精华 Google 今天的桌面画真可爱。
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Her husband's music is celebrated the world over, his name is always on lists of our greatest composers. But what about the other Schumann, also a composer and musician of huge talent? Today's Google Doodle shines a light on Clara Schumann, the – some might say – long-suffering wife of Robert Schumann, the German composer who died in a psychiatric institution in 1856.
Clara Wieck was a piano prodigy at a young age, making her public debut at 11, and, acclaimed across Europe, she was perhaps the 19th century's foremost concert pianist. Her tyrannical father was her teacher; another of his pupils was Robert Schumann, nine years Clara's senior. The two fell in love, and, despite her father's disapproval (he took them to court to prevent the match), they married the day before Clara's 21st birthday.
In the early years of her adult life she also composed. There was a piano concerto written when she was 14, and performed earlier this year at London's Royal Festival Hall, there were songs, and many solo piano pieces that Clara herself would perform as part of her concert programmes.
But marriage to Robert was hardly the idyll for which the young lovers had been hoping, as Schumann evangelist Steven Isserlis writes. Initially Clara was Schumann's muse and musical voice, using her fame as a performer to propagate her husband's works, but tensions surfaced as Schumann's mental health disintegrated. The couple had eight children, and Clara was forced to support the family with concert touring. It's no surprise that she composed little after her mid 30s. "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," she said. But to produce creative works, as Virigina Woolf famously stated, a woman needed "money and a room of her own". There can't have been much private space or time for Clara. As Schumann himself observed: "To have children, and a husband who is always living in the realm of imagination, does not go together with composing."
And what of her relationship with Brahms? The younger composer fell hopelessly in love with the older woman, but it appears that even after Robert Schumann's death in 1856, the two never consummated their relationship although they were close lifelong friends.
Clara died of a heart attack aged 76 having brought up seven children and several grandchildren, her legacy as a great pianist, muse and teacher assured. But what of her own music? Let's take this opportunity of what would have been her 193rd birthday to discover some of her own compositions, and ask why they – and work by other female composers of earlier years – feature so rarely in our concert halls.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/13/clara-schumann-google-doodle
Clara Wieck was a piano prodigy at a young age, making her public debut at 11, and, acclaimed across Europe, she was perhaps the 19th century's foremost concert pianist. Her tyrannical father was her teacher; another of his pupils was Robert Schumann, nine years Clara's senior. The two fell in love, and, despite her father's disapproval (he took them to court to prevent the match), they married the day before Clara's 21st birthday.
In the early years of her adult life she also composed. There was a piano concerto written when she was 14, and performed earlier this year at London's Royal Festival Hall, there were songs, and many solo piano pieces that Clara herself would perform as part of her concert programmes.
But marriage to Robert was hardly the idyll for which the young lovers had been hoping, as Schumann evangelist Steven Isserlis writes. Initially Clara was Schumann's muse and musical voice, using her fame as a performer to propagate her husband's works, but tensions surfaced as Schumann's mental health disintegrated. The couple had eight children, and Clara was forced to support the family with concert touring. It's no surprise that she composed little after her mid 30s. "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," she said. But to produce creative works, as Virigina Woolf famously stated, a woman needed "money and a room of her own". There can't have been much private space or time for Clara. As Schumann himself observed: "To have children, and a husband who is always living in the realm of imagination, does not go together with composing."
And what of her relationship with Brahms? The younger composer fell hopelessly in love with the older woman, but it appears that even after Robert Schumann's death in 1856, the two never consummated their relationship although they were close lifelong friends.
Clara died of a heart attack aged 76 having brought up seven children and several grandchildren, her legacy as a great pianist, muse and teacher assured. But what of her own music? Let's take this opportunity of what would have been her 193rd birthday to discover some of her own compositions, and ask why they – and work by other female composers of earlier years – feature so rarely in our concert halls.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/13/clara-schumann-google-doodle
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161th anniversary of Moby-Dick
One of the great classics of American literature Herman Melville's Moby-Dick has been celebrated in the latest Google doodle.
The search engine's tribute to Melville's best known work coincides with the 161st anniversary of the novel's first publication in Britain in 1851. The doodle depicts a scene from the book in which Captain Ahab commandeers a boat to strike at the huge white whale.
The tribute also coincides with an ambitious project to record all 135 chapters of the novel over 135 days, with readings by famous fans including David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and Simon Callow broadcast daily online.
Melville's masterpiece is narrated by the sailor Ishmael, telling of his voyage on the whaling ship the Pequod, under Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon discovers that Ahab has one purpose on his voyage, to seek revenge on the ferocious sperm whale, Moby-Dick, who bit off his leg.
Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all examined as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and their places in the universe.
Unappreciated in Melville's lifetime, Moby-Dick is now, according to the American academic and author Jay Parini, a book which "permeates a culture, reinforcing and shaping ideas: ambition, for example, and the drive to conquer nature, the imperial drive, the wish to pursue an ideal to the last degree".
• This article was amended on 18 October 2012. The standfirst of the original said Moby-Dick was published in Britain in 1951. This has been corrected
One of the great classics of American literature Herman Melville's Moby-Dick has been celebrated in the latest Google doodle.
The search engine's tribute to Melville's best known work coincides with the 161st anniversary of the novel's first publication in Britain in 1851. The doodle depicts a scene from the book in which Captain Ahab commandeers a boat to strike at the huge white whale.
The tribute also coincides with an ambitious project to record all 135 chapters of the novel over 135 days, with readings by famous fans including David Cameron, Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry and Simon Callow broadcast daily online.
Melville's masterpiece is narrated by the sailor Ishmael, telling of his voyage on the whaling ship the Pequod, under Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon discovers that Ahab has one purpose on his voyage, to seek revenge on the ferocious sperm whale, Moby-Dick, who bit off his leg.
Through the journey of the main characters, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God are all examined as the main characters speculate upon their personal beliefs and their places in the universe.
Unappreciated in Melville's lifetime, Moby-Dick is now, according to the American academic and author Jay Parini, a book which "permeates a culture, reinforcing and shaping ideas: ambition, for example, and the drive to conquer nature, the imperial drive, the wish to pursue an ideal to the last degree".
• This article was amended on 18 October 2012. The standfirst of the original said Moby-Dick was published in Britain in 1951. This has been corrected
