Frühlingssinfonie (1982)

Clara Wieck lives in Leipzig with her father, Friedrich Wieck, a piano teacher. Wieck is convinced of his daughter’s talent for playing the piano and does everything he can to make the young girl a success. He relentlessly forces the child prodigy to rehearse and perform in concerts. Attracted by the girl’s success and convinced by her father’s methods as a piano teacher, other young pianists come to study with him. The young pianist and composer Robert Schumann also becomes Wieck’s student. At this point, Clara is eleven and Robert is twenty. Years later, Clara falls in love with Robert, who is talented but still an unsuccessful composer. Father Wieck opposes the relationship and sends his daughter to Dresden for singing lessons in order to separate them. But the young couple do not give up. Robert follows Clara, and they decide to marry. To do so, however, they need her father’s permission. In 1840, they take the matter to a court in Leipzig and obtain permission. This leads to a rift between daughter and father, and between student and teacher.