“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.
The memoirs of Franz Schubert’s friends are full of references to Caroline Esterházy. In fact, Eduard von Bauernfeld wrote in February 1828. “Schubert was, in fact, head over ears in love with one of his pupils, a young Countess Esterházy,
Professionally, Giulio Caccini (1551-1618) was known as an accomplished singer and the inventor of a new musical style that had the power to “move the affections of the soul.” Privately, he seemed to have been a difficult and proud man,
It is not clear when Giaochino Rossini and Olympe Pélissier first met, but by 1832 they were undoubtedly in a relationship. He had departed for Paris in 1830 and had left his wife Isabella Colbran unceremoniously behind. She was an
They probably first met in Bologna around 1815, and the union between Giaochino Rossini and Isabella Colbran was to become one of the most successful artistic alliances in the history of music. Rossini was a rising star when he was
The Belgian mezzo-soprano Désirée Artôt (1835-1907) studied with Pauline Viardot and Francesco Lamperti in London and in Paris. She started her career at the Paris Opera in 1858 when Giacomo Meyerbeer engaged her to sing in his Le prophète. Berlioz,
Franz Berwald just couldn’t wait to leave provincial Stockholm behind. With a number of compositions in his back pocket, he departed for Berlin in 1829 to follow his musical calling. He had some distant relatives in that city, and alongside
Never underestimate the power of laughter! When Catalan pianist Carmen Bravo was asked what made her fall in love with Federico Mompou (1893-1987), she quietly confessed, “He made me laugh.” Mompou was quiet, shy and introverted, and Bravo extroverted, outgoing
He was one of the greatest performing artists of the 19th century! Ole Bull (1810-1880) was a child prodigy, and he gave his public debut as a soloist at age 9. Although intending to study theology and/or law, he decided
