by Tim Rayborn
Tchaikovsky was afflicted by sadness and haunted by fears of the approaching end for most of his life, understandable under the circumstances. He tried to suppress his natural inclinations not just out of fear of persecution, but also because of the prevailing moral tone of the time. Some scholars have questioned how much shame he felt, saying that he was comfortable with his nature but wisely kept it secret.
He tried to hide his orientation by marrying one of his composition students, Antonina Miliukova, in 1877. Perhaps he hoped that by doing so he could maintain a suitable respectability in the public eye and continue to have relationships with men in private. As might be expected, the marriage was a disaster. Shortly after, he nearly had a nervous breakdown. It seems he then tried to give himself a case of pneumonia by walking into the freezing River Moskva in St. Petersburg. When this failed, he fled from his wife and finally did suffer the breakdown, as well as an acute case of writer’s block for some time afterward. They formally separated but were never divorced, owing to the strict laws of the time.
Antonina did not fare much better, and her mental health declined over the years. She was finally declared insane in 1896, dying in 1917 in an asylum. Recent research has suggested that other factors may have been in play; she seems to have been aware of her husband’s orientation, and he may have married her both in an attempt to “cure” himself and for the financial security that she brought.
In any case, Tchaikovsky left Russia after this and traveled in Europe (primarily Italy) in the hopes of lifting his mood, a tactic that succeeded to some extent. He secured the support of several wealthy patrons, including the tsar himself, freeing up his time to compose since he did not have to teach and scrape out a living. He even traveled as far as the United States, performing in Carnegie Hall in 1891.
Stress and depression took their toll, however. From insomnia to migraines, he had constant physical complaints. He also showed more than a little of the behavior of a hypochondriac. By 1893, he was in despair. He wrote early that year, “my faith in myself is shattered, and my role is ended.” His last symphony was the Pathétique, which means “passionate” rather than “pathetic.” Some have called it a musical suicide note because it references material from the Russian Orthodox Requiem (mass for the dead), and its finale is specified as a morendo, a “dying away.” However, scholars now mostly reject this theory.
What is known is that Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893, only nine days after the premiere of his Pathétique Symphony. It’s the circumstances surrounding his death that make the story intriguing. Cholera, like typhoid and a few other scourges, periodically surfaced to decimate nineteenth-century communities. An epidemic was occurring at the time, and the official explanation was that he drank unboiled water, contracted the illness, and died. Whether or not this was an accident has been the subject of debate. He was certainly depressed enough to commit suicide, but did he? He had actually been rather pleased with the results of his latest symphony (creatively speaking anyway—it had a lukewarm critical reception) and thought that it was among his best works. He told a friend that, for the first time in his career, he felt completely content about one of his compositions.
A story that has gained popularity more recently was that Tchaikovsky had been conducting a secret affair with a male member of the aristocracy. When the man’s uncle discovered this, he threatened to “out” Tchaikovsky to the tsar in a letter. When his former institution, the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, heard about this, they were afraid of what it would do to the school’s reputation. They convened a “jury” that tried him in absentia and found him guilty, demanding that he kill himself to preserve their honor.
This version of events is certainly not the final word, but it makes for a fascinating and tragic story. We may never know the exact details. As so often seems to happen with Romantic-era composers, Tchaikovsky’s misery translated into gold after his death. He is now one of the most popular and beloved composers of all time. No one really cares about his personal life; all they know is the beautiful musical legacy he left to the world.
Karel Komzák II (1850–1905)
Going off the rails
Komzák was a Bohemian composer. Born in Prague, he spent his early years under the tutelage of his father, Karel Komzák I (obviously), who conducted military bands. Not widely known today, he was famed in his time for his dances and marches, music forms that were all the rage in Vienna. Indeed, living in that grand city had long been a goal of his, and in 1882, he was appointed to direct the musicians of the 84th Infantry Regiment. He introduced string instruments into his orchestra, not a common practice at the time, and he and his band became famous for their skilled performances. He eventually toured widely, going so far as to perform with the Wiener Farben Orchestra in the 1904 World Exhibition in St. Louis, Missouri.
By now, the reader must know that something dreadful was about to happen, and indeed it did. On Easter Sunday in April 1905, some months after returning from Missouri, Komzák was at the train station in Baden, a spa town southwest of Vienna where he had been living since the 1890s. The train he wanted to take was just leaving and he attempted to run alongside and jump aboard, like in a scene out of an action movie. Of course, this didn’t work out. He slipped and fell directly under the wheels; the result does not bear thinking about.
Ernest Chausson (1855–1899)
A very short Tour de France
Chausson was another Romantic Frenchman (is there any other kind?) who hobnobbed with many of the artistic bigwigs of his time. Beginning in 1886, he was secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique. Among the composers with which he rubbed shoulders were Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy; he was also acquainted with the painter Claude Monet.
We don’t know how great he might have become, because he died just as his career was taking off. He qualifies as a contender for the most ridiculous death recorded in this book. While riding his bicycle in Limay, west of Paris, he lost control going down a hill, slammed into a brick wall, and died instantly. It is possible that this was a strange form of suicide, as he was said to be suffering from depression at the time, but still, let this be a lesson to everyone that has ever scoffed at wearing a helmet!
Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)
A cigar is just a cigar
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (how many names does a guy need?) is remembered as one of the greatest and most beloved Italian opera composers of all time. Inspired to write his own operas after a viewing of Verdi’s Aida, he went on to create such works as La Bohème, Madame Butterfly, and Tosca, all of which are mainstays in the repertoire and still performed widely every year.
However, around the time of Madame Butterfly in 1904, things began to go downhill despite his success. In fact, the first performance in Milan might have been a bad omen. Madame Butterfly was spinning on stage, and this caused her kimono to billow up about her. Someone in the audience yelled, “Butterfly is pregnant,” and this precipitated a whole round of remarks and catcalls for the duration of the opera, including barnyard animal sounds. By the end, the audience was laughing, not clapping. Puccini was mortified and forbade a second performance, returning his fee to the opera house. He modified the work and presented it again a few months later, to a much better reception.
This was not the first nor last of his misfortunes; he had nearly been killed in an automobile accident in 1903. In 1909 a strange incident occurred. His wife, Elvira, driven by unknown jealousies, accused their maid Doria Manfredi of having an affair with Puccini, but this was a false accusation. Fearful of the shame that such a scandal might bring, the maid committed suicide, drinking poison. Her family sued Elvira, won their case, and Puccini paid them damages to keep Elvira out of jail. Recent evidence shows that Puccini was indeed having an affair, but it was with Doria’s cousin, Giulia. This liaison went on for some time, and she bore him a son, Alfredo, whom he supported in secret. Things got worse in 1912 with the dea
th of Giulio Ricordi, Puccini’s longtime editor and publisher.
In late 1923, he began to complain of a persistent sore throat. Puccini had been a heavy cigar smoker, and the diagnosis came back as throat cancer. His doctors recommended a new and experimental treatment option for him: radiation. Alas, the treatment failed, and he suffered a fatal heart attack as a result.
One story relates that when news of his death reached Rome, it was during a performance of La Bohème; another source says that this happened at the Met in New York. The opera was temporarily stopped, and the orchestra played Chopin’s Funeral March in tribute, something Puccini would have no doubt appreciated. One report states that Mussolini paid tribute to him and declared that Puccini had asked him for membership in the Fascist Party. Puccini’s request may or may not be true, but the party made him an honorary member, whether he requested it or not. He was not interested in politics, so it is doubtful that he changed his mind at the end of his life. Mussolini was clearly taking the opportunity to link his fascist movement with greater Italian culture, quite possibly tarnishing the composer’s name in the process.
Gustav Mahler (1860–1911)
Tenth time’s a charm, or not
The Austrian composer Mahler was known for his absolutely huge works—his dense symphonies, massive choirs, and the long running times in his compositions. He merits inclusion due to his alleged curious superstition about the numbering of his symphonies (trying to avoid a ninth symphony), which will be discussed in detail in the “Musical Superstitions” chapter in Part II. According to some sources, Mahler was very afraid of the consequences of writing a ninth symphony, and he may have been right.
Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
Wife-swapping
Debussy stands at the doorway between late Romantic and modern, as he experimented with many new ideas in musical construction and harmony, ideas that were considered cutting edge and even shocking at the time. His music was labeled “Impressionist,” like the art, but he disliked this designation. He was inspired by the French literary movement known as Symbolism, which used metaphors, myths, and dreams to give subjects symbolic meaning. We have already witnessed his feud with Saint-Saëns over musical innovations. Debussy certainly reflected symbolic ideals in his music, particularly in his many fine works for piano.
His personal life practically defines the phrase “soap opera.” A noted womanizer, he had lived with a woman named Gabrielle Dupont in artistic poverty for several years (from 1890, she had tried to support him), and then decided that he wanted to marry her best friend, Rosalie Texier, a fashion model, in 1899. A famous story relays that on the morning of their wedding, he had to give a piano lesson to earn enough money to pay for the wedding breakfast. Dupont was distraught at being dumped and attempted suicide with a gun, but failed.
Texier was sweet and practical, but not very artistically sophisticated, and this grew to irritate Debussy over time. So he did what any scandal-ridden musician would do and left her in 1904 for another woman, Emma Bardac, both the wife of a Parisian banker and the mother of one of Debussy’s students. Bardac was quite different from Texier, being sophisticated, intellectual, and musically gifted.
Texier, like Dupont before her, tried to commit suicide with a pistol, shooting herself in the chest, but also failed. Debussy and Bardac (who was pregnant with his child at the time) fled to Eastbourne in England both to let the furor and scandal calm down and to avoid the legal issues. Bardac’s family effectively disowned her, and many of Debussy’s friends were scandalized and angry. The third time seemed to be a charm for Debussy, however. Both he and Bardac were able to divorce their respective spouses and thus return to some level of respectability; the two eventually married in 1908. Their daughter, Claude-Emma, was destined to be his only child, and he loved her dearly.
By 1916, Debussy was suffering from colon cancer and became one of the first to undergo an operation in an attempt to cure it. The procedure was unsuccessful, however, and he died in March 1918. At the time Paris was under attack from long-range German guns as a part of the Spring Offensive, a last-gasp German effort to win the war before the Americans deployed their many troops and resources; he died only eight months before the Allies won the war. The procession made its way to Père Lachaise Cemetery through abandoned streets to the sound of artillery shells. He was reburied a year later in Passy Cemetery, in sight of the Eiffel Tower. His daughter, Claude-Emma, lived for only another year, tragically dying in a diphtheria epidemic in 1919.
Enrique Granados (1867–1916)
Going down with the ship
Granados, from Catalonia in northern Spain, was a gifted pianist and teacher. Considered one of the last Romantics and a hugely important nationalist composer, he is recognized as one of Spain’s most important musical figures.
Unfortunately, it was his fame that brought about his untimely end. He was invited to attend the premiere of his opera Goyescas at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1916. Granados was actually quite afraid of water, but he suppressed his fear and made his first journey by ship across the Atlantic along with his wife, Amparo. Once there, he met with acclaim and success, even having the opportunity to perform for President Woodrow Wilson at the White House. He also made sound recordings that still survive. Unfortunately, in being delayed by the recital and the recordings, he missed his ship back to Spain and so took a passenger ship, the Sussex, bound for Dieppe, France. This was a riskier endeavor, as World War I was raging in full force at the time.
The trip across the Atlantic was without incident, but in sailing across the English Channel, the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Making his way to a lifeboat, he saw his wife flailing in the waters some distance away and jumped into the water to try to save her. Unfortunately, both drowned. In the end, Granados’s thalassophobia proved to be justified.
Alexander Scriabin (1871/72–1915)
Color me confused
Scriabin was an odd one, to be sure. Known for writing very complex and difficult piano music, as well as having a fascination with occult and mystical writings and practices, he was also devoted to the idea of associations between colors and musical notes. The term for this is synaesthesia, a condition in which people associate one sense or cognitive pathway with another; it often involves colors. For example, one might “see” a particular color whenever a specific note or chord is heard, or each number or letter of the alphabet may have its own color in the person’s mind.
Some doubt whether Scriabin was an actual synaesthete (how’s that for a great word?). He seemed to assume that certain colors were fixed with certain notes, and that a listener should associate these with their assigned tones when hearing his music, presumably visualizing them. Interestingly, Rimsky-Korsakov seemed to agree with many of his color associations. The reality is that a synaesthete’s experience of which color is associated with which note (or number, or letter, etc.) is highly individual.
In any case, Scriabin had grandiose plans to mount a work called Mysterium that was never realized. It would have been a full-on multi-media production, performed at the foot of the Himalayas in a half temple, in front of a large pool of water. The audience would sit at the opposite end of the pool in tiers arranged by “spiritual advancement”; the lesser-evolved would be seated near the back.
The spectacle would last for a week and involve not only music, but also color, scent, and movement; he was trying to include all the senses. He wanted an orchestra and a choir, visual effects (mists and special lighting), a large procession, and incense of various kinds. He would invite the whole world to attend, even animals and insects. After the performance, the world would end in a blissful state, the grandest finale of all. Scriabin was influenced by Eastern mysticism and theosophy, a popular European movement combining said mysticism with various occult practices that promised enlightenment and secret knowledge. He once wrote in one of his secret journals, “I am God.”
Apparently, he wasn’t. He died young and in a bizarre
manner. He was invited to London in 1914 and, while there, developed an ulcer on his lip. Whether it came from a cut, a boil, or even an insect sting is not clear—maybe the insect was annoyed that Mysterium was never produced. In any case, the ulcer would not heal properly and ultimately became septicemic. He died in 1915 in Moscow at the age of forty-three.
7
The Modern Era
What a problematic term this is; just how does one describe something as “modern” these days? People in every era have rightly considered themselves “modern”—well, maybe not Attila the Hun. Then again, maybe he did too. The Inquisitor’s apprentice in 1301 felt he was every bit as modern for his day (check out all the latest new torture devices) as the young, arty hipster sipping a cappuccino and using the latest social networking site that he was into before it was cool. As time marches on, what we can consider modern fades into the distance of the past, just as it always has and always will. So some clever types came up with the term “post-modern.” We now live in the Post-Modern Age.
Except that this will fade in time, too. Then what will we have? The Post-Post-Modern Era? The end of history as we know it? The result of Scriabin’s Mysterium? Again, we should just call it all the Later Middle Ages and be done with it; they’ll thank us for it in the thirty-first century.
For purposes of this book, we will call everything from the twentieth century onward modern. Modern can represent everything we’ve come to know and love in our everyday world, from technology to culture, but also world wars, pollution, sleazy banks, mullets, and unisex polyester bell-bottom pants.
This final chapter of Part I covers composers whose main works appeared post-1900, or who at least produced a significant number of pieces after that date. However, as we shall see, living in this sophisticated “modern” world doesn’t save one from a grisly fate.
