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 Fisher States. She made her debut on the American stage at the Park Theatre to rave reviews. She was the "favorite Star" of every city where she performed. She "electrified" audiences with her portrayals of Ophelia, Viola, Cherubino and Susanna. She sparked a "Clara Fisher craze". Poems were written about her and her name was given to babies, hotels, stagecoaches, race horses, steamboats and almost anything else Americans could think of. Her plays were attended by the social and political elite of the time. In December 1834, Fisher married James Gaspard Maeder (1809–1876), a composer and vocal coach who wrote an