The Bench

Dear friends of piano music,

on this bench one could well imagine a couple in love. The fact that none can be seen may be due to the fact that, as in our piano piece today, it is a secret, unfulfilled love. The three stars stand for Clara Wieck, later Clara Schumann, with whom the young composer fell in love and whom he later married despite her father's bitter resistance.

What actually comes after the happy ending? We can imagine the everyday relationship with its good and bad days, but for Clara, mother of seven children, covering a large part of the household income with concerts, fulfilling this love was anything but easy. This little piano piece tells of enthusiastic longing, of future happy togetherness. It doesn't know anything about illness, "madness", early death.

Kind regards from Heidelberg Kerstin