Clara, My Love tells the story of Clara and Robert Schumann – an epic tale of love, loss, and the power of to music to transcend.

Clara Wieck was born in 1819 to two musical parents: a piano-teaching father and singer mother. Her parents divorced when she was four. Laws of early nineteenth century Germany dictated that divorce left the ex-wife with no property and no claim to the children of the marriage. Clara and her brothers were taken from their mother, Mariane, and raised entirely by their father, Friedrich. Under his staunch tutelage, Clara became one of the most sought-after concert pianists in Germany and Europe by the time she was an adolescent.

Robert Schumann was raised by a literary family, but felt an undeniable pull into the career of music despite his parents’ wishes that he become a lawyer. His incredible natural talent for composition and musical sensitivity won him a spot as a student in the studio of Friedrich Wieck, as well as the friendship of young Clara.

As Clara grew into young womanhood, their friendship became much more. Knowing that her father would not approve, they met in secret and exchanged letters for several years while Clara toured Europe as a pianist and Robert worked to establish his career as a composer and literary critic.

When Friedrich learned about their love affair, he did everything in his power to keep them apart including keeping Clara constantly out of the country on concert tours and slandering Robert’s reputation. Finally, after a court ruling to give Clara the freedom to marry without her father’s permission, they wed the day before her 21^st birthday in 1840.

Happily ever after, however, was not in the cards for the Schumanns. Amidst tring to raise a large family, nurture a marriage, and maintain two musical careers, mental illness began to claim Robert’s health bit by bit.