Page 677 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK

8. Frederick the Great (1712-1786)

King Frederick II of Prussia once wrote “Fortune has it in for me; she is a
woman, and I am not that way inclined” following a particularly bitter
defeat in battle.

History has documented the King as having an early affair with Peter Karl
Christoph von Keith, a page boy of his father Frederick William I’s, as well
as Lieutenant of the Prussian Army, Hans Hermann von Katte, whom
Frederick William had killed in response to these revelations about his
son.

Frederick the Great composed several concertos and sonatas, and was
also a flautist who studied with Johann Joachim Quantz.

9. Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

New York-born composer, Aaron Copland, was one of the many
renowned composition students of Paris Conservatoire’s Nadia Boulanger,
whose roster of composition, performance and conducting students
pretty much dominated 20th century music – from Astor Piazzolla, Philip
Glass and Quincy Jones, to Daniel Barenboim and John Eliot Gardiner.

Copland, whose best-known works include Appalachian
Spring and Fanfare for the Common Man, was a famously private man, but
unearthed letters between him and artist Prentiss Taylor indicate an
intimate relationship. Copland also didn’t hide the fact he lived and
travelled with other men, including photographer Victor Kraft and artist
Alvin Ross.

10-year-old Peter Leung plays Aaron Copland's 'The Cat and the
Mouse'
The child prodigy performed at the Oxford Piano Festival
Play Video

10. Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

Unlike Copland, US composer Samuel Barber made no effort to keep his
homosexuality out of explicit view and his life partner was composer Gian
Carlo Menotti, who he studied with at the Curtis Institute.

Barber won the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice – in 1958 for his
opera Vanessa, and again in 1963 for his Piano Concerto.