“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”
Maurice Ravel
The history of classical music, however, is full of fabulously gifted individuals with slightly more earthy ambitions. Love stories of classical composers are frequently retold within a romanticized narrative of sugarcoated fairy tales. To be sure, happily-ever-after stories do on rare occasions take place, but it is much more likely that classical romances lead to some rather unhappy endings. Johannes Brahms had an overriding fear of commitment, Claude Debussy drove his wife into an attempt at suicide, Francis Poulenc severely struggled with his sexual identity, and Percy Grainger was heavily into whips and bondage. And that’s only the beginning! The love life of classical composers will sometimes make you weep, or alternately shout out with joy or anguish. You might even cringe with embarrassment as we try to go beyond the usual headlines and niceties to discover the psychological makeup and the societal and cultural pressures driving these relationships. Classical composer’s love stories are not for the faint hearted; they are heightened reflections of humanity at its best and worst. Accompanying these stories of love and lust with the compositions they inspired, we are able to see composers and their relationships in a completely new light.
Béla Bartók had always been interested in young girls. His first wife Márta was only sixteen when they married, and he did have an extramarital affair with the fifteen-year-old poetess Klára. Bartók also vigorously but unsuccessfully pursued the young violinist
When Stefi Geyer rejected Béla Bartók’s proposal of marriage, the composer fell into a deep depression. Unable to sleep, he lost his appetite and obsessed with not being able to attain something he truly desired. And for many years to
Béla Bartók and Stefi Geyer She had deep blue eyes and blonde hair that she wore in two small buns on either side of her head. Extraordinarily talented, Stefi Geyer started her musical training at age three and gave her
“Giacomo Puccini and Elvira Gemignani” Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) (in)famously described himself as “a mighty hunter of wild fowl, operatic librettos and attractive women.” Bravado self-assessment aside, his entire musical career hinged on the success of his second opera Edgar, began
“Jan Ladislav Dussek and Sophia Giustina Corri” As soon as the pianist and composer Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) left his native Bohemia for Paris, his fortunes increased manifold. He performed for Marie Antoinette and was a regular guest at the
“Carlos Gardel and Isabel del Valle” In the years before the First World War the Argentinian tango swept like wildfire throughout the world. And Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) was the one authentic superstar of his time. Gardel was the greatest singer
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915) was a rather unusual character! Well into adulthood, he lived with his beloved nanny Pelageya Vassilievna Ivanovna. He abhorred alcohol and was a militant non-smoker; making his friends smoke at the open kitchen window in clear
Natalya Sekerina emphatically rejected Alexander Scriabin’s proposal of marriage, and the composer was devastated. In a long letter, after many years had passed, Natalya writes, “That beloved man could never have had happiness, if I had been afraid to say
