Love in Classical Music

Parla

'Love' is such a big word, with many meanings. What catagories of love are you highlighting? There is of course love for another person (which can take many forms from affectionate, passionate, romantic, platonic all the way to unrequainted etc.). Then there is love of a place,nature, of a time or of a memory. The is also love of nation or homeland...

I don't doubt that various forms of love have been great motivations for all composers. Britten's love for Peter Pears not only led him to cretae numerous song cycles but also determined a great deal of his vocal writing in operas - it is entirely possible that had Pears been a bass rather than a tenor we would have seen a very different 'Peter Grimes'. 

There are so many numerous dedications to love in music that it would impossible to create a full list; in Mahler alone there is the final movement of the third, the 'Alma' theme in the 6th and Kintotenlieder, with its reflection on love and loss. Schumann's love for Clara was a clear inspiration (and almost as clear for Brahms).

While I am not musicologist I was promoted by something you wrote to spend part of last night reading about the B minor key. In particular I was ready on Wikipedia about how musical theorists of the past often ascribed qualities to certain keys. To quote:

 'In Baroque times, B minor was regarded as the key of passive suffering. The theorist Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart... regarded B minor as a key expressing a quiet acceptance of fate and very gentle complaint, something commentators find to be in line with Bach's use of the key in the St. John Passion. By Beethoven's time, however, the perception of B minor had changed considerably: Francesco Galeazzi wrote that B minor was not suitable for music in good taste, and Beethoven labelled a B minor melodic idea in one of his sketchbooks as a "black key". In relation to the Baroque interpretation of the scale, the B minor chord also has a very melancholic and grieving feel to it, giving the feeling of suffering and gentle complaint.' (Wikipedia, 2012)

(Afer reading this I wondered if this might be the reason Beethoven wrote so little in B minor and if Liszt chose the key simply because he wanted to avoid keys already used by his hero in the piano sonatas.)

I wonder if there is any keys have been associated with love (in any of its forms)?

Parla

I will stray a little from your topic to offer another observation on the B minor post.

I was researching the B minor key in the context of the Liszt and Chopin piano sonatas, which I decided to pair on my ipod this week (together with some late Liszt and the Scriabin 'Black Mass' sonata). I should state at this point that most of the links are are the encouragement of a video by Pierre-Laurant Aimard, who puts everything but the Chopin in the first recital of his 'Liszt Project' disc. To be fair I don't hear (and as a non-musician I have to rely on my ears, which is a deficiency I probably will not be able to overcome!) suffering in the Liszt, but certainly a tenderness (which is the section that I feel works best in Aimard's recording).

Back to love. I am not sure I understand your definition but that should not get in the way! Returning to Britten Billy Budd is a work that deals with the subject of love in a very interesting way. What sort of love is present in this work, between Billy and Vere? When Vere delivers the news to Billy that he must die for the murder of Claggert it is not the damning condemnation of many operas but instead something tender, resigned almost. It is a touching moment in an opera that is, to me, Britten's greatest (and I include Peter Grimes in that). Of course it helps to have a librettist who is also a great stylist in their own right, but Britten created music of huge depth.

Another type of love seems on display to me in Verdi's Don Carlos, in the supreme duet for Rodrigo and Carlos. It works so well in the context of the opera when compared to the other relationships. Again, some of the credit ust go to Schiller I suspect.

My absolute favourite example of parental love has to be Wotan's Farewell as he casts a ring of fire around his daughter. In the Ring are there are so many peaks and emotive moments but I think this is the one that most often strikes home. Wagner plays with the leitmotifs so brilliantly and I always hear that first  glimsp of a motif that will only appear again in the last moments of the whole work. Again this is just my ears telling me and I could well be wrong!

Sorry Parla, I didn't mean to be so concise: I just thought it was well known facts in cm history. However, if my memory of past readings serves me well (and w/ a little help from Wikipedia), let me add this:

Berlio'z Fantastique: The composer, after attending a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet in Paris, fell in love w/ the irish actress Harriet Smithson who played the role of Ophelia. He sent her several letters, all unanswered, so he wrote the symphony to show his love for her... She listened the symphony only 5 years later. They married afterwards.

Brahm's Rhapsody for Alto: Brahms, who was then in love for Schumman's daughter, is said to have written this work after knowing that the mother Clara had promissed her daughter's hand to another gentleman. Apparently, Brahms did not want that the work to be published claiming that it was too personal. Only after a long while he had second thoughts about it. That probably explains why this Rhapsody is so heavy and intense.

Bruckner's 4th: the composer
himself gave the epithet 'Romantic' to this symphony ( and to this
only) and he had a program in mind for each mouvement as registered in some of his letters. As a matter of fact, it
deals with a kind of medieval romance.

Mahler's 5th's Adagietto:  Used by Visconti's Death in Venice film, this piece is considered to be written to his wife Alma (finished and performed before the whole symphony). Just read this: "...Alma Mahler informed
Mengelberg in a letter that the Adagietto was in fact a love-song that Gustav Mahler
composed for her. In the letter Alma wrote
the words of Mahlers moving small poem and Mengelberg wrote the whole story and
the poem in his score.
Thus the Adagietto-melody is a 'song with words'".

A whole thesis could be written on the difference between love and obsession. One is often mistaken for the other.

Naupilus

Thanks for that recommendation re: Kundera. I do quite like his work, and have read a couple of his shorter fictions - Slowness is a really good novel.

And you've reminded me of that fantastic piano work by Schumann - Kreisleriana - op. 16 - written when he'd fallen madly for Clara I believe.

Mark