The Widows of Bach, Mozart, and Mendelssohn: What Happened to Them?
by Emily E. Hogstad Music lovers have always been fascinated by a good composer’s death story. Beethoven supposedly raised his arm in defiance of a thunderstorm while on his deathbed. An entire mythology arose surrounding Mozart’s final illness (“was he poisoned? ”). Bach ’s Art of Fugue remains famously and tantalizingly unfinished, interrupted by the composer’s death. However, historians tend to stop following the story once the composer dies. But have you ever wondered what happened to the composer’s families after their deaths? How did their widows keep their composer-husband’s music alive? And in eras before social safety nets, how did they survive…especially if they had kids? Here’s what happened to three of classical music’s most famous widows after their husbands died: Anna Magdalena Bach, 1701-1760. Married Bach in 1721. Anna Magdalena Bach © www.bachueberbach.de Anna Magdalena had just turned twenty when she married the widower J.S. Ba...
