Elizabeth Subercaseaux Elizabeth Subercaseaux Elizabeth Subercaseaux Sommerhoff (born 1945) is a Chilean journalist and writer. Elizabeth Subercaseaux grew up near Cauqenes, Chile at her grandparents' home called Santa Clara. Subercaseaux's father died in 1956, when he was 42 years old and she was 11. The five children of the marriage – Bernardo and Juan, older than Elizabeth, and Martin and Ximena, younger – were brought up by their mother, the sculptor, painter, and photographer Gerda Sommerhoff, who was born in Germany and grew up in Holland. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the German composer Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck. After finishing high
Robert Schumann and Law." By Christmas he was back in Leipzig, at age 20 taking piano lessons from his old master Friedrich Wieck, who assured him that he would be a successful concert pianist after a few years' study with him. During his studies with Wieck, some stories claim that Schumann permanently injured a finger on his right hand. Wieck claimed that Schumann damaged his finger by using a mechanical device that held back one finger while he exercised the others—which was supposed to strengthen the weakest fingers. Clara Schumann discredited the story, saying the disability was not due to a mechanical