“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.
“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
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was short of stature and stood just over five feet tall. For a period of time he joined the military, but was mercilessly ridiculed and bullied because he was “small, effeminate and weak.” Commentators have suggested, “Like
An ancient proverb says, “a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” And that is exactly what happened to Hans Gál and Hanna Schick. They were married for 65 years, and their devotion, dedication,
We all know the sad story of Friedrich Wieck taking Robert Schumann to court in order to prevent the “old alcoholic and womanizer” from marrying his daughter Clara. The heated court battle raged for almost a year, but once Schumann
In 1836, the exceptional pianist and composer Adolf von Henselt suffered a severe nervous breakdown. After taking a number of cures in local spas and private hospitals, Henselt decided to visit his old teacher Johann Nepomuk Hummel in Weimar. Hummel
Emperor Napoleon I of France was small in stature, reaching a mere 157 centimeters in height. It is commonly assumed that he compensated for his lack of height by aggressively seeking out power, war and conquest. “Short man syndrome,” which
