Emilie Mayer was one of the most prolific German composers of her time, and yet her name rarely appears on concert programs today. Mayer took piano lessons from an early age. Though she had few examples to draw on as a woman, she decided, as a young adult, to pursue composition as a professional career.

Because women were barred from professional studies at most institutions, Mayer sought musical tutoring through private study. One of her most impactful mentors was composer Carl Loewe. Ultimately settling in Berlin, Mayer produced hundreds of well-regarded symphonies, chamber music, songs, and more. At first, she published her works under the name E. Mayer; however, once she began using her full name, Emilie Mayer, responses to her music became more critical.

Nonetheless, her career blossomed as she refused to relinquish her ambition. Her music was performed across Europe. Unfortunately, following her death, there was no one to carry on her legacy, and her music fell into obscurity.

Like Emilie Mayer, German composer Luise Adolpha Le Beau showed musical ability from an early age while learning to play the piano. She began composing during childhood, and as a concert pianist, she made her professional debut at 18. For a short period of time, Le Beau studied with Clara Schumann. Shortly after, she moved to Munich to study with Josef Rheinberger.

As a composer, Le Beau wrote a wide range of works, including orchestral music, operas, choral works, songs, piano solos, and chamber pieces. Unfortunately, because of her gender, Le Beau’s works were often met with skepticism, and career opportunities proved hard to come by. In her autobiography, she wrote, “It is difficult to come to terms with such circumstances when one has dedicated her entire life to a profession, but one must be satisfied with the consciousness of having helped to build the temple of art according to one’s best knowledge and with honest intentions.” As she fought to have her music performed, Le Beau championed equal opportunities for young female musicians.

French composer Henriette Renié is best remembered as a virtuoso harpist, though her accomplishments as a composer should not be overlooked. Renié began studying the harp at such a young age that her father had to engineer extensions for the instrument to help her reach the pedals. She began her performance career at 11, after winning first prize for harp at the Paris Conservatory.

As a composer, Renié wrote almost exclusively for the harp (or music that prominently featured the harp). In doing so, she helped elevate the instrument’s status and establish the harp as a solo concert instrument. As a respected teacher, Renié codified a method for playing the harp, called Méthode complete de harpe (Complete Method for Harp), which is still used today. She was never granted a professorship at the Paris Conservatory, but many of her students attended the institution where she had begun her professional trajectory.

Charlotte Sohy was a French composer who was incredibly influential during her lifetime but has since fallen into relative obscurity. Sohy completed her formal training at the Schola Cantorum, where she studied under Vincent d’Indy. While at the Schola Cantorum, she met her future husband, composer Marcel Labey. The couple enjoyed an unusually fruitful, collaborative relationship (for the time) – they both worked as musical professionals, while raising seven children, and frequently contributed to and advocated for each other’s compositions.

Sohy published 35 works, including a symphony inspired by World War I, an opera, chamber music, songs, and more. To avoid prejudice due to her sex, Sohy used her grandfather’s name, Charles Sohy, as a pseudonym.

Fun fact – Sohy’s cousin was fellow composer Louis Durey. Durey was a member of Les Six, a group of six composers who rebelled against the Romanticism and Impressionism that peaked around the turn of the 20^th century. Sohy herself was friends with composers Mel Bonis and Nadia Boulanger.

Madeleine Dring was an English composer, actress, singer, and pianist. Born into a creative family, Dring won a scholarship to study violin and piano at the Royal College of Music at just 10 years old. She continued her education there through her teens, studying composition under Herbert Howells and Ralph Vaughan Williams. While music proved to be a creative outlet for Dring from an early age, she also had a deep love of theatre and concurrently studied drama and mime.

As a composer, Dring often intertwined her love of music and theater, writing incidental music and songs for stage works that she would also perform in. She wrote many pieces for her husband, Roger Lord, who was principal oboist of the London Symphony Orchestra. She was known for her sense of wit, which regularly made its way into her scores. Unfortunately, following her death, much of Dring’s unpublished music has not been found.

Let your heart crescendo with All Classical Radio for a very special radio program. Join hosts Coty Raven Morris and Edmund Stone for our heartfelt gift to you: LOVE STORY. Listen on demand now through February 26, 2026.

From sweeping symphonies to tender overtures, every note tells a story of love worth tuning in for. This special program is filled with harmony, passion, and some of classical music’s greatest romances, and it’s all made possible by your support. Thank you for keeping love in the airwaves on All Classical Radio.

Read on for a closer look at some of the tales you will hear on LOVE STORY.

Robert and Clara first met 13 years before their marriage. When Clara was just 8 years old—and already a virtuoso on the piano herself—the teenaged Robert began taking piano lessons with Clara’s father. Over the next several years, the two musicians grew to know each other well. In time, friendship turned into love. Robert and Clara’s courtship was long and not without challenges. Clara’s father vehemently opposed the match, and only after suing him were they finally able to make things official.

As a wedding gift, Robert compiled 26 songs into a collection called “Myrtles,” named after the herb associated with the Ancient Greek goddess, Aphrodite. Myrtle was also traditionally included in German bridal bouquets.

During the summer of 1812, Ludwig van Beethoven penned a letter that would unleash decades, if not centuries, of debate. The letter’s recipient was notably referred to as “Immortal Beloved,” though no actual name was ever used. The document was never sent and only discovered after the composer’s death. We may never know who Beethoven intended to bestow such sweet words, but the mystery around this romantic gesture is tantalizing…

Did you know that Gustav Mahler was not only a composer of massive symphonic works but also a hopeless romantic? The courtship of Mahler and the promising young composer and socialite, Alma Schindler, was quick and passionate. The two met at a dinner party, and Mahler was immediately infatuated with “the most beautiful woman in Vienna.” Within weeks of meeting, the couple was married in an intimate private ceremony.

Around the same time of the couple’s marriage, Mahler was working on his fifth symphony. The fourth movement, called “Adagietto,” may be one of the most romantic pieces of orchestral music ever written. No text accompanies this piece, yet it still contains an exquisite level of poetic expression. Gustav even sent Alma the score to this movement as a love letter, for what communicates affection more completely than music, especially for a composer?

The relationship between Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears is one for the ages. The two met through a mutual friend and remained together for nearly 40 years, until Britten’s death. While they could never publicly acknowledge their romantic relationship – they managed to build a rich and fulfilling life together. Letter writing was a regular form of communication. Britten and Pears left behind hundreds of handwritten documents as part of their romantic legacy. As a professional singer, Pears also became something of a muse for Britten and inspired many of the composer’s best-known works.

Leoš Janáček was 63 years old when we first met a 25-year-old woman named Kamila Stösslová. Janáček quickly became enamored with Kamila, obsessively writing to her on a regular basis and incorporating visions of her into his music. She was reportedly flattered by the composer’s affection. The problem, however, was that both Janáček and Stösslová were already married… to other people!

Kamila remained loyal to her husband, while remaining in touch with Leoš. He, on the other hand, would use his yearning for his unattainable love interest to fuel his writing. Over the next decade, Stösslová inspired some of his most famous pieces of music.

LOVE STORY and all of the handcrafted programming on All Classical Radio is made possible by listener support.

This special program is generously sponsored by CREO Chocolate. An award-winning small-batch chocolate factory and tasting room in the Lloyd district of Portland, Oregon, CREO Chocolate sources their beans directly from small farmers and craft with detailed attention to bring out interesting flavors. They offer high-quality products and tasting experiences.

Learn more at creochocolate.com.

Harry Thacker Burleigh is often overlooked as a formative American composer; however, his influence on the works of those who knew him is immeasurable. Burleigh was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and, through early exposure to music and his family’s lineage, he learned about African American spirituals. The melodies sung by his enslaved ancestors would become his most significant source of inspiration.

Burleigh received a scholarship to study at the National Conservatory of Music, where he became acquainted with Antonín Dvorák, the Conservatory’s director at the time. Dvorák was fascinated by Burleigh’s seemingly endless knowledge of spirituals and famously wrote themes based on these songs in his “New World” Symphony.  

As a composer, Burleigh wrote hundreds of arrangements of spirituals, including “Deep River,” in addition to original songs. His works have forever enriched American classical music and have lifted the spiritual from its horrific past into the light of the concert hall.

James P. Johnson spent much of his childhood in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he learned the piano and absorbed the musical influences around him. After his family moved to Manhattan’s San Juan Hill neighborhood when Johnson was a teenager, the young musician began formal study and was exposed to everything from ragtime to Eurocentric classical music. He studied classical repertoire and compositional techniques with Bruto Gianni, who also taught Scott Joplin.

By the 1920s, Johnson had become one of the most significant pianists in New York. He pioneered the Harlem Stride, an improvisational style of jazz piano involving the left hand “striding” large distances up and down the keyboard, made famous in works such as “Caroline Shout” and “Charleston.”

Throughout his career, Johnson constantly sought out a wide variety of skilled musicians to learn from. He explored ways to redefine American classical music through his symphonies, concertos, and other large-scale works.

Born in Lexington, Kentucky, Julia Perry studied violin, piano, and singing from an early age. She went on to earn both her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from Westminster Choir College. As an emerging composer and conductor, Perry sought additional training in Europe from Luigi Dallapiccola and Nadia Boulanger.

Early on in her career, Perry was heavily influenced by her Western classical education while still drawing on African American influences, including Spirituals and the blues. However, as the climate around race shifted in the late 1950s and early 1960s, her works became more outwardly expressive of her own experience as a Black woman. She also became bolder in calling out injustices she witnessed.

At 46 years old, Perry suffered a debilitating stroke that paralyzed her right side and made her unable to speak. She taught herself to write with her left hand so she could keep composing. Perry was an incredibly prolific composer; however, much of her work was lost after her death or has yet to be published. Additionally, many of her post-stroke manuscripts have left her advocates unable to read her writing confidently.

Michael Abels is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer known for reworking classical styles by adapting popular mediums. Abels grew up in South Dakota and took piano lessons from a young age. After studying at the University of Southern California and the California Institute for the Arts, Abels established himself as a leading composer of orchestral music.  

Abels is best known for his film scores, including the Oscar-winning Get Out, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Omar, based on the life of Omar Ibn Said, which he co-composed with Rhiannon Giddens.

In addition to his ever-growing body of work, Abels is the co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, an advocacy group that increases the visibility of composers of color in film, gaming, and streaming media.

Emmy Award-winning composer and vocalist Jasmine Barnes grew up in Baltimore, where she had access to a wide range of arts programs for young people—something she cites as essential to her ability to pursue a career in music. She has since exploded onto the classical music scene. Barnes’ music is performed worldwide, and she has collaborated with many extraordinary artists, including Lawrence Brownlee, Will Liverman, and Joshua Conyers.

As a composer, Barnes specializes in vocal music, with five operas (currently) under her belt, as well as choral works, chamber music, and art songs. In 2023, she received a Capital Emmy Award for the PBS documentary “Dreamer,” which featured her career and music.

Barnes was one of All Classical Radio’s 2021 Composers in Residence. Her work, Taking Names, was featured on the station’s inaugural album, Amplify, as part of the Recording Inclusivity Initiative. In addition to All Classical, Barnes has held residencies at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, American Lyric Theater, and Chautauqua Opera.