The Most Memorable Composer Christmases: Mahler, Rachmaninoff, and More

by Emily E. Hogsta

Everyone approaches the winter holidays differently: some people feel excitement, while others feel dread. It can be a season of celebration, crushing loneliness, and everything in between.

The great composers also experienced a wide variety of Christmas celebrations. Today, we’re looking at five memorable Christmases from the lives of five great composers. (Read Part 1 here: The Most Memorable Composer Christmases: Chopin, Schumann, and More)

Mahler’s Devastating Breakup – 1884

Gustav Mahler

In mid-1883, 23-year-old Gustav Mahler took a job conducting opera at the Königliches Theater in Kassel, Germany.

While there, he began working with 25-year-old coloratura soprano Johanna Richter and fell in love with her. It was his first intense love affair.

We are not sure if Richter reciprocated Mahler’s feelings quite as intensely; only one letter from her survives.

In 1884, he began composing for her, writing lyrics based on folksongs and setting them to music. He called the resulting song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, or Songs of a Wayfarer. His December 1884 was absorbed by the project.   

Despite his passion for Richter, the couple was ultimately doomed.

He spent New Year’s Eve of 1884 with her and wrote to a friend about the experience:

I spent yesterday evening alone with her, both of us silently awaiting the arrival of the new year.

Her thoughts did not linger over the present, and when the clock struck midnight, and tears gushed from her eyes, I felt terrible that I, I was not allowed to dry them.

She went into the adjacent room and stood for a moment in silence at the window, and when she returned, silently weeping, a sense of inexpressible anguish had arisen between us like an everlasting partition wall, and there was nothing I could do but press her hand and leave.

As I came outside, the bells were ringing, and the solemn chorale could be heard from the tower.

Although the relationship didn’t work out, Mahler did reuse ideas from Songs of a Wayfarer in his first symphony, which he composed between 1887 and 1888. He wasn’t about to let his holiday heartbreak go to waste!

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel Is Disappointed by the Christmas Singing of Papal Singers – 1839

Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel

Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny Mendelssohn were two of the most talented child prodigies in the history of music. They remained close for their entire lives.

Felix, however, was encouraged to pursue a musical career, while Fanny’s musical accomplishments were viewed as mere feminine adornments. (Luckily, her husband understood her talent and encouraged her music-making.)

Long story short, Felix got support that she never did, and in 1830, when Fanny was 24, and Felix was 21, the family sent him on a ten-month trip to Italy…without Fanny. The trip was formative, and Fanny was fascinated by the stories of his travels.   

Happily, Fanny got to go eventually. Between 1839 and 1840, Fanny, her husband, and her baby son Sebastian took their own trip to Italy, following in Felix’s footsteps.

On 1 January 1840, she wrote to her brother, sharing some observations about musical life in Rome:

We’re enjoying a pleasant life here. We have a comfortable, sunny apartment and thus far have enjoyed the nicest weather almost continuously. And since we’re in no particular hurry, we’ve been viewing the attractions of Rome at our leisure, little by little.

It’s only in the realm of music, however, that I haven’t experienced anything edifying since I’ve been in Italy.

I heard the Papal singers 3 times – once in the Sistine Chapel on the first Sunday in Advent, once in the same place on Christmas Eve, and once in St. Peter’s basilica on Christmas day – and have to report that I was astounded that the performances were far from perfect.

Right now, they seem to lack good voices and sing completely out of tune…

One can’t part with one’s trained conceptions so easily.

Church music in Germany, performed with a chorus consisting of a few hundred singers and a suitably large orchestra, assaults both the ear and the memory in such a way that, in comparison, the pair of singers here seemed quite thin in the wide expanses of St. Peter’s.

With respect to the music, a few passages stood out as particularly beautiful. On Christmas Eve, for instance, after the parts had dragged on separately for a long time, there was a lively, 4-part fugal passage in A-minor that was very nice.

I later discovered that it began precisely at the moment when the Pope entered the chapel, and I didn’t know it at the time because women, unfortunately, are placed in a section behind a grille from which they cannot see anything.

This section is far away, and in addition, the air is darkened by the smoke from candles and incense.

On the other hand, I could at least occasionally see the officials on Christmas day in St. Peter’s very well, and found them quite splendid and amusing.

We naturally had a Christmas tree, because of Sebastian, and constructed it out of cypress, myrtle, and orange branches. The branches were very lovely, but it wasn’t the best-looking tree, and Sebastian and I attempted to outdo each other the entire day in feeling homesick.

Johannes Brahms Surprises Clara Schumann – 1865

Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann’s wife, virtuoso pianist Clara Schumann, stayed close friends until the end of their lives.

They never had a traditional romance, but they loved each other deeply, and over their decades-long relationship, Brahms spent many holidays with Clara and her children.

At Christmas 1865, Johannes was 32, and Clara was 46. Both had busy performing careers that necessitated frequent travel, and Clara assumed that she wouldn’t be seeing Johannes for the holidays.   

She sent him a traveling bag as a Christmas gift. With the gift, she included a letter talking about her daughter Julie, who had recently been ill.

She wrote, “Thank heaven we have fairly good news of Julie. She has got over the danger of typhoid, but it will be a long time before she has completely recovered.”

The family was worried about Julie’s health, and they didn’t even bother lighting candles on the tree that year.

But then the door opened – and Brahms appeared! He had made a seven-hour journey to Düsseldorf to surprise the family and check in on Julie himself.

Clara wrote in her diary that she was “very pleased and excited.”

Read our article about Christmas with Brahms.

Rachmaninoff Flees Russia – 1917

Kubey-Rembrandt Studios: Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1921

The Russian Revolution began in February 1917, leading to Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication in March and a provisional government taking power.

During that year’s October Revolution, a Bolshevik insurrection overthrew the provisional government. Once the Bolsheviks took power, a broader civil war broke out.

The conflict impacted Rachmaninoff’s life deeply. In the spring of 1917, he returned from touring to find that his estate had been seized by the Social Revolutionary Party. He departed, disgusted, and vowed never to return.

He and his family moved to Moscow. As tensions rose throughout the fall, he made edits to his first piano concerto with the sound of bullets flying in the background.   

During this tense time, he received an invitation to give a series of recitals in Scandinavia. He accepted because it would give him and his family an excuse to flee the country.

On 22 December 1917, the Rachmaninoffs got on a train in St. Petersburg, crowded with terrified passengers who feared arrest. Fortunately, the officials who met them were kind.

The following day, they arrived at the Finnish border. To get across it, Rachmaninoff, his wife, and two daughters had to travel in an open peasant sleigh during a blizzard.

They arrived in Stockholm on Christmas Eve. Exhausted, the family stayed in their hotel.

After escaping Russia, Rachmaninoff would go on to a celebrated performing career, but he would compose less and less. Later in his life, he would remark, “I left behind my desire to compose: losing my country, I lost myself also.”

Leonard Bernstein Conducts the Historic Berlin Wall Concert – 1989

Leonard Bernstein

In November 1989, the Berlin Wall was taken down, signaling the demise of the so-called Iron Curtain that had hung across Europe for a generation.

Conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein helped to organise a performance at the present-day Konzerthaus Berlin. This venue had been burned out during World War II but was reconstructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s, opening just a few years before this concert.

Musicians from all around the world participated, including men and women from Leningrad, Dresden, New York, London, and Paris.

Together on Christmas Day 1989, they performed a concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Bernstein programmed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and changed the Ode to Joy to the Ode to Freedom.

It was broadcast all over the world and became one of the most famous orchestral performances of the twentieth century, seen live by around 100 million viewers. How’s that for a memorable Christmas?

Eight of the Saddest Piano Concerto Slow Movements

by Emily E. Hogstad 

If you’re a classical music fan drawn to sad, slow movements in piano concertos, this is the list you’ve been looking for.

Whether it’s Chopin’s gentle melancholy, Ravel’s elegant wistfulness, or Rachmaninoff’s romantic despair, each of these slow movements paints a picture of a particular kind of sadness.

© chopinacademy.com

Although every ranking having to do with classical music is subjective, we numbered our picks anyway, from least sad to saddest. Find out which concerto we’ve dubbed the saddest at the end.

8. Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1, Mov. 2  

Chopin wrote this concerto in 1830 when he was just twenty years old.

The inspiration behind this piece is unclear…but we know there was one.

Frédéric Chopin in 1849

In a letter, Chopin wrote a cryptic observation to his best friend (and potential crush or even lover) Tytus Woyciechowski:

“Here you doubtless observe my tendency to do wrong against my will. As something has involuntarily crept into my head through my eyes, I love to indulge it, even though it may be all wrong.”

It’s a mysterious confession. Some believe he’s referring to his other crush, singer Konstancja Gładkowska. Others wonder if he’s referring to Woyciechowski, with whom he exchanged a number of romantic letters as a young man.

Chopin wrote to Woyciechowski about the slow movement in particular:

“It is not meant to create a powerful effect; it is rather a Romance, calm and melancholy, giving the impression of someone looking gently towards a spot that calls to mind a thousand happy memories. It is a kind of reverie in the moonlight on a beautiful spring evening.”

The specific sadness of this music is a gentle, possibly flirtatious melancholy.

7. Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2, Mov. 3   

Brahms’s second piano concerto covers similar emotional territory to the Chopin Romance. Save for a brief stormy interlude in the centre of the movement, this is not overtly tragic music: it’s more brooding, repressed melancholy.

Johannes Brahms, ca 1875

The movement begins with a soulful cello solo (an idea that Brahms may have lifted from his dear friend Clara Wieck Schumann, who had included similar instrumentation in the piano concerto she’d written as a teenager decades earlier).

The final portion of the movement, where the cello returns again and moves with the piano through a number of keys together, is the absolute epitome of bittersweet regret.

6. Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3, Mov. 2   

Béla Bartók composed his third piano concerto in 1945 when he was 64 years old. He was terminally ill with leukaemia at the time.

That October, his wife, pianist Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, was set to celebrate her 42nd birthday. He began working on a third piano concerto for her as a birthday present. He was hopeful that after his death, whenever it occurred, she could tour with it and make money.

Béla Bartók in the 1920s

Tragically, he died in late September, a month before her birthday. Fortunately, the piano concerto, save for the final seventeen measures, was completed.

The slow movement of this concerto feels like a hushed, tender, intimate goodbye. Regret and wistfulness are mixed in with profound gratitude.

5. Ravel: Piano Concerto, Mov. 2   

Ravel wrote of his piano concerto:

“My only wish…was to write a genuine concerto, that is, a brilliant work, clearly highlighting the soloist’s virtuosity, without seeking to show profundity. As a model, I took two musicians who, in my opinion, best illustrated this type of composition: Mozart and Saint-Saëns…”

Maurice Ravel

In particular, he looked to Mozart’s clarinet quintet for inspiration. That melody is an unusual twenty measures long. In his concerto, Ravel’s melody is an astonishing thirty-four.

“That flowing phrase!” he wrote later. “How I worked over it bar by bar! It nearly killed me!”

This long melody calls to mind a long, wistful train of thought from the middle of the night, when nothing in the darkness interrupts the thought.

This music is sad in a restrained way. A listener can feel a great depth of sorrow hiding just beneath the surface.

4. Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2, Mov. 2   

Shostakovich wrote his second piano concerto for his pianist son Maxim’s nineteenth birthday in 1957. Maxim premiered it at his graduation concert at the Moscow Conservatory that May.

Over the past few years, father and son had suffered a great deal together. In 1954, Maxim’s physicist mother, Nina, had died suddenly. Maxim was just sixteen. Shostakovich was forced to become a single father overnight: a role he was completely unprepared to play.

Dmitri Shostakovich

The slow movement of this concerto evokes emotions that a father and son might feel upon seeing a son graduate after the death of a beloved wife and mother: pride, yearning, and a sadness that is simultaneously quiet and deeply intimate.

3. Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23, Mov. 2   

Mozart wrote his 23rd piano concerto in early 1786, two months before the premiere of one of his best-loved operas, The Marriage of Figaro.

A listener can immediately hear the influence of opera here. It’s especially dramatic because the piano is alone when it enters with its atmospheric, aria-like, minor-key melody.

Croce: Mozart Family Portait (detail), 1781

Starting the movement with a solo part creates a kind of sudden, intense intimacy between the soloist, composer, and audience.

2. Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4, Mov. 2   

The orchestral introduction to this slow movement is loud and brutally unforgiving. The piano answers with a sense of quiet despair.

That conflict and dialogue create the narrative that drives the entire movement.

Beethoven in 1803

Three movements into their unnerving conversation, the piano takes over for a solo turn. We discover that the piano still has fight in it, with a series of loud ringing trills, before sinking back down into a whisper again.

When the orchestra returns, it is also quiet, witnessing the piano’s unraveling.

1. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, Mov. 2   

Here it is: the saddest slow movement of a piano concerto: the Adagio sostenuto from Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto.

This movement begins with slow, hushed chords in the strings, followed by a mournful chain of arpeggios in the piano.

The winds contribute hushed fragments of a heartbreaking theme to the steady accompaniment of the piano.

When the soloist and the orchestra players begin interacting with one another, it feels like a confessional conversation. The music conveys all kinds of sadness: grief, regret, yearning, and more, appearing in all different types of musical colours and textures.

Kubey-Rembrandt Studios: Sergei Rachmaninoff, 1921

Rachmaninoff wrote his second piano concerto while coming out of a severe period of depression. For a while, he was seeing a therapist daily. It seems that writing this concerto helped him to process what he needed to.

His composing career continued for decades afterwards, and this work became one of the most beloved piano concertos ever written. It’s sad music…but it had a happy ending.

The Seven Most Popular Piano Concertos on YouTube

by Emily E. Hogstad

YouTube is full of brilliant piano concerto performances, but a handful have attracted truly massive global audiences.

From Rachmaninoff (lots and lots of Rachmaninoff…) to Mozart to Chopin, here are the seven most viewed piano concerto performances on YouTube, along with our commentary about each, in reverse countdown order.

And not to sound like a YouTube title cliche, but the most popular one might surprise you!

7. Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1 by Olga Scheps

Olga Scheps is a German pianist born in 1984, who is especially passionate about the works of Chopin.

This performance of his first piano concerto was recorded in 2014 with the Chamber Orchestra of Polish Radio.

Scheps brings an elegant, lyrical touch to this repertoire. Every phrase conjures some new gradation of emotion. She concentrates hard while still being clearly delighted by the music she’s playing, and that combination is irresistible.

The performance’s intimate atmosphere is enhanced by the smaller chamber orchestra.

6. Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 by Yunchan Lim 

Yunchan Lim’s winning performance from the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition made him a classical music superstar overnight…and this performance is a major reason why. Even videos just commenting on this video have millions of views!

Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto is notorious for its countless demands, both technical and emotional, but Lim vanquishes all of them with an ease that verges on preternatural.

His poise, control, and intensity are jaw-dropping. (Did we mention he’s only eighteen in this video?)

This performance is a must-listen for any modern piano lover.

The performance went so viral that the Van Cliburn Competition actually posted a second version featuring remastered audio. That one has 4.9 million views of its own. If you combine the two, it would place number four on this list.

5. Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 1

Here’s another competition-winning video that went viral: a performance of Chopin’s first piano concerto by Seong-Jin Cho, who won the 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition.

Cho’s interpretation is refined and heartfelt, with a natural elegance that makes even difficult passages seem effortless.

It’s sheer joy to watch him finish the concerto; he looks like he’s in his own little world of musicmaking, and we’ve been lucky enough to get to spy on it.

4. Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 by Nobuyuki Tsujii  

The musicality of blind pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii touches audiences deeply.

He learns music by ear, which enables him to learn (and hear) this music in a different way from other performers.

His technical mastery is remarkable, as is his heartbreaking sincerity.

The YouTube heatmap reveals that the most popular part of the performance is the ebullient ending from 30:45 on, where all of the sad loneliness of the first two movements turns into hard-won triumph. It’s mysterious and moving.

3. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 by Yeol Eum Son  

This performance is from the final round of the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition, where pianist Yeol Eum Son would go on to win the silver medal.

It’s a lovely performance. Her touch throughout is beautifully measured. Every phrase has something to say, and serves a purpose within the longer musical line.

The concerto’s most famous part is its slow movement, which begins at 15:05. It was used in the movie Elvira Madigan, which has become the concerto’s nickname.

2. Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 by Anna Fedorova  

Anna Fedorova’s rendition of Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto is the kind of performance that hits a listener squarely in the center of the chest: full-blooded and deeply personal.

Filmed at the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, this video is shot in a way that emphasises the architecture of the hall, as well as the way that the hall’s audience is wrapped tightly around the musicians. It lends a sense of intimacy to both the music-making and the cinematography.

Fedorova’s ability to balance power and restraint makes the concerto especially moving. Listen at 4:20 to how she treats the dreamy ascending and descending passages, then immediately follows those up with a quicksilver fleetness.

1. Cat Concerto from Tom and Jerry by Yannie Tan

66 million views   

Here’s the most-viewed piano concerto video on YouTube. Turns out it’s not actually a piano concerto at all: it’s a version of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, as arranged for the cartoon Tom and Jerry, performed by pianist Yannie Tan.

It’s cute, fun, and completely unexpected. The result is pure piano joy…complete with a cat ear costume.

Conclusion

From Rachmaninoff’s second concerto to Rachmaninoff’s third concerto, from Chopin to Chopin, and from Mozart to a concerto for a cat, all seven of these performances prove how compelling piano concerto videos can be to online audiences.

Which one of these seven is your favourite? And which pianist do you think will be the first to break 100 million views?

The Evolution of Rachmaninoff's Music (From 11 to 67 Years Old)

451,780 views Premiered Mar 12, 2023

Enjoy this video showing the evolution of Rachmaninoff's music from age 11 to 67 years old. 0:00 11 Years Old: Piano Piece in D Minor, 1884 0:26 12 Years Old: Romance in A Minor For Violin and Piano, 1885 1:07 15 Years Old: 4 Pieces, IV. Gavotte, 1888 1:44 17 Years Old: 2 Pieces for 6 Hands, I. Waltz, 1890 2:09 18 Years Old: Canon in E Minor, 1891 2:33 19 Years Old: Morceaux de fantaisie, Op.3, II. Prélude, 1892 3:15 20 Years Old: Suite No.1, Op.5, IV. Easter, 1893 3:46 21 Years Old: Romance in G Major, 1894 4:24 22 Years Old: Symphony No.1, Op.13, I. Allegro ma non troppo, 1895 4:56 23 Years Old: Moments musicaux, Op.16, VI. Maestoso, 1896 5:30 26 Years Old: 2 Pieces, II. Fughetta, 1899 6:15 27 Years Old: Piano Concerto No.2, Op.18, I. Moderato, 1900 7:02 29 Years Old: 12 Romances, Op.21, V. Lilacs, 1902 7:36 30 Years Old: 10 Preludes, Op.23, IV. Andante cantabile, 1903 8:22 33 Years Old: Polka italienne, 1906 8:43 34 Years Old: Piano Sonata No.1, Op.28, I. Allegro moderato, 1907 9:09 36 Years Old: Piano Concerto No.3, Op.30, I. Allegro ma non tanto, 1909 9:50 37 Years Old: Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op.31, XII. We Sing to Thee, 1910 10:27 38 Years Old: Etudes-tableaux, Op.33, VI. Allegro con fuoco, 1911 11:14 39 Years Old: 14 Romances, Op.34, XIV. Vocalise, 1912 11:46 40 Years Old: Piano Sonata No.2, Op.36, I. Allegro agitato, 1913 12:33 42 Years Old: All-Night Vigil, Op.37, VI. Ave Maria, 1915 13:03 43 Years Old: Etudes-tableaux, Op.39, VI. Little Red Riding Hood, 1916 13:47 44 Years Old: Fragments, 1917 14:31 53 Years Old: Piano Concerto No.4, Op.40, I. Allegro vivace, 1926 15:17 58 Years Old: Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op.42, XIV. Andante, 1931 15:45 61 Years Old: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op.43, XXIV. A tempo un poco meno mosso, 1934 16:40 63 Years Old: Symphony No.3, Op.44, I. Allegro moderato, 1936 17:11 67 Years Old: Symphonic Dances, Op.45, I. Non Allegro, 1940 Composer(s): Sergei Rachmaninoff Original Music: Sergei Rachmaninoff © (1884-1940)

Classical Music About Mothers

by Emily E. Hogstadt, Interlude

For generations, mothers have been a source of inspiration for classical composers.

© friendsofchambermusic.ca

Today we’re looking at twenty pieces of classical music that pay tribute to motherhood, from song cycles written from a mother’s point of view to references to the Virgin Mary and Mother Goose, to the laments of mothers who have lost their children, to bittersweet musical tributes of children who have lost their mothers.

Frauen-Liebe und Leben by Robert Schumann (1840) 

In 1840 Robert Schumann was preoccupied by domestic thoughts. In September he was able to marry his longtime love, Clara Wieck Schumann. Her father had done everything he could to discourage their union but was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the marriage. 

The Schumann children

It was against this backdrop that he wrote Frauen-Liebe und Leben (“A Woman’s Life and Love”). It’s a cycle of eight songs that follows a narrator’s journey of falling in love, getting married, and having a baby.

The seventh song includes the following lines:

Only a mother knows
What it means to love and be happy.

These lyrics are more than a touch ironic, given that Clara Schumann was one of the best pianists of her generation, and would become deeply unhappy when motherhood got in the way of her career.

Songs My Mother Taught Me by Antonín Dvořák (1880) 

This song is the fourth in a set of seven called Gypsy Songs, which contains lyrics both in German and Czech.

The narrator sings of songs that have been passed down through generations, and the bittersweet joys that come from passing them to young children.

The song has arguably become more famous in its instrumental transcriptions, such as this one for violin.

Mother Goose March by John Philip Sousa (1883) 

Mother Hubbard March by John Philip Sousa (1885)

John Philip Sousa wrote two nursery rhyme-themed marches. Both are charming, albeit not particularly famous.

Once when he was on tour, Sousa was unimpressed by an audience’s lukewarm response. He told his musicians, “If they’re going to act like children, we’ll give them children’s music!” and ordered them to take out the Mother Goose March.

That incident became an in-joke in the band.

“Mamma quel vino e generoso” from Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni

In this opera, a villager named Turiddu sleeps with his former fiancée Lola. Unfortunately, Lola is now married to a carter named Alfio.

When he finds out, Alfio challenges Turiddu to a duel. As he accepts the challenge, Turiddu bites Alfio’s ear until it bleeds, which signals that it will be a fight to the death.

Cavalleria rusticana at the opera’s world premiere,
17 May 1890, Teatro Costanzi, Rome

Turiddu speaks with his mother and begs her that if he does not return, she treats his secondary love interest – a woman named Santuzza – kindly.

The final words to this aria are famous: “One kiss, mother! One more kiss! – Farewell!” Turiddu leaves to meet his fate, and his mother and Santuzza embrace. As you can imagine, Turiddu does not survive the duel.

Empress of Night by Amy Beach (1891) 

This work by American composer Amy Beach was a family affair. The text was written by her husband two years after their marriage, and it was dedicated to her mother.

O Mother of God Vigilantly Praying by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1893) 

In this work, Rachmaninoff was inspired by one of the most famous mothers of all time: Mary the mother of Jesus.

This stunning work for a capella chorus is an homage to the musical traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, which always loomed large in Rachmaninoff’s creative consciousness.

Songs My Mother Taught Me by Charles Ives (1895) 

In 1895, American composer Charles Ives set an English translation of the same poem that Dvořák had set fifteen years earlier.

This setting features a quiet piano accompaniment with a slowly rocking rhythm.

Muttertändelei by Richard Strauss (1899) 

Translated into English, the title of this song is “Mother Chatter.”

The narrator is an excited new mother chattering to everyone in earshot about her perfect brand-new baby.

She sings:

Just look at my beautiful child,
With long, golden locks,
Blue eyes and rosy cheeks
People, do you also have one like it?
People, no you have not!

The work could be inspired by Strauss’s muse and soprano wife Pauline, who gave birth to their first and only child in 1897.

Sinfonia Domestica by Richard Strauss (1903) 

The Sinfonia Domestica is an over-the-top celebration of domesticity.

Instead of composing a symphonic poem about a character from literature or mythology, here Richard Strauss writes one based solely on the various daily goings-on in his own household.

All sorts of homey activities are portrayed: a walk outdoors with their son, a cozy family dinner, spousal arguments…and, after he and his wife put their baby to sleep for the night, an eye-widingly graphic love scene!

Wenn dein Mütterlein from Kindertotenlieder by Gustav Mahler (1904) 

Kindertodtenlieder translated into English means “Songs on the Death of Children.”

The lyrics came from a set of 428 poems written by nineteenth-century poet Friedrich Rückert, who lost his children to scarlet fever and chronicled his grief in verse.

Gustav Mahler as a child

As a child, Mahler witnessed many of his siblings dying young, and he found himself drawn to this material. His setting of “Wenn dein Mütterlein” (“When Your Mama”) is especially heartbreaking:

When your mama
steps in through the door
and I turn my head
to see her,
on her face
my gaze does not first fall,
but at the place
nearer the doorstep,
there, where your
dear little face would be,
when you with bright joy
would step inside,
as you used to, my little daughter.

Tragically, three years after Mahler finished this work, one of his own daughters would die of scarlet fever.

“When I really lost my daughter, I could not have written these songs anymore,” he confessed to a friend.

About Mother by Josef Suk (1907) 

Josef Suk wrote these sweet piano pieces for his children about their mother. (In a callback to an earlier piece on this list, that mother was none other than Antonín Dvořák’s daughter!)

There are flashes of Bohemian or Dvořákian characters here, as interpreted by a younger composer from a new generation.

Ma Mere l’Oye by Maurice Ravel (1910)

The Ma Mere l’Oye (or Mother Goose) suite was originally composed as a simple piano duet for two of his friends’ children.

One of those children later recalled, “Ravel used to tell me marvelous stories. I would sit on his knee and he would begin, ‘once upon a time…’ And it was Laideronette, Beauty and the Beast, and the adventures of a poor mouse that he had made up for me.”

Turns out Maurice Ravel was a bit of a mother hen himself!

The work was so enchanting that Ravel soon orchestrated it, to great effect.

Two Musical Relics of my Mother by Percy Grainger (1905-12) 

Australian composer Percy Grainger and his mother Rose had a famously (some would say infamously) close relationship. When he was a boy, his father cheated on his mother, giving her syphilis. Understandably, there were tensions at home.

Percy wrote his first works for his mother, and, as he was homeschooled, she was his main teacher.

Rose turned into her son’s personal and professional manager, and they lived together until her death in 1922.

Senza Mamma from Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini (1917) 

Puccini’s one-act opera Suor Angelica is set in a convent. Three nuns discuss their dreams. Sister Angelica confesses that she dreams of being contacted by her wealthy noble family, whom she has not heard from in seven years.

A visitor arrives. It’s Angelica’s aunt, who wants her to sign a piece of paper. Once she does, Angelica’s claim to her inheritance will be renounced.

Angelica reveals that she had an illegitimate son seven years ago. Her aunt coldly informs her that the child has been dead for two years.

Angelica hallucinates her son and drinks poison. She realizes too late that she is dying by suicide, a mortal sin that will separate her from her son in the afterlife.

In desperation, she calls upon the Virgin Mary to send her a miracle. Just before she dies, she sees her son running toward her to hug her.

This stunning aria gives full voice to Angelica’s motherly heartbreak.

Mother and Child by John Ireland (1918) 

English composer John Ireland wrote this set of eight brief songs based on nursery song poems by author Christina Rossetti.

The final poem is a gut punch; it describes flowers in a garland “for death”, presumably a funeral arrangement.

Cradle Song of the Lonely Mother by Amy Beach (1924) 

Composer Amy Beach also addressed a similar topic.

In this somber cradle song, the gentle rocking rhythms and eerie chromaticism suggest that a mother is remembering a child who has died.

It’s a heartbreaking reminder of how the loss of a child was a formative life experience for so many mothers throughout the history of classical music.

Tiny’s Song from Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten (1941) 

In 1941 British composer Benjamin Britten wrote an operetta tackling one of the most American of characters: mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan.

In the operetta, the massive Paul Bunyan (reportedly as tall as the Empire State Building) finds a wife as tall as he is, and she gives birth to a woman they name Tiny.

Mrs. Bunyan isn’t happy at home, so she leaves the household and eventually dies.

When Tiny arrives in camp, the men are attracted to her, since she is the only woman. She explains she is not in the mood for love; she is still mourning her mother.

Lullaby, From Jewish Folk Poetry by Dmitri Shostakovich (1948) 

This gloriously off-kilter lullaby is a deeply moving work by Shostakovich.

It comes from his song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. He said that he was intrigued by the idea of “a jolly melody on sad intonations.”

The words are tragic; the mother is singing to her child about its father, who has been imprisoned by the Tsar in Siberia.

“Sleep, my dear, whilst no sleep comes to me,” the mother implores her son.

Two Hymns to the Mother of God by John Tavener (1985) 

English composer John Tavener wrote a simple introduction in the score to his Two Hymns to the Mother of God:

These Two Hymns were written in memory of my mother. The first is for double choir and is a setting of a text from the Liturgy of St Basil. It speaks of the almost cosmic power attributed to the Mother of God by the Orthodox Church. The second comes from the Vigil Service of the Dormition (of falling asleep) of the Mother of God. She invites the apostles to gather from the end of the earth to bury her body in Gethsemane and asks her to receive her spirit.