Madame Composer: The Virtuosic Genius of Clara Schumann

A long overdue new biography of Clara Schumann that establishes her as a powerful presence in the elite circle of German Romantic composers and rightfully asserts canonical status Clara Schumann was a composer of enormous brilliance who battled society’s and her own internalised misogyny. She struggled with depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome, at once deeply desiring to be a good mother and wife, while fervently needing to create lasting art. And when her alcoholic and unstable husband first leaped into the Rhine and then died in an asylum, she became a single mother at thirty-four: with no time or peace to compose anymore, she once again started touring to support herself – and her seven children. History has not been kind to Clara. She’s often remembered in relation to the men in her life – wife of Robert Schumann, muse to Johannes Brahms. Madame Composer finally rights the historical wrong and tells her story in full for the first time, proving that without Clara Schumann, many of history’s best-loved musical works would have been buried, or never written at all.

Hardcover, The History Press Ltd