For Love of You

"My Clara, what would I not do for love of you?" (Robert Schumann to Clara Wieck, 1838) FOR LOVE OF YOU is a tribute to Clara Wieck-Schumann, pianist and composer, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of her birth (9/13/1819). Continuing the celebration of trailblazing women in music that began with her 2019 chart-topping release HOLES IN THE SKY, Lara Downes remembers the early inspiration she found in Clara Schumann's life and work. In Downes' words: ''I'm the first of three sisters, and I grew up in a house full of girls and women. My sisters and I made music together, put on plays, shared our clothes and secrets, and navigated together the unpredictable waters of our inconstant childhood. We were a pack. The world of women has always been my home. But the world of my music - of my piano teachers and their teachers, the Great Pianists and Great Composers – was a world of male lineage and legacy. Except for Clara Schumann. When I read about her early life - such a serious, dark-eyed little girl - I found something of myself. I played her music as soon as I could get my hands around it. As I grew up, the themes of her life resonated in my own: a struggle for independence; a defiant romance, the work/family conflicts of the artist's life... As my life unfolds, as a woman, a musician, a mother - I wonder at her accomplishments, her choices, her joys and her heartaches.'' The solo piano works on this recording date from the last three tumultuous and decisive years of Clara and Robert's courtship, before their marriage in 1840. These imaginative and emotionally profound pieces - Robert's Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 and Clara's Romances, Op. 11 - illustrate the passion and creative synergies that brought two great artists together, despite obstacles and struggles, into a union that produced some of the greatest works of the Romantic era. Robert's Piano Concerto was written at Clara's incessant urging and under her guidance, intended as a vehicle for her pianistic brilliance. Downes performs the concerto here in tribute to the remarkable woman who coaxed this music into existence and brought it to life under her hands - a lasting testament to Robert's boundless love for his Clara.