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,
Friedrich Wieck as Clara's. Other pupils included Hans von Bülow. Wieck was born in Pretzsch, not far from Leipzig, in 1785, the son of a not very successful merchant. Although the family was not musical, Wieck was deeply interested in music and attended the Thomas-Schule in Leipzig in 1798; however, because of illness, his stay lasted only six weeks and he was forced to return home. In 1800 he attended the Torgau "gymnasium", where he received his only formal training in piano, six hours of lessons from Johann Peter Milchmeyer. He had little exposure to the wider world of music and he