“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.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: “Der Tag ist wieder hin” (Another day has passed), Gellerts Geistliche Oden und Lieder Throughout his 30 years of service to Frederick II, King of Prussia, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was never able to gain recognition
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Trio Sonata in A minor, Wq. 148, H. 572 I have always wondered what it must have been like to grow up as the son of Johann Sebastian Bach. The old man was known around town
Concerto Grosso in D Major, Op. 6, No. 1 By all accounts, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni — grandnephew of Pope Alexander VIII —loved “pomp, prodigality and sensual pleasure.” Apparently, portraits of his mistresses disguised as saints, including the angelic Margarita Pio
Arcangelo CorelliSonata a 3 in G Minor, Op. 1, No. 10 Trying to reconstruct the love life of a discreetly homosexual composer in the 17th century presents a variety of formidable challenges. For one, the public record was not overly
“You have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and for working.” This is how Francis Poulenc openly inscribed the score to his Concert champêtre, a work that is dedicated to the
Invariably, Francis Poulenc is described as a man of constant contradictions. A sense of ambivalence and ambiguity is readily found in his compositions, but it also extends to his sexual behavior and preferences. Poulenc was a devout Catholic and homosexual
7 Sonnets of Michelangelo, Op. 22Benjamin Britten, pianoPeter Pears, tenor In 1974, Benji Britten and Peter Pears exchanged a number of remarkable letters that summarized not only their personal relationship but also their artistic careers. Dated 17 November 1974, Britten
Having resisted the sexual advances of WH Auden, who eventually turned rather spiteful and detailed Benji’s defects of character in an acerbic letter, “I am certain too that it is your denial and evasion of the demands of disorder that
