“Nancy B. Reich, whose seminal 1985 biography of Clara Schumann established her as an important musical figure independent of her husband, the composer Robert Schumann, and helped turn the musicological spotlight on female composers, died on Jan. 31 in Ossining, N.Y.,” writes Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in Monday’s (2/11) New York Times. “She was 94…. Dr. Reich fought to redress belittling portraits of Clara Schumann by earlier authors and to have her recognized as a significant composer, pianist and educator…. The decades that followed the publication of her book, ‘Clara Schumann: The Artist and the Woman,’ vindicated her efforts with an explosion of both public and scholarly interest…. Nancy Bassen … born on July 3, 1924, in the Bronx … attended the High School of Music and Art [and] obtained a bachelor’s degree in music at Queens College in 1945 …. Dr. Reich taught at New York University and Queens and Manhattanville Colleges and was a visiting professor at Bard and Williams…. Liane Curtis, a musicologist … and the president of the Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy, said … that it was Dr. Reich who gave her the idea that ‘having a woman as a subject was worth devoting a big portion of your life to.’ ”
Posted February 12, 2019
