Musikschule leipzig clara schumann biography
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Chapter 4 In a Different World: Women in Musical Life
In the late autumn of 1869, a young American named Amy Fay settled in Berlin to forge ahead with her piano studies. The 25-year-old pastor’s daughter from Louisiana, who had previously studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, wished to take lessons from Polish piano virtuoso Carl Tausig. After his arrival in Berlin in 1865, this lärjunge of Liszt set up a so-called Academy of Higher Piano Playing (Akademie des Höheren Klavierspiels), which quickly attracted students from all over the world. Tausig found little pleasure in teaching, however, so Fay had to look around for a new instructor after less than a year. Initially, she took private lessons with Theodor Kullak before managing, in 1873, to convince Franz Liszt of her skills; she spent the summer beneath his tutelage in Weimar. Fay stayed in Germany for a total of five and a half years before returning to the United States in May 1875
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Since 1988, the music school in Baden-Baden has borne the name of “Clara-Schumann-Musikschule [Clara Schumann Music School]”. As inauguration day, 13th September 1988 was chosen, the birthday of Clara Schumann. The certificate about the official naming dated 9th October 1988 includes a reference to the “historic duty and pedagogical incentive to strive for a successful future” of the town’s music school.
Clara Schumann visited Baden-Baden again in the summer of 1862 and acquired a small house in the Lichtental district where she and her seven children would live, mainly during the summer months between 1863 and 1873, because, as Clara Schumann herself remarked on Baden-Baden, “here I would have the beautiful nature and also the artistic communication, as everyone seems to come here”.
The town’s music school, founded in 1982, has indeed satisfied the historic duty and pedagogical incentive inspired by the name of a famous pianist and teacher for more than 25 years. Clara Schuma
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Clara & Robert Schumann in Baden-Baden
The most famous pianist of her century prepared here during the summer her international concert tours for the upcoming season, taught, met with family and international friends and performed in Baden-Baden, the "Capitale d'été" in both salons – e.g. Viardot - and in public concerts. She often gave concerts with her lifelong friend, Johannes Brahms, who from 1865 onwards regularly moved to a summer apartment close by Clara’s house and created or finished major compositions (until 1874). Today's ["Brahms' House"], Maximilianstrasse 85, can be visited.
Baden-Baden, view from conversation house, around 1850