“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.
Giuseppe Verdi, Barcarola “Al tuo bambino” Once Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi had fallen in love, things got rather complicated. This is hardly surprising amongst professional people as it can be rather challenging to balance career and love. Strepponi had
Giuseppe Verdi, Nabucco, Act 2, Scene 1 Ben io t’invenni, o fatal scritto! Aria: Anch’io dischiuso un giorno Without doubt, Giuseppina Strepponi must receive credit for Verdi’s first operatic successes. Her performances in a number of his early operas not
Giuseppe Verdi, Oberto, Tutto ho perduto! (Leonora) Scholars have suggested that the inherent pathos and drama of Verdi’s operas was the direct result of the composer attempting to cope with the cruel loss of his two infant children and the
Giuseppe Verdi was a painfully private individual. Details about his romantic encounters are sketchy, and for the most part rely on his own and somewhat inconsistent recollections later in life. We do know, however, that Verdi went to live in
Cosima Liszt was the illegitimate daughter of the Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt and his mistress, Marie, Comtesse d’Agoult. In order to continue his independent lifestyle — he also forbade contact between mother and daughters — Franz placed Cosima,
Having been unceremoniously evicted from Mr. Wesendonck’s Zürich property, Richard Wagner aimlessly wandered around Europe. He was clearly depressed, as none of his grand musical ambitions had yet been realised, and as usual, he had no money. He had also
5 Gedichte fur eine Frauenstimme, Op. 91, “Wesendonck-Lieder” The beautiful and talented poet and playwright Agnes Mathilde Luckemeyer married the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck in 1848. The couple moved to Zurich and Otto, having done extremely well in his profession,
Christoph Columbus (1835) One certainly could not fault Richard Wagner for being persistent, but one has to question his judgment regarding his pursuit of Minna Planer. Minna did everything in her power to get rid of him! She fled from
