How is your memory?

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We mostly listen to a classical music station during the day. The announcers come up with a lot of interesting snippets about music in general and composers/performers in particular. We’ve all seen concert performers playing incredibly long, complicated pieces all without music. Apparently, Clara Schumann was the first performer, or at least one of the first, to entertain her audiences by playing her pieces by heart. Clara was born Clara Josephine Wieck (1819 – 1896) and had a concert career spanning 61 years. When she began her career, most concert pianists played from their music so, in a bid to outdo her competitors, she began to play her repertoire from memory. Clara was also a noted composer. One of her early performances was for the director of the mental hospital at Colditz Castle which we visited in 2015. Colditz was later used to house high-level prisoners of war. It was supposed to be highly secure but that turned out to be a fallacy. To me, trying to learn such pieces by rote would just add another dimension of difficulty. The photo is of Colditz Castle.