Act 1
It all begins with the keys. A wooden box. Hammers. Strings. Seven notes of the scale, from which everything else will come. Clara, daughter of musicians Friedrich and Mariane Wieck. Friedrich is a piano teacher and Clara is his project, the proof of his teaching method. Meanwhile, the marriage is failing, and Mariane is moving away to live with Adolph Bargiel, another musician. She wants Clara to come with her, but Wieck is not ready to see his brilliant daughter fall into the hands of another. Robert Schumann, precocious composer, seeks out Wieck to be his teacher and finds himself at the keyboard with Clara, two prodigious talents side by side. But Clara is still a girl and Robert is a young man and his eye is drawn towards Wieck’s maid, Christel, and his thirst towards the taverns of the town. Clara turns sixteen and premieres her own piano concerto. The man she most wants to hear her play arrives late; yet when he comes, he sees her for the first time as a woman, no longer a girl. But Wieck is not ready to see his brilliant daughter fall into the hands of another. He instructs lawyers and a chaperone and plans concert tours to keep Robert and Clara apart. Torn between her father and her love, Clara finally makes her choice: she will be Robert’s wife.
Act 2
Clara and Robert Schumann, wife and husband, wife and composer, mother and father of many children. Hard to compose when your house is so full. Hard to compose when your head is so full. Hard to live when you can’t compose. Clara can nurse him, but the world and Robert expect him to provide. Clara, impresaria and fixer, seeks a solution: she plans a concert to showcase her husband’s work, to gain him a position that will support his family. They succeed, until Robert starts to lose control of time, of the music, of his mind. Clara Schumann, wife, mother, nurse, starts to run out of ideas. In the darkest hour an angel comes. Johannes Brahms, precocious composer, seeks out Robert to be his mentor. They play together, two prodigious talents side by side. Clara and Robert delight in their new companion, who inspires one and supports the other. Johannes and his music become Robert’s new obsession and he will not rest until the world recognises his genius. He will not rest. He will not rest. He cannot rest until he can seek an escape from the world. He heads to the banks of the Rhine.
Act 3
Robert Schumann is shut away from the world and his doctors will not permit his wife to see him. Clara Schumann, left to support her family alone, seeks help, from their friend Joseph Joachim. And from Johannes. Clara and Johannes, their shared love for Robert holds them apart. They want to be with each other, they should not be with each other – are they with each other? When Robert dies, there is no obstacle to Clara and Johannes being together apart from themselves. But Clara Schumann, Wieck’s prodigy, stellar pianist, mother, nurse, impresia, muse and Robert Schumann’s widow is more than Johannes can compass. Johannes makes his choice: he moves away to live with his music. And Clara continues to play. And to play. And to play.