The introduction of television and video technology have had a profound impact on popular music and the music industry. This chapter looks at the relationship between popular music and television and charts the development of rock and pop on both British and American television from the 1950s onwards. In Britain, television emerged from within the BBC and its public service monopoly of radio broadcasting, and was subject to policies and cultural attitudes which had prevailed within that context. Like Hollywood, American television's response to rock'n'roll and to the evident growth of the teenage market was often clothed in the discourse of controversy which characterized debate about young people and their lifestyle. The growing convergence between the record industry and television, the place of television in youth culture and the power of televisual images to determine the meanings of popular music, are examined through consideration of a number of specific programmes.

By looking at the historical development of the relationship between popular music and moving image culture, this book aims to examine some important developments in the ways in which popular music has been mediated commercially, ideologically and aesthetically through the screen media throughout the twentieth century. It undertakes specific analysis of individual texts, examines their ideological determinants and effects, and emphasises the importance of economics – of business and commerce – in both their production and consumption. The book points to the crucial importance of technology in shaping and determining film, television and music video as both commodity and cultural form, and examines the pleasures which audiences have experienced. It examines the suggestion that what most characterizes the relationship between popular music and the screen media from Hollywood musical to music video is a strong sense of continuity.

This chapter looks briefly at some of the earliest developments in the relationship between recorded music and the screen, suggesting reasons as to why available technologies failed to develop into fully social technologies. An overview of some of the major subsequent developments offers a rationale for the importance of studying popular music and moving image culture. Early cinema developed within a complex commercial, technological and ideological context, a context which also witnessed the development, at around the same time, of recorded music. Recorded music widened the availability of a range of music and singers to a mass audience, consumed in the privacy of their own homes. In spite of clear evidence that the relationship between popular music and the screen media is a long-standing dynamic one, the emergence of music video in the early and mid-1980s leads many to argue that it represented a distinct cultural form, epitomizing postmodern culture.

This chapter surveys the awards and professional affiliations that Clara Schumann received during her career and considers the significance of these recognitions for Clara’s reputation. The honours Clara earned across her career reinforced her stature as one of nineteenth-century Europe’s most famous and influential musicians, as well as one of its most prominent pedagogues. To illuminate her multifaceted career, the chapter spotlights recognitions chronologically in four pivotal locations, from her anointment as a Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuosa in Vienna to Honorary Member of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Society (among others). She also became an esteemed teacher in England and Frankfurt. In examining such honours, this chapter situates Clara’s reputation within nineteenth-century Europe’s cultural industries and its institutions while shedding light on some of their mechanisms and tendencies.

This chapter surveys recordings of the Schumanns’ music released since their bicentenaries (Clara’s in 2019, Robert’s in 2010) vis-à-vis trends in their reception history. The albums discussed represent a cross-section of styles and approaches, with several performers being long-standing champions of Clara’s music. Their strategies range from reappraising the relationship between Clara’s and Robert’s creativity, to reviving the ethos of nineteenth-century practices, namely mixed-genre programmes, and reimagining their music through improvisations, transcriptions, and contemporary commissions. Collectively, they recapture something of the Schumanns’ own context while offering varied ways of programming their music in the twenty-first century.

The most immediate and tangible musical influence that can be attributed to Robert and Clara Schumann is that which flowed between themselves, in terms of published compositions (Op. 37/Op. 12), compositional critique, and performance. Next in significance is Brahms, whose relationship with Clara continued for four decades after Robert’s death. Robert’s Piano Quintet, Op. 44, emerges as particularly influential, in terms both of its scoring and employment of ‘cyclic’ thematic devices: these are pursued in later works by Saint-Saens and de Castillon, as well as in d’Indy’s composition treatise. The French reception of Robert’s Lieder is considered, as is the broader question of how and whether ‘influence’ may be reliably discerned in given contexts. Finally, and ironically, one must acknowledge the negative influence of Clara on her husband’s legacy as reflected in her suppression of late works such as the Violin Concerto.

Robert and Clara Schumann’s life and work converged at the piano. They witnessed and influenced the enormous evolution of piano manufacturing in their various roles as composer, music critic, virtuoso, and teacher. Their creative work demonstrates how advances in instrument-making are a result of craftsmanship coupled with artistic demands. What can modern pianists and listeners learn from the Schumanns’ involvement with the piano? Their activities – improvising, practising, teaching, performing, and composing – were intricately interwoven. Their explorations of pianistic possibilities were always supported by inborn curiosity and artistic aspirations. Stepping back in history and experimenting with historic pianos or replicas renders one sensitive to the interrelation between the art of composition and the instrument. For the modern-day performer, knowledge of historical piano manufacturing is indispensable and can lead to fresh ways of interpreting the Schumanns’ music.

The Schumanns’ marriage linked two visions of the Romantic era, that of a self-referential love, and that of an artistic alliance (Künstlerbund). Clara achieved fame across Europe. She had her own cultural network and out-earned her spouse. Robert’s income from composing remained modest until the 1850s. Both wanted to start a family. According to the contemporary legal framework, understood as the law of nature, women were subordinate. Legally and culturally, a man’s work took precedence. Daily reality followed its own rules. A large brood, and Robert’s struggles with illness, as well as social, economic, and political crises tested the couple. Compromises had to be found. The Schumanns prevailed: they were able to start a family and realise careers as professional artists. Robert’s music continues to be performed. Clara was one of the most important pianists of the epoch whose full legacy is still being explored.

This chapter considers Clara’s 1842 tour in Northern Germany and Copenhagen – the first after her 1840 marriage and the 1841 birth of her first child – and the tensions that arose between her professional ambitions and socially-prescribed responsibilities as wife and mother. Drawing from correspondence and the Schumanns’ marriage diaries, I trace how Clara eased those tensions through rhetorical manoeuvres and performance strategies that transformed her work in the masculine public sphere of touring into the work expected of her in the feminine private sphere of the home. Tropes of sacrifice such as familial care feature heavily in how Clara justified to Robert (and to herself) her desire to continue touring after 1840. Additionally, her performance style and repertoire choices on tour are linked to images of the caring mother. This analysis highlights the unique forms taken by women’s labour in the creation of artistic cultures during the era of separate spheres.