A lot of composers didn’t just use their talent to write symphonies — they also used it to charm, celebrate, or comfort their wives.
In this post, we’re sharing four musical love stories where composers let the music do the loving.
Richard Strauss, Four Songs Op. 27 (1894)
On the day of his wedding, Strauss gifted his wife Pauline de Ahna — a soprano — a set of four songs he had composed just for her.
The final song, Morgen!, uses a poem by John Henry Mackay. It’s peaceful, tender, and deeply intimate — a quiet but powerful promise of love.
Morgon
Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen
Und auf dem Wege, den ich gehen werde,
Wird uns, die Glücklichen, sie wieder einen
Inmitten dieser sonnenatmenden Erde …
Und zu dem Strand, dem weiten, wogenblauen,
Werden wir still und langsam niedersteigen,
Stumm werden wir uns in die Augen schauen,
Und auf uns sinkt des Glückes stummes Schweigen …
Tomorrow
And tomorrow the sun will shine again
And on the path that I shall take,
It will unite us, happy ones, again,
Amid this same sun-breathing earth …
And to the shore, broad, blue-waved,
We shall quietly and slowly descend,
Speechless we shall gaze into each other’s eyes,
And the speechless silence of bliss shall fall on us …
Gustav Mahler, Adagietto from Symphony 5 (1901-02)
When Mahler met Alma, who would later become his wife, he was in the middle of composing his Fifth Symphony.
According to Mahler’s friend Willem Mengelberg, the fourth movement — the Adagietto — was actually a hidden love letter to Alma. Mahler even wrote a short poem on the score as a personal message to her.
Wie ich dich liebe, Du meine Sonne,
Ich kann mit Worten Dir’s nicht sagen.
Nur meine Sehnsucht kann ich Dir klagen und meine Liebe.
How much I love you, you my sun,
I cannot tell you that with words.
I can only lament to you my longing and love.
Richard Wagner, Siegfried Idyll (1870)
Four months after marrying his second wife, Cosima (who also happened to be Liszt’s daughter), Wagner gave her the most unforgettable Christmas present.
On the morning of December 25, 1870 — the day after Cosima’s birthday — she woke up to live music. In her diary, she later recalled:
When I woke up I heard a sound, it grew ever louder, I could no longer imagine myself in a dream, music was sounding, and what music! After it had died away, in to me with the five children and put into my hands the score of his “symphonic birthday greeting.” I was in tears….
“Music greeted me when I woke — it was the most magical moment of my life.”
The piece, now known as Siegfried Idyll, was performed by a small ensemble right on the stairs outside their bedroom. Wagner stood at the top of the staircase conducting 13 musicians: violins, viola, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, cello, and double bass.
To this day, the piece is sometimes nicknamed “Staircase Music.”
Bella Bartok, Piano Concerto No.3 (1945)
Bartók wrote his Piano Concerto No. 3 as a final gift to his wife, Ditta Pasztory-Bartók — a pianist — while he was terminally ill. It was meant to be her birthday present.
He hoped the piece would give her something she could keep performing even after his death — something that could support her emotionally, or even financially, through performance or royalties.
Sadly, Bartók passed away before finishing the last 17 bars of the piece. It was completed by his friend and student, Tibor Serly.
