The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-11
GREAT MUSICIANS, WIVES
And Their Influence on Their Husbands Art
The Homes of Bach and Haydn.
Music and the Drama.

| MUSIC aud the Drama.
Hans Hoffman, discourses, in the Brooklyn
| Fest Zeitung, on the women who married some
| of the greatest composers and on those that in
| huenced them. Let US get acquainted with a
few. Johann Sebastian Bach, whose Importance
| was reSuscitated by Felix Barthodl Mendels-
sohn, and who has been growing ever since in
| the estimation of the musical public, settled
| early in marriage But twenty-five years old,
| he married his cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, in
| 1907, and settled down with her at Muehlhausen,
in Thuringia He had learned to love Barbara
while staying with an aunt at Arnstadt. Bar
| bara was musical, played the organ,
and saw in Bach her ideal of a man.
| She became the mother of seven children and
| died during her husbands absence in the sum-
| mer of 1l20 Bach mourned his faithful wife
| honestly, but his remarriace became necessity
| and he found another sweet woman in Anna
| Magdalena Muelken the youngest daughter of
| court musician. Magdalena was fine vocalist,
pianist and splendid writer of musical copy-at
| that time great accomplishment-and helped
her ever active husband most industrious!y in
| copying his compositions. Although this happy
marriage was blessed with thirteen children,
music relgned supreme Sebastian Bach's
| house, and he says in a letter to a friend,
| George Erdmann, on the 28th of October,
l'3o: My children are all of them born
| musicians, and l can assure thee that
can very we'll form q vocal and instrumental
concert with my family, particularly as
my present wife sings a very pretty Soprano and
my eldest daughter well as my sons, join
| with her very nicely indeed Bach educated
ten Of his sons himself as good musicians, of
whom Wilhelm Friedemann and Karl Philip
became historically celebrated. The wonderful
talent for musical art remained heritage
| through six generations III the family of Bach,
and the latter covered all Thuringia with organ
lists and ''cantors." or chorus masters When
John Sebastian Bach died at Leipsic, on the Both
| OF July 1850, ne left his widow and three daugh-
| ters The sons had all gone from the paternal
| home. Ten years later the widow died also, and
| c t'n1 fno,t alTlNC
| woman
just as fortunate as Bach had been in the Sc
! lection or his two wives AS unfortunate was
Haydn, the sunny, simple, oodtenpered
haydn. In ll3S Haydn had after great struggles,
got so far as to obtain a musical dictatorship
with Count Morzin and settled in Vienna His
salary was but 200 forms, but he had board and
lodging free Many pupils came to him, and
among others two daughters of the nair dresser
Keller. Haydn fell deeply in love with tt e
| younger, but his affection was not returned for
| she entered convent and became nun.
Father Keller, who was very familiar with
Haydn and had helped him often in earlier
times with small loans persuaded the young
composer to marry his eldest daughter, and the
marriage was celebrated on the Both of Novem-
Der, 1850. Maria Anna was, however, no wife
| for Joseph Haydn. she was extravagant, big
oted, scolGed all the day and was utterly uncom-
panionable to musician. Finally she became
so bad that she only cid what she thought
would annoy her husband. She dressed
IN the prevailing fashion, unsulted to her
position, invited clerical men to her
table, tore Haydn's written a musical
scores and made curl-papers of them, etc, and
yet Haydn bore it all as well as he could. How
he was able to create those lovely, sunny tone
pictures in the Seasons including the love-
| making between Haanchen and Lucas, and that
| sweet duet between Adam and Eve in the Gre
! alton" is riddle. In one letter he says: my
wife is mostly sick. and is always in a bad tenn
per. 1t is the same to her whether her husband
is shoemaker or an artist" After he had SUI
fered this state Of things in miserable marriage
of thirty-two Years he seemed exhausted and
wrote, then renowned composer, to friend
from London: My wife, that internal woman,
has written me such horrible things that 1 will
not return home again" AT last Haydn sep
arated from his wife and placed her boarder
with a schoolmaster in Baden, where she died in
1860 Her memory was always disagreeable to
him, even after her death. When showing her
portrait to friend in his household in 1895,
Haydn answered, on being asked who she was:
That is my wife, she has often Infatuated me-"