Love Stories of Classical Composers (IV - Josef Strauss)

 Josef Strauss and Karoline Pruckmayer

“Always With You, Only Because of You, and Forever for You!”

  By Georg Predota, Interlude

Josef Strauss © Naxos Digital Services

The musical Strauss family dynasty took full advantage of the pleasure-seeking and carefree spirit of Imperial Vienna. As members of the public piled into the great dancehalls of the city, the Strauss family gleefully provided the musical background that gaily sent the Viennese population into throbbing gyrations. As leaders of the string section in the Strauss Orchestra, they fiddled their way into the hearts and beds of numerous young maidens. Johann Strauss I and Johann Strauss II—widely known as the Waltz King—became the darlings of the Viennese dance craze and the objects of female desire. Messy divorces, squabbles over illegitimate children and an occasional suicide attempt were all part of the Strauss musical empire. Josef Strauss (1827-1870), son of Johann I and brother of Johann II, however, wanted nothing to do with all that debauchery. He was a quiet and shy individual, who initially became an industrious engineer for the city of Vienna. He did take over shared responsibility for the Strauss Orchestra when Johann II became seriously ill. However, all he ever wanted in his private life was to marry his childhood sweetheart, the seamstress Karoline Pruckmayer (1831-1900). And that’s exactly what happened on 8 June 1857 in the St. Johann Parish Church in Leopoldstadt.

Josef Strauss: Perlen der Liebe, Op. 39 (Pearls of Love) (Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra; Jack Rothstein, cond.)

Josef Strauss’ Brennende Liebe, Op. 129

As a wedding present to his wife, Josef Strauss composed his concert waltz “Pearls of Love.” That remarkable piece of music is not merely a sparkling ballroom trinket, but Josef expanded on the traditional form of Viennese dance music. As he subsequently wrote to his wife, “As I do not want to practice the trade of beer-fiddler forever, I am turning to other kinds of composition.” Of great importance is an unmistakable symphonic development, which relies on stylistic influences from Richard Wager and Franz Liszt. Josef Strauss called it a “concert waltz,” nudging the genre away from the ballroom and into the concert hall. The first review already noted the special character of the composition, suggesting, “the newly-composed waltz is offered in a wholly original structure in new form.” In fact, “the work is remarkable for its conception and power, surpassing anything that his famous brother Johann II had yet created.” Josef’s talents as a composer were immediately recognized, but even more importantly, his marriage to Karoline was happy, successful and fulfilled. Their daughter Karolina Anna was born on 27 March 1858.

Pavlovsk Music Pavilion and Train station

In the summer of 1862, Josef’s mother Anna—keeping track of all business aspects of the Strauss Empire—ordered her son Josef to travel to Russia. Originally, Johann II was supposed to direct the concerts of the Strauss Orchestra in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg. However, the Waltz King was under the weather, and as soon as Josef arrived, he returned to Vienna and got married. Josef wasn’t particularly happy to be drafted to Russia, but he willingly substituted for his brother. Once he had returned to Vienna, Josef immediately presented a new set of waltzes that included the polka mazurka “Burning Love.” Originally it was assumed Josef had named this work after a popular flower. In the event, this polka has nothing to do with flowers, but musically encodes Josef’s burning love for his wife, as it was composed in Russia during this unexpected period of separation.

Graveyard of Josef Strauss

The first heated debates about the position of women in society and the idea of women’s liberation was a hotly debated issue in Vienna during the middle of the 19th century.

The debut of violinist Marie Grüner as conductor of Vienna’s well-known Ludwig Morelli Orchestra in 1860 was treated in numerous newspaper articles as an example of women’s emancipation, and the debates were revived as women attained high positions in business and the arts. The first female university students and the first women doctors certainly made headlines. Josef Strauss was extremely happily married to Karoline, and he wished for nothing else than to free his wife from the bonds of family and to be able to provide her with independent employment. In fact, he championed women’s causes in a whole sting of compositions, including “A Woman’s Heart,” “A Woman’s Dignity,” and the polka mazurka “The Emancipated Woman.” When the work premiered in 1870 at the ball of the Garden Society, Karoline was in the audience, and she knew that this work was especially addressed to her. In 1869, Johann II and Josef spent the summer season once more in Russia. Josef was feeling unwell, and he wrote to his wife, “I do not look good, my cheeks are hollower, I have lost my hair, I am becoming dull on the whole, I have no motivation to work.” Despite his physical ailments, Josef composed “From Afar” for Karoline. Shortly before the first performance, Josef wrote to his wife:

Always with you
only because of you and
forever for you!

Love Stories of Classical Composers (III - Giaochino Rossini)

Super Couple Giaochino Rossini and Isabella Colbran

by Georg Predota , Interlude

Giaochino Rossini , circa 1815

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 engaged by the impresario Domenico Barbaia to reside in Naples and to compose for its renowned opera houses. Barbaia was a drunkard and nearly illiterate loudmouth with a natural gift for seemingly endless self-promotion. He managed a stable of legendary opera singers and dancers, among them his mistress Isabella Colbran. The beautiful Spanish-born diva was the reigning prima donna and easily considered the finest coloratura soprano of her age. Colbran possessed a voice of great beauty, an extraordinary range of three octaves, and a technique of great virtuosity and astounding agility. The timbre of her voice was described as “sweet and mellow, with a rich middle register able to conjure touching lyricism,” and Rossini’s music specifically written for her suggests a perfect mastery of trills, half-trills, ascending and descending chromatic scales, and octave leaps.

Isabella Colbran

In 1815, Rossini composed the title role of “Elizabeth, Queen of England” specifically for the Spanish prima donna. Professional collaboration quickly translated into personal intimacy, and Rossini and Colbran became lovers. Over the coming years, Colbran became his muse and decisively shaped Rossini’s compositional art. Colbran was the daughter of the renowned violinist music teacher Juan Colbran, who was active at the Spanish court. He quickly identified the enormous musical potential of his daughter and resigned his position to support Isabella’s career. They departed for Paris and Italy, and by age twenty she had conquered the stages of Europe. And that included the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, already home to a number of famous singers, including the castrato Farinelli. However, Isabella was not only famous for her voice, she was also a gifted composer who had written several collections of songs dedicated to the Queen of Spain and the Empress of Russia.

Isabella Colbran: 6 Petits airs Italiens

Castenaso

To complement Colbran’s talent, Barbaia signed Rossini under a seven-year contract. Already known as a composer of comedies, Rossini’s choice of subjects for his opera seria was greatly influenced by Colbran’s extraordinary talent for noble and dramatic roles. In all, Rossini composed seven operas for her, creating a number of powerful and vocally demanding roles. Colbran was at the height of her powers, and her performances proved immensely popular. After having lived together for almost seven years, it was time to legitimize the relationship. As such, the wedding took place on 16 March 1822 at the church of the “Beata Vergine del Pilar” in Castenaso, near Bologna. Since the happy event was scheduled during Lenten season, a special dispensation by Cardinal Oppizzoni was required for the ceremony to take place. And as expected, the celebrity couple became the toast of the European operatic scene.

Domenico Barbaia © Wikipedia

Paradoxically, the vocal demands of the roles created for her by Rossini probably contributed to the rapid deterioration of Colbran’s voice. For an engagement in Vienna and later Venice, Rossini composed Semiramide. Once again, the title role was specifically written for Colbran, with Rossini designing the vocal part to disguise her failing vocal prowess. The opera proved highly successful, but her performances were considered disappointing. After a disastrous tour of England in 1824 Colbran retired from the stage at age 42. Although their professional life had been highly successful and profitable, the couple’s married life was not a happy one. Colbran had developed a debilitating gambling habit, and the extraordinary rise of Rossini’s career as a composer allowed him to expand into new theatres and new cities, particularly Paris and London. As such, Rossini engaged in a number of personal liaisons, above all with the courtesan and model Olympe Pélissier. Rossini and Colbran separated around 1830, and her health continued to decline. Rossini kept supporting her financially, and when Isabella died on 7 October 1845 she was buried in the Rossini family plot. It would certainly be misleading to look at Isabella Colbran exclusively through her relationship with Rossini. More than any other singer of her time, she influenced the Italian melodrama, inspiring a great number of composers. Rossini, for one, always credited her as the “greatest interpreter of his music.”

Love Stories of Classical Composers (II - Joaquín Rodrigo)

 Joaquín Rodrigo and Victoria Kamhi Arditti

“The Light of my Eyes”

by Georg Predota , Interlude

Joaquín Rodrigo and Victoria Kamhi Arditti

On 14 March 1928 a concert honoring Manuel de Falla’s admittance to the French Légion d’Honneur took place in Paris. Falla insisted that music by some of his young Spanish colleagues should be heard as well, and Joaquin Rodrigo stole the show. A reviewer reports, “At that concert we admired both the spectacular piano performance of Joaquín Rodrigo (who lost his sight due to a grave childhood disease) and the dazzling way in which he composes for the piano.” Rodrigo’s compositions quickly attracted the attention of a number of eminent Spanish pianists, among them José Iturbi, Joaquín Nín and Ricardo Viñes. As it happened, Viñes was teaching Spanish piano repertoire to an exceptionally talented pianist from Istanbul. Victoria Kamhi Arditti was the daughter of Sephardic Jewish parents belonging to the cultural and economic elite of the Turkish high bourgeoisie, and she had started her piano studies at the age of four. Since her mother was Viennese, Victoria first furthered her studies in Vienna before moving on to Paris. She personally met Joaquín Rodrigo in 1929, and fell in love with his music. “First with his music and later with him.”

Joaquin Rodrigo: Cantico de la esposa (Song of the Bride)

Love is one thing, but the economic realities of a young composer with a severe disability struggling to make his way in the world seemed insurmountable. The relationship faced stern objections from parents, friends, and colleagues, and was characterized by periods of deep personal reflection. But in the end, love managed to clear all obstacles. Victoria writes, “on a gray November day I had taken the train to the Spanish border. In Barcelona Joaquín and his older brother, Paco, were waiting to welcome me to Spain. As we followed the highway to Valencia, I was lost in admiration of the picturesque little villages we passed through, and the exuberant vegetation. Everything seemed strange to me, the people, the customs, and the activities. I was surprised to see so much luxury, such abundance, in the house of my future parents-in-law.” They started to prepare for the wedding in the “strictest intimacy,” and the happy event took place on 19 January 1933. But the financial struggle continued. Initially they settled in Valencia, but when Rodrigo composed “Song of the Bride” in 1934, which he considered his best vocal work, it was “a very difficult time of our life when, after just one year of marriage, we had to be separated for economic reasons.” 

Eventually Rodrigo was awarded the “Conde de Cartagena Scholarhip” allowing him to join his wife in Paris. Victoria gave up her career as a pianist to devote all her efforts to the works of her husband, collaborating with him in musical and literary matters. When the scholarship was initially renewed, the couple decided to spend some time in Germany. However, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, the scholarship fund was no longer available and they had to find refuge at the Institute for the Blind in Freiburg. Three years of extended hardship finally came to an end in 1939, and Rodrigo completed his most famous composition, the Conceirto de Aranjuez. Victoria writes that shorty after the premiere of the concerto on 9 November 1940, their daughter Cecilia was born. “And what about her eyes?” Victoria asked weakly. “They’re magnificent, blue.”

Victoria Kamhi Arditti and Cecilia

Victoria Kamhi de Rodrigo played a crucial role in her husband’s later success as a composer. She wrote the scripts for his ballets “Pavana Real” and “Juana y los Caldereros,” and adapted the texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Kamhi was fluent in five languages, and she authored German and French versions of her husband’s vocal music.
She also penned her memoirs in 1986 published under the title “Hand in Hand with Joaquin Rodrigo. My life at the Maestro’s side.” Kamhi helped Rodrigo to develop an individual and distinct musical style, and she was his constant companion and inspiration. She took over a wide range of musical responsibilities, including managing his career. Rodrigo tenderly wrote, “My wife Victoria, my faithful companion and collaborator, has been my inspiration and my drive, she has given me confidence in myself and unending love, and she has dedicated her life to me and has been the light of my eyes.” Kamhi died in 1997, two years before her husband; they are both buried in Aranjuez.

Love Stories of Classical Composers (I - Jacques Offenbach)

 “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.

Let's start with Jacques Offenbach.

“Hérminie was right again”
Jacques Offenbach and Hérminie d’Alcain

by Georg Predota, Interlude

Offenbach’s family

  

After Jacques Offenbach abruptly discontinued his studies at the Paris Conservatoire he gradually built a reputation composing for and performing in the fashionable salons of Paris. And at one of these cultured gatherings, his eyes fell upon a young Spanish woman by the name of Marie Manuela Hérminie d’Alcain. She was the daughter of the Carlist General José Maria Xavier d’Alcain Garro, who had been forced into French exile. The General died in 1828, and his wife Jeanne-Marie Céleste d’Alcain remarried Michael George Mitchell in 1835. Hérminie was barely 15 years of age but Jacques was determined to marry her. He dedicated a waltz to her in 1841, and a Romanze in 1843 as well. However, her family was not convinced that the young cellist was in any financial position to proposed marriage. As such, Michael George Mitchell arranged for a tour to England.

Offenbach’s leading ladies – Marie Garnier, Zulma Bouffar, Lea Silly, Rose Deschamps

Offenbach later reports to his librettist Emile Chevalet, “As you can imagine, music was played after dinner. I played my Musette, and the audience hammered on the table for at least five minutes and screamed “da capo,” so I was forced to repeat the piece.” A critic wrote, “Offenbach’s execution and taste excited both wonder and pleasure, the genius he exhibited amounting to absolute inspiration.” The highlight of the England tour was undoubtedly an invitation from Queen Victoria to perform at Windsor on 6 June 1844. The Illustrated London News reported, “Herr Jacques Offenbach, the astonishing violoncellist, performed on Thursday evening at Windsor before the Emperor of Russia, the King of Saxony, Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert with great success.” Offenbach’s tour of England was a rousing professional and financial success. He returned to Paris full of confidence and in anticipation of his marriage to Hérminie, but there was a further obstacle. Her family demanded that Jacques convert to Roman Catholicism.

Offenbach and his son Auguste

And so it came to pass that Jacques Offenbach was baptized on 8 August 1844 in the church of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Nouvelle. Comtesse Madeleine-Sophie Bertin de Vaux and Edme Ernest Foucher acted as sponsors, and only a couple of days later the couple wed at Saint-Roch on 14 August 1844. The blushing bride was 17 years old, and the bridegroom was 25. The newlywed couple quickly establish themselves in the social and artistic scene, and Hérminie becomes the catalyst for Jacques’ success. A friend reports, “Jacques was highly confident in musical matters, but he always listened to his wife’s advice. Not a single page of music was delivered which he had not played to her first. And although he defended himself in the rare cases that she declared something unworthy of him, the next day a new version was composed and presented to Madame Offenbach for inspection.”

Hortense Schneider

The union produced four daughters and a son Charles Ignace Auguste, who followed in his father’s compositional footsteps. Sadly, Auguste died of tuberculosis at the age of 21. The Offenbach household quickly becomes an important musical and intellectual center in Paris, and their “Friday Evenings” attract the composers Georges Bizet and Léo Delibes, the painters Edouard Detaille and Gustave Doré, the librettists Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy and the journalist Hippolyte de Villemessant. During summer holiday, the Offenbach salon annually moves to the “Villa Orphée” on the Normandy Coast. Throughout his life, Jacques continued his busy professional traveling schedule, and his favorite female interpreters often accompany him. It is claimed that he never had an affair with his favorite singer Hortense Schneider, but we do know that he had a dalliance with the 20-year old Zulma Bouffar, a relationship that produced 2 children. Nevertheless, his 36-year marriage to Hérminie was essentially happy, and after his death a friend reported that Hérminie “gave him courage, shared his ordeals and comforted him always with tenderness and devotion.”