I, CLARA With Lucy Parham and Dame Harriet Walter Comes to Wigmore Hall

Clara Schumann, a ground-breaking musician, was far more than the devoted wife of composer Robert Schumann. As a virtuoso performer, she enjoyed a 60-year career, giving more than 1500 concerts and shaping the piano recital as we know it today.

Created by Lucy Parham to celebrate 200 years since Clara Schumann's birth in 1819, I, Clara tells her extraordinary life story in her own words.  Its narrative, drawn from letters and diaries, is complemented by live performances of works by Clara and by her contemporaries – Robert Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Mendelssohn and Chopin. The narrator for this performance is the acclaimed actress, Dame Harriet Walter.

"Clara Schumann's story should be much more widely known. Her formidable talent (not only as a ground-breaking pianist but as a composer too) her inner strength and life-long devotion to music are inspirational. I have had a deep love of the music of Robert Schumann since I was a child. I always identified with his music and felt a profound connection with it,” Parham said.  “It was this love of his music that initially drew me into their story, as well as into the music of Brahms, which I adore. I have huge respect for Clara Schumann. She changed the path not just for female pianists but for all pianists and hopefully now she is being fully recognised for her extraordinary achievements. ”

As a child prodigy, Clara was groomed for stardom by her piano-teacher father, Friedrich Wieck. By the age of eight she was dazzling audiences throughout Europe.  Having married Robert against her father's wishes, she became the mother of eight children. When her husband declined tragically into mental illness and an attempt at suicide, she continued both to run the household and to make an international concert career to support the family.

Clara championed the works of her husband and of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Brahms and many others. She herself was also a talented composer, producing a piano concerto, numerous solo piano works, chamber music and songs.

One of Britain's finest pianists, Lucy Parham applies her sensitivity and imagination not only to concertos and recitals, but also to portraits in words and music of such composers as Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Liszt and Debussy. In recent years, Lucy Parham has established herself as a leading interpreter of the works of Robert Schumann and of his wife, Clara.

Harriet Walter is an award-winning British actress. She trained at LAMDA and has worked extensively in theatre, film, television and radio. Her television credits include Sky Atlantic's The End, Belgravia, Killing Eve, Succession, Ted Lasso and The Crown. Films include The Last Duel, Herself, Rocketman, The Sense of an Ending, Sense and Sensibility and Atonement. On stage she is best known for her Shakespearean work, as Lady Macbeth, Beatrice and Cleopatra but also as Brutus, Henry IV and Prospero in the all-female trilogy for the Donmar Theatre. She was awarded a CBE in 2000, an honorary doctorate by Birmingham University and is an honorary associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was made a Dame in 2011.  Harriet is also a writer and has published four books: Brutus and Other Heroines, Other People's Shoes (Nick Hern Books), Macbeth; portrait of a marriage (Faber) and a book of images of older women Facing It. She has just finished a successful run of The House of Bernarda Alba at The National Theatre.

As narrator she joins pianist Lucy Parham on the CD recordings of Nocturne and I, Clara - both of which were released to critical acclaim.

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