Editing Clara Schumann (section)

==== Child prodigy ====
From an early age, Clara's father planned her career and life down to the smallest detail. She started receiving basic piano instruction from her mother at the age of four.{{sfn|Klassen|2011}} After her mother moved out, she began taking daily one-hour lessons from her father. They included subjects such as piano, violin, singing, [[music theory|theory]], harmony, composition, and [[counterpoint]]. She then had to practice for two hours every day. Her father followed the methods in his own book, ''Wiecks pianistische Erziehung zum schönen Anschlag und zum singenden Ton'' ("Wieck's Piano Education for a Delicate Touch and a Singing Sound."){{sfn|Klassen|2011}}{{sfn|Litzmann Bio|1913|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=1bo0AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 v. 1 pp. 3–4]}} Her musical studies came largely at the expense of her broader general education, although she still studied religion and languages under her father's control of the family.{{sfn|Reich Grove|2001}}

[[File:Julius Giere - Clara Wieck im Alter von 15 Jahren (Lithographie 1835).jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=Lithograph of a young girl at the piano, with a hand on the keyboard but the face turned back, dressed in a festive gown|Clara Wieck, from an 1835 [[lithograph]]]]

Clara Wieck made her official debut on 28 October 1828 at the [[Gewandhaus]] in Leipzig, at age nine.{{sfn|Klassen|2011}}{{sfn|Borchard|1991|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=kdLlCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 33]}} The same year, she performed at the Leipzig home of Ernst Carus, director of the mental hospital at [[Colditz Castle]]. There, she met another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, [[Robert Schumann]], who was nine years older. Schumann admired Clara's playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to stop studying law, which had never interested him much, and take music lessons with Clara's father. While taking lessons, he rented a room in the Wieck household and stayed about a year.{{sfn|Reich, Susanna|1999}}

From September 1831 to April 1832, Clara toured Paris and other European cities, accompanied by her father.{{sfn|Klassen|2011}} In [[Weimar]], she performed a bravura piece by [[Henri Herz]] for [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]], who presented her with a medal with his portrait and a written note saying: "For the gifted artist Clara Wieck". During that tour, the violinist [[Niccolò Paganini]], who was also in Paris, offered to appear with her.{{sfn|Braunstein|1971}} Her Paris recital was poorly attended because many people had fled the city due to an outbreak of [[cholera]].{{sfn|Braunstein|1971}} The tour marked her transition from a child prodigy to a young woman performer.{{sfn|Klassen|2011}}