Home / Literature / The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1

The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1

Rupert Hughes

5.0

Literature

17 Chapters

3 View

Read Now

First published in 1903. Biographical chapters cover Liszt, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Purcell, Gluck, Wagner, Tschaikovski, Schumann, and others.

Chapter 1 THE OVERTURE

Musicians as lovers! The very phrase evokes and parades a pageant of amours! The thousand heartaches; the fingers clutching hungrily at keys that might be other fingers; the fiddler with his eyelids clenched while he dreams that the violin, against his cheek is the satin cheek of "the inexpressive She;" the singer with a cry in every note; the moonlit youth with the mandolin tinkling his serenade to an ivied window; the dead-marches; the nocturnes; the amorous waltzes; the duets; the trills and trinkets of flirtatious scherzi; the laughing roulades; the discords melted into concord as solitude

into the arms of reunion-these are music's very own.

So capable of love and its expression is music, indeed, that you almost wonder if any but musicians have ever truly loved, or loving have expressed. And yet-! Round every corner there lurks an "and yet." And if you only continue your march, or your reading, you always reach that corner.

Your first thought would be, that a good musician must be a good lover; that a broken heart alone can add the Master's degree to the usual conservatory diploma of Bachelor of Music; that all musicians must be sentimental, if musicians at all; and finally that only musicians can know how to announce and embellish that primeval theme to which all existence is but variations, more or less brilliant, more or less in tune.

But go a little further, and closer study will prove that some of the world's greatest virtuosos in love could neither make nor carry a tune; and that, by corollary, some of the greatest tunesters in the world were tyros, ignoramuses, or heretics in that old lovers' arithmetic which begins: 1 plus 1 equals 1.

If you care to watch the cohort of musicians, good, bad, and worse, that I shall have to deploy before you, you shall see almost every sort and condition of love and lover that humanity can include. And incidentally-to tuck in here a preface that would otherwise be skipped-let me explain that in the following affairs I have preferred to give you the people as accurately as I can make them out.

In place of the easy trick of stringing together a number of gorgeous fairy stories founded on fact, I have preferred the long labour of hunting down the truth and telling only what I have found and believe to be true. Fact and not fancy; presentation and not fiction; have been the aim throughout. Where the facts are sparse, I have not hesitated to say so; have not stooped to pad out gaps, with graceful and romantic imaginings; and have indeed never hazarded a guess or an inference without frankly branding it as such.

Furthermore, as far as space permits and documents exist, the musicians tell their own stories in their own words.

For the making of this little book, I have not been able to include all the men who ever wrote one note after or above another; nor to read all the books ever published in all the world's languages: and yet, that I have been decently thorough will appear, I think, in the list of books at the back. This does not claim to be a complete bibliography of the subject, but, omitting hundreds of books I have ransacked in vain, it catalogues only such works as I have consulted with profit, and the reader could consult with pleasure.

It may be well to say that, with the exception of the occasional necessity or seeming-necessity for taking one side or the other in a matter of dispute, I have avoided the facility of bandying highly moral verdicts and labelling these victors or victims of life with tags marking their destinations in the next world. He who gets into another's heart with understanding, will find it impossible to indulge in wholesale blame-"tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner." So, without pretending to have comprehended any of these human hearts altogether, I have learned enough to lean almost always a little toward the defence, and still more nearly always toward the praise of the woman in the case. And yet, the whole effort and viewpoint of the work will be found, I think, to be based upon a deep belief that one love is better than two, and that earnestness and honesty and altruism are more blessed and blissful, even with poverty and suffering, than any wealth of money, or of fame, or of amorous experience.

As a last chapter to this series of "true stories," I have ventured to sum up the conclusions, to which the study of all these affairs has compelled me, and to state a general opinion as to the effect of music on character. It might have been more exciting to some readers, if I had started out with a hard and fast theory, and then discarded or warped everything contradictory to it, but it would have been a dishonest procedure for one who believes that musicians are neither saints of exaltation nor fiends of lawless ecstasy; but only ordinary clay ovens of fire and ashes like the rest of us. He who generalises is lost, and yet I make bold to believe that the conclusion of this book is true and reasonable and in accordance with such evidence as could be collected.

And now after this before-the-curtain lecture, it is high time, as Artemus would say, to "rise the curting."

Literature

5.0

The Dozen from Lakerim by Rupert Hughes

You'll also like

He Chose First Love, I Chose the Alpha King

Aurora

4.5

I gave him three years of silent devotion behind a mask I never wanted to wear. I made a wager for our bond-he paid me off like a mistress. "Chloe's back," Zane said coldly. "It's over." I laughed, poured wine on his face, and walked away from the only love I'd ever known. "What now?" my best friend asked. I smiled. "The real me returns." But fate wasn't finished yet. That same night, Caesar Conrad-the Alpha every wolf feared-opened his car door and whispered, "Get in." Our gazes collided. The bond awakened. No games. No pretending. Just raw, unstoppable power. "Don't regret this," he warned, lips brushing mine. But I didn't. Because the mate I'd been chasing never saw me. And the one who did? He's ready to burn the world for me.

Invisible To Her Bully

Dea B

3.7

Unlike her twin brother, Jackson, Jessa struggled with her weight and very few friends. Jackson was an athlete and the epitome of popularity, while Jessa felt invisible. Noah was the quintessential "It" guy at school-charismatic, well-liked, and undeniably handsome. To make matters worse, he was Jackson's best friend and Jessa's biggest bully. During their senior year, Jessa decides it was time for her to gain some self-confidence, find her true beauty and not be the invisible twin. As Jessa transformed, she begins to catch the eye of everyone around her, especially Noah. Noah, initially blinded by his perception of Jessa as merely Jackson's sister, started to see her in a new light. How did she become the captivating woman invading his thoughts? When did she become the object of his fantasies? Join Jessa on her journey from being the class joke to a confident, desirable young woman, surprising even Noah as she reveals the incredible person she has always been inside.

The Phantom Heiress: Rising From The Shadows

Quint Shroyer

5.0

Brenna lived with her adoptive parents for twenty years, enduring their exploitation. When their real daughter appeared, they sent Brenna back to her true parents, thinking they were broke. In reality, her birth parents belonged to a top circle that her adoptive family could never reach. Hoping Brenna would fail, they gasped at her status: a global finance expert, a gifted engineer, the fastest racer... Was there any end to the identities she kept hidden? After her fiancé ended their engagement, Brenna met his twin brother. Unexpectedly, her ex-fiancé showed up, confessing his love...

Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: You Can't Afford Me Now

Theodora Birnir

4.6

The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."

Unspoken Hearts: My Neglected Mute Wife's Escape

Jenn Curlin

4.0

Kallie, a mute who had been ignored by her husband for five years since their wedding, also suffered the loss of her pregnancy due to her cruel mother-in-law. After the divorce, she learned that her ex-husband had quickly gotten engaged to the woman he truly loved. Holding her slightly rounded belly, she realized that he had never really cared for her. Determined, she left him behind, treating him as a stranger. Yet, after she left, he scoured the globe in search of her. When their paths crossed once more, Kallie had already found new happiness. For the first time, he pleaded humbly, "Please don't leave me..." But Kallie's response was firm and dismissive, cutting through any lingering ties. "Get lost!"

The Mute Heiress's Fake Marriage Pact

Alma

5.0

I was finally brought back to the billionaire Vance estate after years in the grimy foster system, but the luxury Lincoln felt more like a funeral procession. My biological family didn't welcome me with open arms; they looked at me like a stain on a silk shirt. They thought I was a "defective" mute with cognitive delays, a spare part to be traded away. Within hours of my arrival, my father decided to sell me to Julian Thorne, a bitter, paralyzed heir, just to secure a corporate merger. My sister Tiffany treated me like trash, whispering for me to "go back to the gutter" before pouring red wine over my dress in front of Manhattan's elite. When a drunk cousin tried to lay hands on me at the engagement gala, my grandmother didn't protect me-she raised her silver-topped cane to strike my face for "embarrassing the family." They called me a sacrificial lamb, laughing as they signed the prenuptial agreement that stripped me of my freedom. They had no idea I was E-11, the underground hacker-artist the world was obsessed with, or that I had already breached their private servers. I found the hidden medical records-blood types A, A, and B-a biological impossibility that proved my "parents" were harboring a scandal that could ruin them. Why bring me back just to discard me again? And why was Julian Thorne, the man supposedly bound to a wheelchair, secretly running miles at dawn on his private estate? Standing in the middle of the ballroom, I didn't plead for mercy. I used a text-to-speech app to broadcast a cold, synthetic threat: "I have the records, Richard. Do you want me to explain genetics to the press, or should we leave quietly?" With the "paralyzed" billionaire as my unexpected accomplice, I walked out of the Vance house and into a much more dangerous game.

Latest Release: Chapter 17 THE NOCTURNES OF CHOPIN 01-08 10:50

Chapter 1 THE OVERTURE

01/12/2017

Chapter 2 THE ANCIENTS

01/12/2017

Chapter 3 THE MEN OF FLANDERS

01/12/2017

Chapter 4 ORLAND DI LASSUS AND HIS REGINA

01/12/2017

Chapter 5 HENRY AND FRANCES PURCELL

01/12/2017

Chapter 6 THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF STRADELLA