Amazon.com
Clara's grappling with the rigidities of historical character and its conjuring of a totally alien milieu--the German music scene of the mid-19th century--are all the more impressive given that Janice Galloway's previous prize-winning novels,
The Trick Is to Keep Breathing and
Foreign Parts, were much less ambitious in scope, dealing with contemporary lives.
Reaching her prime before the dawn of recorded sound, Clara Schumann, an acclaimed virtuoso pianist who had her own international career in European concert halls in the latter half of the 19th century, is now, sadly, only known by report as the perfect champion of her husband Robert's music. However, the bare bones of her biography hint at hidden depths: the mother, Marianne Tromlitz, who left her husband and daughter for another man; the father, Friedrich Wieck, who nurtured her career single-mindedly; the marriage, violently opposed by her father, to Robert Schumann, who soon fell into depression and whose short life ended in an asylum. Janice Galloway has taken full advantage of the raw materials of the first half of this extraordinary saga to produce a rich and compelling fictional life.
There's also a deep understanding of the social politics of Clara's background, most impressively done through her father's social climbing, hidden behind an apparently classless artistry. Galloway renders all this in an indulgent, exquisitely limpid prose: the end result is an outstanding novel, the most ambitious and most impressive of her career to date. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk
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From Publishers Weekly
Renowned in her own lifetime as a brilliant pianist, Clara Wieck Schumann is today less well known than her famous composer husband, Robert Schumann. By the time readers reach the end of talented Scottish writer Galloway's (Blood, etc.) tour de force, they will feel intimate with and sympathetic to both tormented musical geniuses. Galloway uses stream of consciousness and often achieves transcendence. The prose explodes with urgency: terse observations alternate with poetic descriptions and artful games while shifting typefaces heighten the energy. The book is most masterful in the early chapters, devoted to Clara's rise as musical prodigy under the ferocious tutelage of her father, Friedrich Wieck. By the time she circumvents Wieck to marry Robert Schumann, who has loved her since she was 12, the reader may feel exhausted. But perhaps this is Galloway's intent, for Robert is exhausting in the tragic manner of madmen who seem to be many people at the same time. Clara's sturdiness is almost as remarkable as her talent as a pianist and composer; her pregnancies were many and hard (eight children survived); ministering to her husband's mercurial moods, inspiring his creativity and furthering his career required unparalleled devotion. Galloway's research is evident in these details, which are sometimes too minute but contribute to the starkly authentic atmosphere. She also conveys the ways in which Clara's own creativity continued despite her husband's madness and ultimate breakdown. The musical background is equally rich. Musical giants walked the earth in the Schumanns' 19th-century Germany, and Mendelssohn, Brahms, Liszt and Chopin make a compelling chorus in this operatic drama.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
