MARRIAGES OF CELEBRATED MUSICIANS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9257, 5 December 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

MARRIAGES OF CELEBRATED MUSICIANS.

Weber's -wife • was Caroline Brandt,- % talented soubrette, said to have been a good deal spoiled, by the^ public,' though- Bhe-left the stage on her marriage. She brought much happiness to Weber, who was a model husband, andfelt that his greatest pleasure in life was to provide for his wife and children to the utmost of his power. Mozart was first deeply enamoured of Aloysia, second daughter of Fridolin Weber, a prompter and .copyist of Mannheim, but her own attachment did not survive his absence for a few months, and she scarcely Beemed to remember him on his return. Four years afterwards, he married Weber's third daughter, Constanze; but though she had some excellent qualities she proved to be a thoroughly bad manager, and scarcely the ideal wife for a man so careless about money matters as Mozart was. They began housekeeping on next to nothing, and in six months were in serious difficulties, whilst later on the wife suffered from almost constant illness. Mozart was greatly devoted towards her, his playful tenderness heing shown towards her in a thousand quaint ways. Later on, in his closing days, so much saddened by want and melancholy, she, though ill herself, was a veritable " ministering angel" to him, and was "half maddened " with grief at the death of a devoted husband for whose dead body she had not even the means to buy a coffin. Of Beethoven's wife we will not speak, and that for the best of reasons: he never had one. He was constantly in love, and made no secret of hie attachments, most of which were for women of rank, and all of which were honourable; but he never married. Neither does it enter into the province of the present article to speak of the extraordinary and tragical influence which Madame George Sand exercised over the life of Chopin. The touching story of Robert and Clara Schumann brings us down quite to the present day. In 1828, Schumann, then eighteen, took pianoforte lessons at Leipzig from Wieok, who had no slight influence in enabling him to attain his high perfection as an executant. In 1832, the first movement of a Concerto in G minor written by Schumann was performed in Zwickau, by Wieck's daughter Clara, then a girl of thirteen. Although so young, she rendered the movement in a manner which not only " fired Zwickau into enthusiasm for the first time in its life," as Schumann said, but, what was of greater im'portd^ce, first awakened in his own heart a feeling" of deep attachment towards one who was destined to become the greatest female pianist in Germany. To this feeling he first gave definite expression four years later, and then, to his joy, he found that his affection was reciprocated. In the summer of the following year, 1837, he formally demanded her hand from her father, Only, however, to be refused. Por two years the lovers waited, hoping that the father would withdraw his refusal, and then, as a last resource, Schumann called in the assistance of the law. The case dragged on for a whole year, but at last the courts decided that the objections raised by Wieck were trivial ai>d without reason, and the marriage was celebrated in September, 1840. -A more perfect union could hardly be conceived' " They lived," says a biographer, " for one another and for their children. He created and wrote for his wife and in accordance with her temperament, whilst she looked upon it as her highest privilege to give to the world the most perfect interpretation of his works." The deep joy of Schumann's married life produced, we are further told, the direct result 6f a mighty advance in his artistic progress. Since his melancholy in an asylum in 1856, it has been her mission in life to continue her interpretation of her husband's works, and the visits she has paid, with this object in view, to all thja great capitals and musical centres of Europe have not only greatly spread the fame of those works, but have won for herself an affection, an admiration, and an esteem which, in depth and sincerity, have never, probably, been surpassed in the case of any other publio performer.