An intoxicating love is a deeply euphoric, all-consuming romantic or infatuated state that mimics the high, cravings, and withdrawal symptoms of a chemical addiction.
Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik
It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
Sunday, November 1, 2026
AN INTOXICATING LOVE
An intoxicating love is a deeply euphoric, all-consuming romantic or infatuated state that mimics the high, cravings, and withdrawal symptoms of a chemical addiction.
Filipinos and (Classical) Music
by Klaus Döring
Filipino music in general was introduced to me by my wife Rossana. What does music really mean to Filipinos? It simply tells them where they've been and where they could go. It tells a story that everyone can appreciate and relate to, which is why it's a big part of every Filipino culture.
During the 1980s, Rossana was the lead dancer of the Manisan Cultural Dance Troupe. I got to know about gong music which can be divided into two types: the flat gong commonly known as gangsà and played by the groups in the Cordillera region and the bossed gongs played among the Islam and animist groups in the southern Philippines. The kulintang ensemble is the most advanced form of ensemble music with origins in the pre-colonial epoch of Philippine history and is a living tradition in southern parts of the country.
Very quickly, it pleased me another popular medium for light classical muse - the rondalla. Its repertoire consists mainly of native folk tunes, ballroom music as well as arrangements of classical pieces such as opera overtures. Bayani de Leon and Jerry Dadap have written more serious music for the rondalla. Rondalla is a traditional string orchestra comprising two-string, mandolin-type instruments such as the banduria and laud; a guitar; a double bass; and often a drum for percussion. The rondalla has its origins in the Iberian rondalla tradition and is used to accompany several Hispanic-influenced song forms and dances.
Tinikling and Cariñosa inspired me more and more. The Tinikling is a dance from Leyte which involves two individual performers hitting bamboo poles, using them to beat, tap, and slide on the ground, in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between poles. It is one of the more iconic Philippine dances and is similar to other Southeast Asian bamboo dances. The Cariñosa (meaning "loving" or "affectionate one") is the national dance and is part of the María Clara suite of Philippine folk dances. It is notable for the use of a fan and handkerchief in amplifying romantic gestures expressed by the couple performing the traditional courtship dance. The dance is similar to the Mexican Jarabe Tapatío, and is related to the Kuracha, Amenudo, and Kuradang dances in the Visayas and Mindanao Area.
In the first few years of my life as an expat in the Philippines, it looked like I had forgotten about my classical music from Europe. I focused more and more on Himig ng Pilipinas - the musical performance arts in the Philippines or by Filipinos composed in various genres and styles. The compositions are often a mixture of different Asian, Spanish, Latin American, American, and indigenous influences.
Notable folk song composers include the National Artist for Music Lucio San Pedro, who composed the famous "Sa Ugoy ng Duyan" that recalls the loving touch of a mother to her child. Another composer, the National Artist for Music Antonino Buenaventura, is notable for notating folk songs and dances. Buenaventura composed the music for "Pandanggo sa Ilaw".
The leading figures of the first generation of Philippine composers were Nicanor Abelardo, Francisco Santiago, Aontonio Molina, and Juan Hernandez.
But one composer and his works fascinated me the most: Francisco Buencamino. He belonged to a family of musicians. He was born in San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan, on November 5, 1883. In 1930, he founded the Academy of Music of Buencamino. His musical styles were Kundimans and Sarzuela.
Francisco first learnt music from his father. At age 12, he could play the organ. At 14, he was sent to study at the Liceo de Manila. There, he took up courses in composition and harmony under Marcelo Adonay. He also took up piano-forte courses under a Spanish music teacher. He did not finish his education as he became interested in the sarswela. Some of the sarswelas he wrote are: "Marcela" (1904), "Si Tio Celo" (1904) and "Yayang " (1905). In 1908, the popularity of the sarswela started to wane because of American repression and the entry of silent movies. Francisco Buencamino then turned to composing kundimans.
For a time, Francisco Buencamino frequently acted on stage. He also collaborated on the plays written and produced by Aurelio Tolentino. One of his earliest compositions is "En el bello Oriente" (1909), which uses Jose Rizal's lyrics. "Ang Una Kong Pag-ibig", a popular kundiman, was inspired by his wife. In 1938, he composed an epic poem which won a prize from the Far Eastern University during one of the annual carnivals. His "Mayon Concerto" is considered his magnum opus. Begun in 1943 and finished in 1948, "Mayon Concerto" had its full rendition in February 1950 at the graduation recital of Rosario Buencamino at the Holy Ghost College. "Ang Larawan" (1943), also one of his most acclaimed works, is a composition based on a Balitaw tune. The orchestral piece, "Pizzicato Caprice" (1948) is a version of this composition. Many of his other compositions were lost during the Japanese Occupation, when he had to evacuate his family to Novaliches, Rizal.
I would say that the "Pizzicato Caprice" is my favorite. I was so lucky to experience it during an awesome performance with the Manila Symphony Orchestra.
In my opinion: outstanding groups include not only the Manila Symphony Orchestra, but also the Filipino Youth Symphony Orchestra, the U.P. Symphony Orchestra, the Manila Concert Orchestra, the Quezon City Philharmonic Orchestra, the Artists’ Guild of the Philippines, the Philippine Choral Society, the U.P. Madrigal Singers, the U.P. Concert Chorus among others.
These are extraordinary treasures of Filipino culture which one hears and experiences far too little about these days.
The music of my life started at the age of 6. During my first steps on the piano with Beethoven's "Für Elise", I remember my very first LP (Long Play) on my birthday gifts table: Serge Prokofieff's ' "Peter and the wolf".
In an autobiographical sketch, the Russian composer described the three chief qualities of his complex work as: a classical or rather classicist rendencityan emotional vein and grotesque element, which the composer detected as "fun, laughter, satire". "A symphonic tale for children '' awoke my dream of classical music.
In spite of this drastic sound-painting portrayal, the general effect produced is not that of a musical jest, but - thanks to Prokofieff's artistry and skill - one of singular poetry.
There are few musicians with such eloquence and improvisational skills as Sergei Prokofieff, the Russian composer of many different talents, some of which included the piano and keyboards. Born to a financially well-off family in 1891, Prokofieff’s first exposure to music was through his mother, who would spend two months a year learning the piano while also playing a few sonnets every evening. Prokofiff began learning the piano instantly, and became so proficient that he was then composing his first piano composition, under the watchful supervision of his mother. Before the age of 10, he had also shown interest in opera music and started work on his first opera, called The Giant.
In his early years, Prokofieff’s parents were adamant on providing him with theory lessons, so as to clarify his conceptual frameworks as far as the piano and composition went. However, they soon began having second thoughts about their young son pursuing a music career at such a delicate age, and therefore, decided to enroll him in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Here, he worked and learned the piano and other instruments under the auspices of renowned composers such as Alexander Winkler, Nikolai Tcherepnin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Before his father’s death in 1910, he had started performing in local clubs and other music venues like the St. Petersburg Evenings of Contemporary Music, performing some of his early Piano Sonatas such as Four Etudes for Piano, Op 2(1909). All through the early 1910s, Prokofieff had been experimenting with a wide variety of genres, one of which was ballet music. While he may have succeeded in a number of other music compositions, he always seems to have a hard time with ballet music, with the likes of Chout becoming subject to intense modifications in the 1920s.
Having received menial works in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, Prokofieff decided to move to Russia in 1936. The period post-1936 was a completely different time for Prokofieff, and set in motion some of his most impressive works. Bearing in mind the hostile reality of the time, most of the themes covered in his works such as his orchestral piece Russian Overture (1936) and War Sonatas embraced war-related topics and disregarded true musical passion. However, Prokofiev managed to retain his incredible ingenuity with compositions such as Peter and the Wolf, Alexander Nevsky and Romeo and Juliet, all of which were received well on an international scale. Some of these compositions were Sergei Prokofiev’s most valuable works, and are still widely performed today.
The war and post-war years saw the likes of some impressive compositions, such as War and Peace, The Ballet Cinderella and various violin sonatas, encompassing the true remarkability that Prokofieff deserves large-scale appraise for. It becomes important to realize the tremendous contributions this great artist made to the classical music world, despite the troubles he so often had to face.
Because of Prokofieff, my world of classical music first opened up to Russia. Yes, not to Germany or Austria. Not to (sorry Maestro!) Beethoven or Liszt, Mozart or whomever. Suddenly, fell in love with Tschaikowsky. His first piano concerto in b-minor kept me speechless and full of tears at any stage play, I was blessed during my whole life.
The very first bars of this piano concerto are so distinctive that they will remain in the listener's memory forever. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 is recognizable and catchy. Charismatic piano virtuoso Martha Argerich lends an elegant lightness to this impressive piece. Conducted by Charles Dutoit, Argerich performed with the Verbier Festival Orchestra at the Verbier Festival in 2014.
Notable folk song composers include the National Artist for Music Lucio San Pedro, who composed the famous "Sa Ugoy ng Duyan" that recalls the loving touch of a mother to her child. Another composer, the National Artist for Music Antonino Buenaventura, is notable for notating folk songs and dances. Buenaventura composed the music for "Pandanggo sa Ilaw".
The leading figures of the first generation of Philippine composers were Nicanor Abelardo, Francisco Santiago, Aontonio Molina, and Juan Hernandez.
In my opinion: outstanding groups include not only the Manila Symphony Orchestra, but also the Filipino Youth Symphony Orchestra, the U.P. Symphony Orchestra, the Manila Concert Orchestra, the Quezon City Philharmonic Orchestra, the Artists’ Guild of the Philippines, the Philippine Choral Society, the U.P. Madrigal Singers, the U.P. Concert Chorus among others.
The music of my life started at the age of 6. During my first steps on the piano with Beethoven's "Für Elise", I remember my very first LP (Long Play) on my birthday gifts table: Serge Prokofieff's ' "Peter and the wolf".
In his early years, Prokofieff’s parents were adamant on providing him with theory lessons, so as to clarify his conceptual frameworks as far as the piano and composition went. However, they soon began having second thoughts about their young son pursuing a music career at such a delicate age, and therefore, decided to enroll him in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Here, he worked and learned the piano and other instruments under the auspices of renowned composers such as Alexander Winkler, Nikolai Tcherepnin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Before his father’s death in 1910, he had started performing in local clubs and other music venues like the St. Petersburg Evenings of Contemporary Music, performing some of his early Piano Sonatas such as Four Etudes for Piano, Op 2(1909). All through the early 1910s, Prokofieff had been experimenting with a wide variety of genres, one of which was ballet music. While he may have succeeded in a number of other music compositions, he always seems to have a hard time with ballet music, with the likes of Chout becoming subject to intense modifications in the 1920s.
Having received menial works in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, Prokofieff decided to move to Russia in 1936. The period post-1936 was a completely different time for Prokofieff, and set in motion some of his most impressive works. Bearing in mind the hostile reality of the time, most of the themes covered in his works such as his orchestral piece Russian Overture (1936) and War Sonatas embraced war-related topics and disregarded true musical passion. However, Prokofiev managed to retain his incredible ingenuity with compositions such as Peter and the Wolf, Alexander Nevsky and Romeo and Juliet, all of which were received well on an international scale. Some of these compositions were Sergei Prokofiev’s most valuable works, and are still widely performed today.
The war and post-war years saw the likes of some impressive compositions, such as War and Peace, The Ballet Cinderella and various violin sonatas, encompassing the true remarkability that Prokofieff deserves large-scale appraise for. It becomes important to realize the tremendous contributions this great artist made to the classical music world, despite the troubles he so often had to face.
Friday, October 30, 2026
13 Facts About Johann Sebastian Bach
by Emily E. Hogstad October 25th, 2026

Johann Sebastian Bach
But the person behind the music was decidedly human. He was an orphan and a father of twenty – a hothead who had issues with authority that landed him in jail – an entertainer at a coffee-house – and a genius who died largely unpublished and half-forgotten.
Here are thirteen facts that reveal the man behind the masterpieces.
1. Bach and Handel were born a month apart in the spring of 1685 – but they never met.

Balthasar Denner: George Frideric Handel, ca 1726–1728 (London: National Portrait Gallery)
George Frideric Handel was born in Halle on 23 February 1685, while Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach on 31 March 1685 – five weeks and a little over 100 miles apart.
Although both became giants of the Baroque era, their paths never crossed. Handel settled down in London, while Bach stayed put in Germany.
Bach wanted to meet Handel when the latter visited Halle, but the timing never worked out.
In another twist of fate, both composers were operated on by the same quack surgeon toward the end of their lives – more on that below.
2. Bach’s mother died in 1694, and his father died in 1695. Bach was nine years old.

Johann Ambrosius Bach, J.S. Bach’s father
Bach’s childhood ended abruptly. His mother, Maria Elisabeth, died in the spring of 1694, and his father, Johann Ambrosius, a town musician, followed less than a year later, early in 1695.
Fortunately, the suddenly orphaned Bach – the baby of the family – was taken in by his eldest brother, Johann Christoph, an organist in Ohrdruf.
Johann Christoph oversaw Johann Sebastian’s upbringing and musical education.
3. As a boy, he copied out music secretly, because paper was expensive.
Money was tight in his brother’s household, and manuscript paper and printed scores were sought-after luxuries.
According to one early biographer, the young Bach longed to study a prized collection of keyboard pieces his brother kept locked away. Finally, he smuggled it out and copied it over six months’ worth of moonlit nights.
4. Bach walked 280 miles on foot to see composer and organist Dieterich Buxtehude perform – and stayed for four months, upsetting his employer.
In 1705, when he turned twenty, Bach worked as an organist in the town of Arnstadt. He set out on foot for Lübeck – a 280-mile journey! – to hear his renowned colleague Dieterich Buxtehude.

Depiction of the Danish baroque composer Dieterich Buxtehude in the painting “The Musical Party” 1674 by Johannes Voorhout
He’d been granted a four-week leave, but he stayed about four months. When he finally returned, his employers were understandably furious. It wouldn’t be the last time he’d experience friction with his employers.
5. Bach’s first wife died while he was on a business trip.
Bach came from a close-knit family of professional musicians, so it is perhaps unsurprising that he married his second cousin Maria Barbara in 1707. The couple had seven children together.
In the summer of 1720, he followed his employer Prince Leopold to the spa town of Carlsbad. He returned to horrific news: Maria Barbara had died during his absence, and they’d been unable to wait to bury her.
Bach came home to find his wife gone and his surviving children motherless – a devastation from which the household recovered only slowly.
6. Bach had a set of twins.

The Bach Family © Oxford Bach Soloists
Bach had twenty (!) biological children over his two marriages. Among them were twins.
Maria Barbara gave birth to them in February 1713. They were named Johann Christoph and Maria Sophia.
The infant mortality rate of the era was high, and that risk only climbed with twins. Johann Christoph died the day he was born, and Maria Sophia died weeks later – just a few days before her father’s 28th birthday.
7. When trying to leave his job in Weimar, Bach was jailed for a month “for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal.”
Bach was obstinate. In 1717, eager to leave the Weimar court for a better position in Cöthen, he pressed his request for release so insistently that the duke had him arrested.
He spent nearly a month in detention, from early November to early December. The court records noted that he was confined “for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal.”
8. He wrote a cantata about a caffeine-addicted woman, for performance in a local coffee house. It has become known as the Coffee Cantata.
In it, a young woman named Lieschen is scolded by her father for her caffeine habit and cheerfully refuses to give it up.
The piece also has a fun extramusical dimension: it was written for performance at Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig, where Bach conducted a musical ensemble.
9. After struggling with his eyesight in his mid-sixties, he consented to an operation with John Taylor, a quack surgeon. He never recovered.
In his mid-sixties, Bach’s eyesight failed: a devastating development for a composer who relied on it to work and to support his younger wife and minor children.
In 1750, he agreed to be treated by John Taylor, a flamboyant travelling English oculist now widely regarded as a quack.
Taylor operated twice. The surgeries and recovery left Bach blind and sick. He died on 28 July 1750 at the age of 65.
Taylor would later operate on Handel – and fail to restore his eyesight, too.
10. Only about a dozen of Bach’s works were published during his lifetime.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Given his later reputation as the ultimate titan of the Baroque era, Bach published surprisingly little during his lifetime.
Only about a dozen of his works appeared in print, mainly collections of keyboard and organ works.
The vast majority of his music, including the great Passions and hundreds of cantatas, circulated only in manuscripts.
11. Around half of Bach’s works have been lost.
Because so much of Bach’s music remained unpublished, much of his output was lost.
In fact, scholars estimate that roughly half of everything Bach wrote has vanished.
After his death, his manuscripts were divided among his sons and pupils. Many were sold off, scattered, or destroyed over the following decades.
It is mind-boggling to think that the works we have today represent only a fraction of what he actually wrote down.
12. Felix Mendelssohn developed a fascination with Bach as a teenager because his great-aunt had studied with one of Bach’s sons. He helped mount a Bach revival in the 1820s.
Felix Mendelssohn’s great-aunt, an accomplished pianist named Sara Levy, had studied with Bach’s eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
In 1824, she gave her prodigy nephew (and his equally talented sister Fanny) a copy of the St. Matthew Passion.
Felix spent years studying it. In 1829, when he was just twenty, he conducted a revival of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin – its first major performance in decades.
From this point on, Bach’s place in the repertoire was secure.
13. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier is on the Voyager space probe’s Golden Record – meaning that Bach might be among the first composers that extraterrestrial life will hear.
In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager probes, each carrying a gold-plated record of sounds from Earth, including recordings of human speech, nature sounds, and music.
Among the musical selections is the Prelude and Fugue in C major from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
He may well be among the very first composers any extraterrestrial listener ever hears. He’ll no doubt be popular on whatever planet his music lands on!
Conclusion
For someone who spent his entire life in Germany, Bach has covered an impressive distance since.
The stubborn organist who walked 280 miles to hear a concert is now regarded as the very bedrock of Western music.
And thanks to a golden record hurtling through interstellar space, he may yet become one of humanity’s first musical ambassadors to the aliens.
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How Family Connections Helped These Composers Find Their Wives
by Emily E. Hogstad October 30th, 2026
Today, marrying a cousin is unusual, but throughout history it was hardly unheard of, especially in close-knit families where relatives often lived near one another. The musical world was especially interconnected, and several composers found love within their own extended families.
For Johann Sebastian Bach, Edvard Grieg, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, family connections ultimately led to marriages with cousins, with very different circumstances and consequences.
Other composers found themselves drawn to the sisters of women they’d already fallen in love with – and marrying them.
Here are some fascinating stories of composers whose wives were already part of their family or social circles.
Composers Who Married Their Cousin
Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, 1707
We don’t know when Johann Sebastian Bach met his first wife, Maria Barbara. However, they were second cousins, sharing the same great-grandfather, and the extended Bach family was closely knit, so they likely met through family.
The couple married in 1707, when both Johann and Maria Barbara were 22. They had seven children together, including the composers Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

A silhouette of Maria Barbara Bach
Their marriage ended tragically. In the summer of 1720, Johann went on a business trip, accompanying his employer, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen, to the Karlsbad spa. When he returned, Maria Barbara was dead and had already been buried. We don’t know what she died of.
We looked at what happened to all of Bach’s children with Maria Barbara: https://interlude.hk/what-happened-to-bachs-twenty-children/.
Edvard Grieg and Nina Hagerup, 1867
Edvard Grieg and Nina Hagerup’s mothers were sisters, so Edvard and Nina met each other young in their hometown of Bergen, Norway. In 1853, when Nina was eight years old, her family moved to Copenhagen, separating the two children.
A decade later, Edvard also moved to Copenhagen to study music. There, he began meeting Nina, who by then had become a talented soprano.

Edvard Grieg and Nina Hagerup Grieg
The two fell in love, and in late 1864, Edvard proposed. Their engagement lasted for nearly three years, and neither side of their family was happy about the match, as Grieg’s economic prospects were considered uncertain.
Still, they married anyway in 1867, and despite their rough patches, they became partners in both life and music until his death.
Sergei Rachmaninoff and Natalya Satina, 1902
Rachmaninoff was a musically precocious child. In 1885, when he was twelve, he moved in with his piano teacher, as was custom for serious students at the time.
However, four years later, after Rachmaninoff asked for more access to a piano to practice and compose and his teacher turned him down, he began looking for new lodgings.

Sergei Rachmaninoff and Natalia Satina
He decided to move in with the Satin family, his paternal aunt’s family. He became part of the household, even travelling with them to their private country estate in the summer of 1890. During that time, he became close to their daughter Natalya, who was also a pianist. He would eventually fall in love with her.
Rachmaninoff’s musical career kicked off in earnest during the 1890s, leading him to consider starting a family; in 1899, he and Natalya became engaged. It was a problematic match, as the Orthodox Church forbade cousins from marrying, and a dispensation from the Tsar was necessary.
Finally, in April 1902, after a three-year engagement, Rachmaninoff and Natalya decided to marry in a military barracks, because the priests there answered to military officials rather than the Church itself.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constanze Weber, 1782
In 1777, 21-year-old Mozart left his hometown of Salzburg to look for work. He stopped in Mannheim and met the musical Weber family, whose four daughters were talented musicians.
Mozart eventually fell in love with one of them – the 17-year-old soprano Aloysia Weber – but she was uninterested in him.

Constanze Mozart
His path crossed with the Webers again in 1781. In the intervening years, the family had moved to Vienna for Aloysia’s singing career. Their patriarch had died, so to support themselves, they took in roomers – including Mozart.
While there, his affections transferred to Aloysia’s sister Constanze. Wolfgang and Constanze fell in love and married in August 1782. Despite the initial disapproval of their families, they enjoyed a happy marriage until his death.
As a young man, Joseph Haydn was hired to teach music to the family of Johann Keller, a wealthy Viennese wigmaker.
Haydn fell in love with one of Johann’s daughters, Theresia Keller. However, their romantic connection was immediately threatened by Joseph and Theresia’s difference in wealth (Haydn had not yet secured his position as a court composer), as well as her parents’ fierce Catholicism; they wanted Theresia to become a nun.

Maria Anna Keller
Obeying their wishes, Theresia entered a convent in 1755 and took her vows the following year. Haydn wrote an Organ Concerto in C major for the ceremony of her profession as Sister Josepha.
Five years later, after Haydn secured his first position and looked for a wife, he returned to the Kellers. Although he didn’t love her, he married Theresia’s older sister Maria Anna.
They discovered quickly that they were a bad match. Joseph famously wrote with scorn, “She doesn’t care a straw whether her husband is an artist or a cobbler.” In addition, Maria Anna was apparently unable to bear children, which Haydn held against her.
The Haydns never reconciled, and they lived apart until Maria Anna died in 1800.
Antonín Dvořák and Anna Čermáková, 1873 In the 1860s, up-and-coming musician Antonín Dvořák was struggling to pay his bills. He began giving piano lessons, and two of his students were two sisters from the Čermáková family: Josefína (born in 1849) and Anna (born in 1854).
Josefína became an actress and joined the Prague Provisional Theatre in 1862. Dvořák was in the orchestra and fell in love with her. However, she was uninterested in him and wanted to focus on her career (she eventually married Count Václav Robert of Kounice in 1877).

Anna Cermakova and Dvořák
Instead, Dvořák began dating her younger sister Anna, and he married her in November 1873.
Unlike Haydn’s, this marriage was warm. Anna turned into a force behind Dvořák’s career, pushing him to work in America for the money – without which we wouldn’t have masterpieces like the New World Symphony or the “American” string quartet.
Dvořák, Anna, and Josefina remained close (in fact, Dvořák was the best man at her wedding). When Josefina was dying of heart trouble in the 1890s, he wrote a tribute to her in his cello concerto, quoting one of her favourite songs of his. It was a love song not only to her but to the entire close-knit family.
Conclusion
These stories reveal how interconnected musicians’ personal and professional worlds could be. In several cases, family connections led composers to find their lifelong partners and, often, important musical collaborators and supporters.
The stories of the composers who married their love interests’ sisters are more varied, between Mozart and Dvořák’s happiness and Haydn’s unhappiness.
Their stories show that sometimes in classical music history, love emerged from the closest possible circles – and also that being part of the same family wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of a happy marriage.
TIFFANY is coming to Davao on February 12, 2027

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