Symphony of Seduction

The Great Love Stories of Classical Composers

Christopher Lawrence

• Publisher: Nero
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781743820209
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Classical Music

The orchestra has tuned, the lights in the hall have dimmed, and the conductor's baton signals the downbeat for the beginning of the romance. Settle back – it's telling you something… The history of classical music is littered with murder, adultery, bigamy, fraud, sado-masochism, riches, poverty, gluttony, nervous breakdowns, bizarre behaviour and terrible, terrible toilet humour (Mozart was the prime exponent of the latter). Classical music –nice? Not at all. It's the most immediate expression of mental and emotional extremes: often deceptive, sometimes dangerous and frequently a discomforting revelation. Swooning documents the all too human flaws in the lives of the great composers by loosely following the sequence of emotions as experienced in a love affair – one that doesn't work out, of course.In this fully revised and updated edition, Christopher Lawrence leads us through the listening experience, from anger and Beethoven to sadness and Tchaikovsky, triumph and Wagner and freedom and Mozart – it's all here in this whimsical guide to the conduct of a romance, with some handy hints on how to make it more, well, harmonious.One of Australia's favourite radio personalities, Christopher Lawrence boasts a career spanning more than 40 years of broadcasting. He is best known for his work with ABC Classic FM, presenting the network's Breakfast and Drive programs between 1994 and 2001. Three of the Swoon CDs that evolved out of his Breakfast program broke sales records in the Australian classical music industry, each achieving Platinum status.As an orchestral and opera recording producer Christopher has been awarded an International Emmy for Performing Arts, three ARIA Awards, a Churchill Fellowship, and the Editors' Choice Award at the Cannes Classical Awards in France.Christopher has written three best-selling books: Swooning; Hymns of the Forefathers, based on his documentary series about the history of hymns seen on ABC TV; and Swing Symphony. He can be heard on ABC Classic FM from 9 a.m. to midday presenting Mornings.

MAZURKA IN A TEASPOON

The affair of Chopin and George Sand has long been the stuff of legend. It’s probable that the Pole would neither have composed as much, nor lived as long, without Sand’s intellectual and material support. Detail about the beginning of their relationship is largely a matter of speculation, but all those who knew them both agreed on one thing: it took a brave person to step onto a sexual battlefield littered with so many corpses.

‘Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world.’

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

PARIS, 24 OCTOBER 1836

George looked at the pale face and thought it was the most beautiful she had ever seen: blue-grey eyes, a gaze at once dreamy and possessed, burnt blond hair cascading to his shoulders. She wanted to cradle that face between her hands, cover it with kisses.

It belonged to the exotic pianist from Poland, Frédéric Chopin, and George Sand had waited a long time to see it and hear some of his music praised by so many. She had pestered her friend Franz about making an introduction.

‘That’s not as easy as you think,’ said the tall Hungarian piano virtuoso, flicking his mane of hair back behind his shoulders. ‘One day he’ll hide in his room and declare life is all over, and the same night he’ll caper and mimic at a society party until the small hours. Fred only likes who he knows. Makes it hard for strangers, and difficult to forge introductions. If you really want to meet him, George, let’s just throw a party. Now that Marie and I are back from our time in Switzerland, we’ll call it a housewarming. Just be careful. Fred’s not the strongest of men. We don’t want you killing him and leaving his broken heart to be dissected by the feuilletons, like all the others they say you’ve left behind.’

‘Franzi! Never believe what you read,’ said George, knocking the ash from her thin cigar, her enormous brown eyes blinking with mock indignation. It was an ironic remark, coming from one of the most celebrated and notorious writers of the time, the most famous woman in France, whose novels dripped with autobiographical detail. The real-life affairs of George Sand were the fodder of much salon gossip.

The soirée took place at the Hôtel de France on the rue Laffitte in rooms George shared with Franz Liszt, his mistress the Countess d’Agoult, and their baby daughter, Blandine. George and Marie were of like mind, independent spirits who had managed their escapes from marriages of convenience with the consolations of new lovers.

As evening fell, the room was full of conversation George found instructive: news on the latest marital indiscretions, tales of opera first nights, unfortunate wardrobe choices – all of it worthy of note for the time when she would sit at her desk and describe the fatuousness of people’s lives in books those same people would devour, presuming the stories to be about other people. Her work was serialised in the newspapers, one of whose writers had turned up for that evening’s spectacle. Would Tout Paris have a scoop tomorrow morning? We shall see, George thought confidently.

All heads turned when the special guest arrived with his fellow pianist and friend Ferdinand Hiller. Even from a distance, George felt a tug at her heart at first sight of the delicate figure, wondering how he would survive anyone’s embrace: painfully thin, with a sunken chest. He had been ill a few months before, she was told; too weak to walk, spitting up blood. Doctors had prescribed ice swallowed whole to staunch the bleeding. He had recovered to a degree, but the spectre of death looked as if it had only retreated to a back room of his apartment. Frédéric still referred to himself as a ‘cadaver’ when he was in one of his black moods. Such melancholy was not a good state to be in for a man of twenty-six, six years George’s junior.

Like her friend Marie, George preferred the company and the touch of younger men. She also liked tending to the injured, the broken birds of the world; to examine them, nurture them, caress them back to health. Chopin made a perfect candidate for her special brand of care, and he looked fabulous in a very elegant way on this occasion with his black fitted frockcoat and trousers, white gloves, handmade varnished shoes on his tiny feet, and the sublime touch of a white cravat knotted in one of seventy-two possible ways. He was every inch an aristocrat in monochrome.

George Sand was even more striking, dressed like a man to match her nom de plume in a frockcoat, vest and trousers, her brown hair parted in the middle and curling untrammelled down to her shoulders, a cigarette or cigar always between her fingers. Strangers pointed at her in the street. She loved the effect, the confusion she caused. Those fortunate enough to come close had no doubt about her gender. One of her greatest admirers called her a modern-day Venus de Milo.

The comparison with sculpture was lost on Chopin, who returned the scrutiny of this bizarre apparition. He leaned close to Hiller.

‘Over there, Ferdinand. That is George Sand? Surely she’s not a woman.’

Hiller followed Chopin’s gaze.

‘Oh, yes – it’s a she all right, Frédéric. Rumour has it George could eat you for breakfast and still have room for croissants.’

‘I am nobody’s breakfast,’ said Chopin.

The indignant tone was no surprise to Hiller. Like most of Chopin’s friends, he doubted if the fragile Pole had ever been consumed. Perhaps he wasn’t a meat eater. Frédéric never spoke about his dining history.

‘Just as well, my friend,’ he said, smirking. ‘You don’t want to end up in a kiss-and-tell book. At least anyone sharing a ménage with her wouldn’t be in any doubt about who’s wearing the pants.’

‘I don’t really have anything to say to literary women,’ Chopin replied. He grabbed Hiller’s arm. ‘My God! She’s coming over. This is terribly forward.’

‘Monsieur Chopin? But of course! Bonsoir.’ George Sand extended her hand.

The two men bowed slightly. Hiller seized her hand and kissed it.

‘You are correct, madame. My friend, Hiller,’ said Chopin.

George noticed the thickness of his Polish accent. ‘You know, we have really arranged this evening so that I can hear you both play,’ she continued, smiling directly at the Pole.

It wasn’t the most attractive smile Hiller had ever seen. Still, she did have an intriguing lower lip, full and slightly pendulous. A lot of sauce had dripped from that lip.

‘Play, madame? I thought we were here for the conversation,’ said Chopin.

‘In that case, perhaps we may converse?’

‘Under the circumstances, I think I should prefer to play. You will excuse me.’

He turned and walked away. George looked bemused.

Ouch, thought Hiller. George is the perfect gentleman, and Fred’s being a bitch.

Eventually the music started from three of the greatest party pianists in Europe. Liszt and Hiller gave typically dazzling accounts, Liszt eliciting whoops of admiration from the guests during his recital after some quicksilver arpeggios. His mistress looked at him through adoring eyes; Marie knew how randy Franz became after two bottles of the best and a couple of trips around the ivories. She hoped that George would be similarly occupied enough after the end of the evening not to overhear them upstairs.

There was a break for more digestifs before Chopin’s turn at the keys.

Hearing Frédéric Chopin perform was a rare event, Paris had learned. His public appearances were few. It was said that he was overawed, even frightened, of large audiences, his piano sound so soft that his artistry was almost inaudible in big concert rooms. Indeed, as his Nocturne in D flat floated gently through the salon George wondered how such filigree music would make it across the edge of a concert platform. The wider world was too coarse for such a quiet exhalation.

His hands were small, but the tapered fingers easily stretched across the keys; the right hand singing a sinuous melody over the rippling of the left, a song on a dark lagoon. Around the keyboard, a circle of people – their faces barely illuminated by lamplight – were drawn into the night of an interior world.

The music stopped, as did every heart in the room except George’s, beating hard.

His eyes met hers briefly, then turned away. She wondered if his expression was warmer now than at their introduction; if she had fallen into his mind while his music filled the air. He must be a supremely sensitive being, she thought. Could he not be aware of the feelings flowing back to him?

‘Mazurka in A minor, published as Opus 17, number four,’ Chopin said in an undertone. Most did not hear him. Again, he played.

George expected something lively and folksy; all those exuberant Polish aristocrats jumping about in their ballrooms. This music was homesick, halting, drained of energy; a melody too tired to dance. Someone alone, making futile steps in an empty space.

George felt the composer’s oppressed solitude. If only she could have rushed over to him and lifted that emaciated figure from the stool. But he was sealed off from the room while he played. All she could do was look at him through the strands of smoke from her cigar and try to suppress her sudden desire for sex.

The music ended a second time, its silence merging with that of the room. Mere applause felt vulgar after such rarefied sound. Chopin glanced at George once more, and in that split second she tried to channel something to him with her eyes that would have taken days to write – even at her prodigious speed.

Then he slipped on his gloves, clutched his bespoke hat, muttered his excuses to Liszt and Countess d’Agoult, and was gone.

People whispered to each other. George saw the Tout Paris feuilletonist was scribbling furiously.

‘What do you think he’s writing?’ said Madame d’Agoult, sidling next to George.

‘Heaven knows. Perhaps he saw something I didn’t. I know this is unlikely, but for once that idiot may have a better imagination than mine.’ George felt her familiar surge of appetite. She wanted to be satisfied by someone. Tonight, the pianist was unavailable.

She noticed the so-so Swiss writer Didier casting her imploring looks from his position at the far wall. They had enjoyed a few liaisons of late when the mood took her. He was attractive – and reliable.

‘Excuse me, Mari...