals. All the teachers,
the Board of Directors, and five hundred pupils
were assembled in the big concert hall, and one's
teacher handed to the Director (after Raff's death
Prof. Bernhard Schalz) a list of the studies and
pieces the pupil had been learning during the year.
These had to be played as nearly perfectly as
possible, and of course by heart, and the slightest
616 THE MUSICAL TIMES-JULY 1 1932

hesitation instantly evoked an angry growl from
the Director.
And so through the five years of alternate
struggles and joys until Madame Schumann sent
me to England to start my professional career at
the ' Monday Pops.'
fiusic in the foreign press
THE PLIGHT OF CANADIAN MUSIC
From a lecture by M. Eugene Lapierre, the
Director of the Montreal Conservatoire Nationale
de Musique (L'Action Musicale, April 23), the
following points may be quoted:
'Canadian music has not yet acquired a
really distinctive, original character. Its pro-
gress is very much hampered by unfavourable
conditions. For instance, in the whole province
of Quebec, there are no single music-printing
plant, no publishers, no public interest in
Canadian composers. A number of promising
composers of the 19th century worked with the
tragic knowledge that their music was doomed
to remain unpublished as well as ignored.
Nowadays, men such as Claude Champagne,
MacMillan, James Callihou, Rodolphe Mathieu,
G. E. Tanguay, Robert Talbot, Hector Gratton,
Conrad Bernier, are worthy of encouragement.
Musical education stands in need of organi-
zation. There is a surfeit of teachers, not all
of them competent. Many students, after a few
months' training, start offering to teach children,
and find pupils, to whom they often do incal-
culable harm. The teaching of solfeggio should
be made compulsory in schools. Proper organi-
zation would do away with the plague of
individualism. At present, any private insti-
tution is entitled to deliver certificates and
diplomas, and examinations are often conducted
in a most haphazard way.'
STRAVINSKY
In the Anbruch (April-May), H. H. Stucken-
schmidt defines Stravinsky as follows:
'Consistency is the safeguard of the weak.
It is only he who is not sure of himself that
clings to himself. Great men need do nothing
of the kind. Stravinsky might have been born
a caricaturist or a philosopher, an inventor or a
juggler. He is so fascinating a composer
because there is in his constitution so little of
the usual constitution of the musician. Many
irreconcilable elements are reconciled in him:
elegance and love of the rustic; melancholy
and a sense of caricature; cynicism and
piety; boisterousness and icy austerity; world- In
citizenship and strong national roots. In the expresses his doubts as to the 'objectivity' of
abstract he would be utterly inconceivable, yet Ravel's music:
here he is, enigmatic, but none the less an
embodiment of the modern intellect. The nothing of the composer's soul. To a group of
intelligentsia of to-day is in a strange position: young pianists who asked him to reveal the
it is not interested in works of art exploiting
traditional "beauty." On the other hand,
interest in the new, "ugly" methods is still
precarious. Stravinsky's supreme merit is that
he has proved capable of turning this and other
dilemmas of modern aesthetics to good account.
In his evolution he has proceeded not gradually,
but by leaps and bounds, and in a bewildering
diversity of directions. He is wise enough not
to overestimate music. Wagner's ideal was to
redeem all arts, and indeed the whole world,
through music. Stravinsky has rid music of
this burden, and assigned to it lighter, more
suitable tasks.'
WHAT PUBLISHERS' CATALOGUES TELL US
In the same issue Hans Heinsheimer writes:
'Publishers' catalogues show that many com-
posers have given up writing for the theatre-
Hindemith, Toch, Stravinsky, among others.
It is characteristic that during the present
season a big firm such as Schott's, contrary to
its usual practice, should have published no
single opera, and Fiirstner's one only (Pfitzner's
" Herz "). New intermediate, or mixed forms,
such as school operas, and " Lehrstiicke" for use
in the concert-hall, vocal and instrumental
pieces suitable for performance by laymen, are
in greater favour. Hindemith and his groups
are not turning out any more of them at present,
but many young composers such as E. L. von
Knorr and Fritz Jode have stepped into the
breach. A few years ago it seemed certain that
new types of music, entirely distinctfrom the types
used in concert-halls, would come into being for
broadcasting purposes. Nowadays, on the con-
trary, the differences between " radio-sonority "
and " concert-sonority" have practically van-
ished. A remarkable fact is that no chamber
music to speak of is appearing in German-
speaking countries. Even composers who have
publishers ready to accept all that comes from
their pen are not writing any. The position in
France is " strange, incomprehensible." There,
judging from the catalogues of eight big firms,
no change has taken place; chamber music of
all kinds, pianoforte pieces with titles and
themes redolent of the 19th century, sym-
phonies and orchestral suites, are still being
published. What a difference between mid-
European strife and unrest and the quiet,
settled condition of French music ! Conditions
in Russia are equally amazing. There again,
pianoforte pieces with descriptive titles, sonatas,
nocturnes, duets, chamber and orchestral music
in traditional form continue to be published in
plenty, and these are performed abroad fairly
often. For home consumption, however, a
number of works embodying the political and
spiritual outlook of the Soviet Union are
appearing.'
The writer does not deal with conditions in any
other country-which no doubt he would find
' equally amazing.'
RAVEL RECONSIDERED
Le Menestrel (May 27) Paul Landormy
' Ravel has asserted that music should reveal
intentions underlying certain of his pieces, he
declared: "I wish my music to be, not 'inter-
preted,' but just 'played."' But when he
compares himself to a watchmaker carefully
regulating the works of a watch, he is under a
delusion. Art, after all, aims at appealing to
the imagination, and how could a composer
judge the imaginative appeal of his music if his
own imagination is not active ? Despite his
belief in impassibility, Ravel has not hesitated,

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