Life, Loves of Composer Clara Schumann Make ‘a Good Story’ : Music: Pianist Rebecca Rollins will present tribute to the woman who was married to Robert Schumann, had ‘close friendship’ with Johannes Brahms.

The rumors about Clara Schumann--that’s Robert’s wife--and Johannes Brahms have been flying for at least a century. Even the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which many feel to be the final word on all matters musical, falls just short of providing a definitive statement:

Brahms’ “veneration for Clara Schumann was undoubtedly a deep emotion (that) was reciprocated, to judge by her jealousy of Elisabeth von Herzogenberg . . . many years later. Brahms’ tempestuous love for (Schumann), a woman 14 years older than him, mellowed with the years into a calmer and eventually cooler friendship that Brahms respected most chivalrously.”

But surely “A Tribute to the Life and Music of Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896),” a recital and slide talk by pianist Rebecca Rollins tonight at Saddleback College’s McKinney Theatre, will settle the question once and for all?

“From the evidence I’ve read, it was a close friendship and close musical collaboration,” said Rollins, professor of music at Saddleback. “Recent biographers basically believe that when Robert was institutionalized (for insanity), it would have been totally out of character for Clara to become involved in any more than a platonic relationship with anybody, particularly Brahms.

“But I don’t think anything’s ruled out here. They did destroy their letters to each other. They took vacations together. Brahms was known to take care of the children while Clara was touring from time to time--he baby-sat, basically. Clara lived about 43 years after Robert. Brahms’ last songs, ‘Four Serious Songs,’ were written in 1896 as Clara was dying, and intended as a memorial to Clara. He died 11 months later.

“It’s a good story.”

Solo works on the program will include Clara Schumann’s “Soiree Musicales,” Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Romance in G Minor and Scherzo in C Minor. Her Trio in G Minor will be played by the Trio Sirena--violinist Kay Pech, cellist Manon Robertshaw Trent and Rollins.

Rollins teaches piano and music history at Saddleback; in the spring she will offer a course on “Music, Women and Society” that examines, she said, “whether anything in music has anything to do with gender.”

Her conclusion is that there are connections between music and society’s views of male and female roles.

“One simple example is the theoretical terminology used to describe musical cadences--masculine and feminine endings,” Rollins said. “The masculine ends on the strong beat, feminine on the weak beat. Some people still use that terminology.

“Another is the whole notion of sonata form. The first theme is masculine, the second feminine, the two battle it out and the masculine theme wins in the end. In the recapitulation, the feminine theme is in the same key as the masculine theme.

“It’s important to recognize the gender implications in that kind of model. While it’s generally accepted that there’s always this battling between two themes in music, perhaps there are other models we can look to.”

*

For her tribute, Rollins will focus on several aspects of Clara Schumann’s life. She will begin with Schumann’s early years as a child prodigy and on her relationship with her father, her only piano teacher. Rollins characterized him as a very stern and controlling person: “He even wrote her diary entries for her!”

She’ll continue with Schumann’s “rocky and difficult romance” and marriage with Robert, and an unprecedented concert career during which she played 1,300 public programs.

“No other pianist, male or female, had maintained a concert career for that span of time, 60 years,” Rollins noted. “To do that, to be married to Robert Schumann--not the most mentally stable person in the world--to have eight children and to continue to perform, it all shows a great deal of strength.”

Though Chopin and Liszt were among those who thought highly of Clara Schumann’s compositions, several elements conspired to stunt her efforts in that area.

According to Rollins, all of her works were written prior to Robert’s death in 1853, and most had been written as birthday or Christmas presents to him. Upon his death, she not only lost one of her main reasons for composing but had to pursue a concert career full time to support her family.

But there was another reason, one that seems to fit right in with Rollins’ upcoming course.

“Musical talent in a woman at that time was primarily considered an asset in the marriage market,” Rollins explained. (Eminently qualified as she was on that front, however, Schumann never remarried.) “It was certainly more acceptable to be a performer than a composer. And Clara wasn’t aware of earlier women composers, because that history wasn’t written until the last 10 years.”

Indeed, though Clara Schumann once wrote, “There is nothing greater than the joy of composing,” by the time she was 20 she had absorbed the attitudes of the society around her: “I once thought that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose--not one has been able to do it, and why should I expect to?”

* Pianist Rebecca Rollins presents “A Tribute to the Life and Music of Clara Wieck Schumann” tonight at 8 at the McKinney Theatre, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Violinist Kay Pech and cellist Manon Robertshaw Trent will also perform. $3 to $5. (714) 582-4656.