Clara Schumann Wieck learned to compose, and from childhood to middle age she produced a good body of work. Clara wrote that "composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound". At age fourteen she wrote her piano concerto, with some help from Robert Schumann, and performed it at age sixteen at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Mendelssohn conducting. As she grew older, however, she became more preoccupied with other responsibilities in life and found it hard to compose regularly,
Clara de Chatelain Clara de Chatelain Clara de Chatelain, (pseudonyms, Leopold Wray, Baronne Cornélie de B., Rosalia Santa Croce and Leopoldine Ziska; 31 July 1807 – 30 June 1876) was an English writer, composer and translator. Clara Du Mazet de Pontigny was born in London, 31 July 1807. She was the daughter of M. de Pontigny, a French gentleman, and an Englishwoman. Living in France in 1826, she wrote an elegy on Jacques-Louis David's death, 'Le Tombeau du Proscrit'. Returning to England in 1827, she wrote widely under her pseudonym Leopold Wray, and for periodicals including "Reynolds's Miscellany", "London Society", "The Queen", "Chambers's