Clara Wieck(-Schumann) and Henri Herz:
An Unexpected Pairing, or A Lost History?

Two hundred years ago, a set of Bravura Variations on a theme from Étienne Méhul’s ‘Joseph in Egypt’ was premiered by Henri Herz: an Austrian-born, French-naturalised virtuoso. It graced concert stages and salons across Europe; the publishing industry fuelled its immense popularity, facilitating its ubiquity in domestic settings alike.

Clara Wieck was only six years old when this work dominated the musical world. While this unique sub-genre and one of its most important exponents remain largely unknown to the twenty-first century musician, it embodied a style and aesthetic that flourished in the postclassical milieu — that which distinctly characterised Wieck’s formative years. Crucially, it became central to her performing repertory. Having premiered this set of Bravura Variations in 1831, aged twelve, she performed it another forty times over the decade — making it the work that received the highest number of performances during her career as Clara Wieck. 

Scholarly and performative interest in the life and works of Clara Wieck-Schumann has centred on her post-marriage identity as Clara Schumann. This lecture invites us into Wieck’s world, and indeed the age of postclassical pianism, through the integration of archival research with the study of instruments, aesthetics, culture, and musical analysis. Beyond the discovery and recovery of a vast trove of historically prominent bravura piano works, we are invited to question and confront the values we have come to inherit and embody in the twenty-first century — and how musical taste has been shaped in the interceding two centuries. 

© Cheryl Tan, 2025