Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer and one of the most distinguished pianists of her time.
Today’s Google Doodle commemorating what would have her 193rd birthday.
The German composer and classical musician died in 1896 following a career that spanned more than six decades and bucked societal conventions of the time.
She was married with Robert Schumann, a very famous romantic composer. Clara and Robert Schumann had 8 children and the Doodle shows her surrounded by them. The marriage was troubled, in part because Robert Schumann wanted Clara to play the role of dutiful wife instead of flitting about musical circles that included living legends such as Johannes Brahms, Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt.
After an attempted suicide, Robert was confined to a mental institution. Robert died 1856, 16 years after the marriage.
Clara Schumann was born as Clara Josephine Wieck on September 13 1819 in Leipzig, Germany. She died on May 20th, 1896 at age 76.
Nancy B. Reich, who wrote a biography of the musician entitled “Clara Schumann: “Clara Schumann was always her own person, perceiving herself as an artist who was a woman, and eternally grateful for the art that was to sustain her through a lifetime of tragedy and triumph.”