Love Letters in Music

"One long caress," wrote violinist Eugène Ysaÿe about César Franck’s Violin Sonata, "a regenerative awakening on a summer’s morning." This beloved sonata, a masterwork of poetry and passion, was in fact a wedding present prepared by the composer—performed on Ysaÿe's wedding day after just one rehearsal and received with great enthusiasm by the bride, groom, and generations of music lovers to come.

The Franck Sonata is just one example of what we might call a musical love letter: a work created as a token, expression, or celebration of love, capable of profound expression where words may fall short.

So here’s a playlist for you to share with someone special this Valentine's Day (or any time), including

• the heart-rending Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth, said to be a love song for his wife, Alma;
• Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, dedicated to Clara, his wife and muse;
• Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn, written for "a beloved friend," certainly Clara Schumann as well, who performed the two-piano version with Brahms;
• Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, born out of the composer's almost obsessive unrequited love for actress Harriet Smithson;
• Mozart's perennial favorite Don Giovanni, whose sublime soprano arias for Donna Anna were once performed by Mozart's sister-in-law Aloysia Weber, a one-time object of his infatuation;
• Beethoven’s Romances for Violin, whose origins remain mysterious but may call to mind the composer's famous "Immortal Beloved";
• Britten’s opera Billy Budd, whose lead role was premiered by the composer’s partner, tenor Peter Pears; and
• Wagner’s Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde: "Love Death," a serious contender for the title of the most rapturous, passionate piece ever composed…