by Heather O’Donovan

As temperatures drop and daylight dwindles, it becomes ever more challenging to stay focused, and ever more tempting to snuggle up under a mountain of blankets and call it a day well spent. But as the holidays roll around, you find yourself sitting across the dinner table from your nosy Aunt Janet, dodging her every attack. “Still at the same old job?” “Didn’t have enough money to take the more expensive flight home with your brother?” “Broke up with the nice investment banker with a six-figure salary so you could devote more time to your ‘art’?” Ten minutes into dinner, you’re feeling just a little bit helpless and a lot a bit stressed. Happy holidays!

Sometimes we feel unstoppable, and other times, we just feel stuck — but it’s how we deal with the blues when we’ve got them that matters most. When it comes to the following composers, music was the chosen balm to pull them out of their toughest spots. Here’s how they addressed their woes.

Strapped for Cash? DM An Original Song To Someone Famous: Smetana’s Six Characteristic Pieces, Op. 1

In 1848, a 24-year-old Bedřich Smetana wrote to the eminent Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt: “To introduce my humble talent to you, I wrote these Character Pieces …. Now I humbly beg you to be kind enough to accept this work and to have it published.” The budding composer explained that he was in dire need of money, suggesting, rather melodramatically, that “in a few weeks perhaps there may be no Smetana.” He believed that if this set of piano pieces were to be published, it would lead to more work and, therefore, more money.

But if Smetana’s first request entailed no significant financial burden on the part of Liszt, his second proved ever so bold: “a loan of 400 florins, which I solemnly swear, on my life, to repay you.” Smetana dreamed of opening a music school, but, having so little money of his own, he believed himself incapable of bringing the vision to fruition. Lucky for Smetana, the charm of the Six Characteristic Pieces enchanted Liszt, and this letter became the first in an ongoing correspondence between the two composers.

Can’t Get the Attention of Someone Who’s Caught Your Eye? Use Music To Show Her How You Really Feel: Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique

When 23-year-old Berlioz set foot in Paris’s Odéon Theatre one fateful evening in 1827, he likely did not anticipate the impact that the evening’s performance was to have on his life. It was then that the composer first set eyes on Harriet Smithson, the actress portraying Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He became enamored (one might say obsessed) with the woman.

After a series of unsuccessful attempts at contacting Smithson, Berlioz set about writing the Symphonie Fantastique, a wild, feverish depiction of an artist driven to madness out of passion for the elusive object of his desire. Berlioz and Smithson eventually married in 1833, but the relationship lasted a mere seven years before ending in divorce.

Crash and Burn? Get Some Hypnotherapy and Try Again!: Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2

When it rains, it pours. It’s bad enough that the conductor leading the 1897 premiere of Rachmaninoff’s First Symphony is believed to have been stone drunk during the performance, but this horrific experience proved to be but the first in a series of disappointments. Following that concert, composer and critic César Cui wrote: “If there was a conservatory in Hell and one of the talented pupils there was commissioned to write a symphony …, Rachmaninov … would have brought ecstasy to the inhabitants of Hell.” Harsh …

Devastated by the failure of his First Symphony, Rachmaninoff found himself unable to compose, having lost all the confidence he’d gained by the early successes of his precocious youth. It was not until 1900 that he began writing again in earnest, after a series of hypnotherapy sessions in which he was encouraged: “You will begin writing your concerto.” Rachmaninoff did indeed write it, and the Second Piano Concerto of 1901 became a smash hit, restoring the composer’s renown, and remaining a favorite in concert halls to this day.  

Got Some Bad News? Improvise!: Scriabin’s Prélude et nocturne pour la main gauche seule, Op. 9

There are various stories surrounding the genesis of the hand injury that temporarily derailed the career of aspiring pianist Alexander Scriabin. The most common one suggests that the young musician exacerbated a preexisting injury to his right hand by fiendishly practicing Liszt’s Réminiscences de Don Juan and Balakirev’s Islamey in an effort to measure up to the virtuosity of Josef Lhévinne, a classmate at the Moscow Conservatory. Scriabin later wrote about the injury in his journal: “Gravest event of my life … Trouble with my hand. Obstacle to my supreme goals — GLORY. FAME. Insurmountable, according to doctors.” In 1895, Scriabin composed Prelude and Nocturne for the Left Hand, “so as to exercise my left hand when I was ill.” It contributed to an existing body of virtuosic piano repertoire for the left hand by composers from Ravel to Korngold.

Scriabin’s injury proved to be a pivotal point not only in his musical development, but also spiritually. Following the ordeal, he wrote in his journal: “Whoever it was … who gave me gifts only to take them back … I thank you for all the trials and tribulations to which you subjected me, for you gave me the knowledge of my endless power, my unbounded strength, my invincibility.”

Got Plain, Old Existential Dread? Embrace It And Write One Of Classical Music’s All-Time Greatest Hits!: Mozart’s Requiem

When Mozart was first tasked with an anonymous commission for a requiem in the summer of 1791, he had no premonition of the fate that was to befall him mere months later. After a series of delays, the sought-after composer finally began writing his Requiem in the fall of 1791, but in late November of that year, he became suddenly ill and his health rapidly declined. Mozart worked feverishly throughout his illness, becoming so obsessive that some believe he may have thought of it as his own requiem. Today, we have this monumental work to show for his pains, a masterpiece of musical artistry that continues to attract interest, research, and indulgent speculation by all those who marvel at its beauty. 

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