Friedrich Wieck

Johann Gottlob Friedrich Wieck (18 August 1785 – 6 October 1873) was a noted German piano teacher, voice teacher, owner of a piano store, and author of essays and music reviews. He is remembered as the teacher of his daughter, Clara, a child prodigy who was undertaking international concert tours by age eleven and who later married her father's pupil Robert Schumann, in defiance of her father's extreme objections. As Clara Schumann, she became one of the most famous pianists of her time. Another of Wieck's daughters, Marie Wieck, also had a career in music, although not nearly so illustrious as Clara's. Other pupils included Hans von Bülow.

Life

Wieck was born in Pretzsch, not far from Leipzig, in 1785, the son of a not very successful merchant. Although the family was not musical, Wieck was deeply interested in music and attended the Thomas-Schule in Leipzig in 1798; however, because of illness, his stay lasted only six weeks and he was forced to return home. In 1800 he attended the Torgau gymnasium, where he received his only formal training in piano, six hours of lessons from Johann Peter Milchmeyer. He had little exposure to the wider world of music and he later developed his pedagogical theories by reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.

He studied theology at the University of Wittenberg in preparation for the ministry, matriculating in 1803, and, having preached the obligatory trial sermon in Dresden, he left theology. The following nine years he worked as a private tutor to various wealthy families in Thuringia. He became a friend of a music teacher, Adolph Bargiel, at his first position with a Baron von Seckendorff in Querfurth, and in 1815 he composed a group of songs which he sent to Carl Maria von Weber. The songs were published and reviewed in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. Spurred on by a favorable comment (also including harsh criticism) from Weber, he left his position as a tutor and established himself in Leipzig as a piano teacher and in the business of renting and selling pianos and other musical instruments and keeping a music lending library, which Richard Wagner was known to use.