Clara Schumann at the age of nine, Clara Wieck performed at the Leipzig home of Dr. Ernst Carus, director of the mental hospital at Colditz Castle. There, she met another gifted young pianist who had been invited to the musical evening, Robert Schumann, who was nine years older. Schumann admired Clara's playing so much that he asked permission from his mother to stop studying law, which had never interested him much, and take music lessons with Clara's father. While taking lessons, he rented a room in the Wieck household, staying about a year. He would sometimes dress up as a ghost and
Clara Schumann these recitals. Wieck performed to sell-out crowds and laudatory critical reviews; Benedict Randhartinger, a friend of Franz Schubert, gave Wieck an autographed copy of Schubert's "Erlkönig", inscribing it "To the celebrated artist, Clara Wieck." Frédéric Chopin described her playing to Franz Liszt, who came to hear one of Wieck's concerts and subsequently "praised her extravagantly in a letter that was published in the Parisian "Revue et Gazette Musicale" and later, in translation, in the Leipzig journal "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik"." On 15 March, Wieck was named a "Königliche und Kaiserliche Kammervirtuosin" ("Royal and Imperial Chamber Virtuoso"), Austria's highest musical honor.