Interesting Facts about Composers Thread

[not edward]

"Moses und Aron" has 12 letters, NOT the dreaded 13!

And because he died in 1951, he did not know anything about Elvis (q.v. below)

Nonsense. I saw Arnie making donuts at my local Tim Hortons last week.

Incidentally, Arnold's grandson has his own Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Randol_Schoenberg

[Sergeant Rock]

Havergal Brian (1876-1972) composed 32 symphonies; 20 of them after the age of 80.

The Havergal Brian thread is one of the Top 10 threads at GMG, and the only composer thread in the Top 10. It is currently occupying the sixth position 


Sarge

[not edward]

Here's possibly my favourite:

During World War 2, George Antheil and Hedy Lamarr patented a method for jamming-resistant guidance of torpedoes and missiles. Variants of this method have been used by the US military and many cellphones.

(It should be noted that the original Antheil/Lamarr method, using punched cards resembling those in player pianos, was not very practical.)

[Brian]

Here is Schoenberg playing table tennis.

[Karl Henning]

(It should be noted that the original Antheil/Lamarr method, using punched cards resembling those in player pianos, was not very practical.)

The thing about great scientific ideas is, unlike the arts, it's to everybody's benefit collectively to improve upon the initial inspiration.

Thread Duty: Although it seems that the only 'documentation' is his memoir, it is the tenor Michael Kelly (who as not only a tenor, but an Irishman, seems predisposed to the tallest of tales . . .) to whom we owe the story of a string quartet party which looks a bit like the musical Vienna counterpart to Fantasy Football:

Vn I: "Papa"
Vn II: Dittersdorf
Va: "Wolferl"
Vc: Vanhal

[Karl Henning]

Speaking of a bumper of composers in the house . . . Stravinsky's recording of Свадебка (Les noces) features Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Roger Sessions playing the four pianos.

[Mirror Image]

And here's the picture:

[Superhorn]

    The family of Sergei Rachmaninov was of  Volga Tatar origin . The Volga Tatars are a Muslim Turkic people  and speak a
language which is very similar to Turkish .  Some are Mongolian -looking  and  others are indistinguishable from Russians
because of centuries of intermarriage  with them  and neighboring  peoples in the Volga region related to the Finns .
   Some say that Rachmaninov had rather mongolois features .   

[Karl Henning]

And here's the picture:

Is that Brando to the left, just to Stravinsky's right? . . .

[Gurn Blanston]

Is that Brando to the left, just to Stravinsky's right? . . .

"Some day, Igor, I'm gonna ask you for a favor...."   

[Karl Henning]

And in that photo, you see how Stravinsky & Copland's ancestors were just about neighbors. As I recall, the latter came from Vitebsk; and there is a Vitebsk Station (a beautiful Art Deco building, in fact) in Petersburg.

[madaboutmahler]

Great thread!

Love this one, whether it is true or not!

At the premiere of Bolero, a woman was shouting out some rather unencouraging comments, such as the french equivalent of 'Boo...' etc, and Ravel is believed to have said 'at least someone gets the idea'...

[Brian]

I seem to remember a story about a daring new piece of music being premiered in Paris in the 1920s, but anonymously. Afterwards the audience was invited to guess the name of the composer, and nobody got it right, but one person sarcastically shouted "Theodore Dubois!", the name of a famous old fuddy-duddy reactionary, which was met with a gust of laughter. Unfortunately... I can't remember who the composer was.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Here is Schoenberg playing table tennis.

I love pics of Schoenberg in his SoCal duds. Hence my avatar.

[DaveF]

Georges Perec (see left), as well as dozens of novels, also wrote one piece of music, an aleatoric orchestral work entitled Souvenir d'un Voyage à Thouars, Thouars being a town in Brittany which Perec had never visited, but which you would get someone to visit by saying "Allez à Thouars!"  Say it slowly.  Weep.

DF

[The new erato]

Fartein Valen actually wasn't born an old fart.

[DaveF]

Fartein Valen actually wasn't born an old fart.

He was actually born Olav Fartein Valen - what a disastrous decision it was to drop that first name.  Wikipedia says that he had mastered at least 9 languages - presumably not including English!  It's so sad, since he's such a lovely composer - the violin concerto is almost a desert island piece for me.

He also grew cacti as a hobby, apparently.

[Cato]

He was actually born Olav Fartein Valen - what a disastrous decision it was to drop that first name.  Wikipedia says that he had mastered at least 9 languages - presumably not including English!  It's so sad, since he's such a lovely composer - the violin concerto is almost a desert island piece for me.

He also grew cacti as a hobby, apparently.

O.F. Valen rawks!   0:)

The symphonies are marvelous: what attracted me was a review of the complete set.  The writer opined that he "could not understand anything" about the music which he found beyond inscrutable.

So I just had to find Valen symphonies!!!

[Lisztianwagner]

Something about Richard Wagner:

During a performance of Wagner's Ring, the head of the dragon of Siegfried was sent by mistake to Beirut, in Lebanon, instead of Bayreuth. It came back just in time for the performance of the opera.

During one of the first performances of Parsifal in Bayreuth, Wagner stood up to silence the audience that had started applauding; but when, at the end of the second act, he himself stood up to applaud, he was silenced by the audience.

[Karl Henning]

Wagner silenced by others: that cannot have happened too often.