Favourite composer names.

[vandermolen]

In that case I'ld like to add:
Ludwig Felix Brandts Buys
Luctor Ponse
Bernhard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer
Theo Loevendie
Cornelis Dopper
Rudolf Escher
Johannes Ockeghem
Daan Manneke
Pieter Hellendaal
Ton de Leeuw
Clemens non Papa
Jochem Slothouwer
Richard Rijnvos
Marius Monnikendam
Robin de Raaff
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer
Herman Strategier
Hans Kox
Tera de Marez Oyens
Oscar van Hemel
Léon Orthel
Lucas Vis
Alexander Voormolen

You're only allowed a maximum of three.


I like Ton de Leeuw.

[vandermolen]

Aram Katchaturian (Chatchaturjan - Katsjatoerian - Արամ Խաչատրյան, Аpaм Ильич Xaчaтypян) - strange & exotic & catchy


French baroque = poetry!

Louis de Caix d'Hervelois
Jacques-Martin Hotteterre
Michel Pignolet de Montéclair
Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre


Germaine Tailleferre (originally Taillefesse!)

From Belgium

Henry-George d'Hoedt

Eugène (and Théo) Ysaÿe

From Sweden

Gunnar de Frummerie

I nearly chose Khachaturian - great choice!

[vandermolen]

....it is Alphons Diepenbrock.

Names are poetry - sometimes they are (when translated) funny, occasionally weird or unpleasant...

Germaine Tailleferre's both parents had the name Taillefesse  (buttock pruner) . Around 1913 Germaine decided that she would become a "Taileferre", a "hewer of iron" - the surname of a Norman minstrel.

Belgian composer Marcel Poot ( pronounced "poht" - a "poot" is an animal's leg ....or even (old fashioned) slang for homosexual....)

I like:Arno Babadjanian, Josip Štolcer-Slavenski , Edith Canat de Chizy

Thanks - I've corrected Alphons.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Vagn Holmboe.
Thelonious Monk.
Grazyna Bacewicz.

[Brian]

If you're not listening to Solti/London Philharmonic, just turn it off...

I wasn't. Brand new release with the Munich Radio band. You have to try everything once but back to Solti it is.

Thelonious Sphere Monk is my favorite composer name ever, by the way, so I agree with you.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Thelonious Sphere Monk is my favorite composer name ever, by the way, so I agree with you.

I never liked it when his middle name was used, but looking at the Wikipedia page, I see it is legitimate (although not on his birth certificate).

[DaveF]

Yesterday I found out Franck's full name - César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck - Blimey!

Well, if you think that's excessive, what about Jullien, the impresario who lured Berlioz to London in the 1840s, only to go bankrupt owing Hector hundreds of pounds, and who was also a composer of light music? - and whose full name was (deep breath) Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roche Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noë Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué Vincent Luc Michel Jules-de-la-plane Jules-Bazin Julio César Jullien.  (The wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Antoine_Jullien explains why.)

And for those of us who are still schoolboys at heart, Fartein Valen (actually Olav Fartein Valen - clearly he had no British friends to advise him which name to drop).

[Biffo]

Well, if you think that's excessive, what about Jullien, the impresario who lured Berlioz to London in the 1840s, only to go bankrupt owing Hector hundreds of pounds, and who was also a composer of light music? - and whose full name was (deep breath) Louis George Maurice Adolphe Roche Albert Abel Antonio Alexandre Noë Jean Lucien Daniel Eugène Joseph-le-brun Joseph-Barême Thomas Thomas Thomas-Thomas Pierre Arbon Pierre-Maurel Barthélemi Artus Alphonse Bertrand Dieudonné Emanuel Josué Vincent Luc Michel Jules-de-la-plane Jules-Bazin Julio César Jullien.  (The wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Antoine_Jullien explains why.)

And for those of us who are still schoolboys at heart, Fartein Valen (actually Olav Fartein Valen - clearly he had no British friends to advise him which name to drop).

I remember Jullien from Berlioz' Memoirs but hadn't seen his full name before. I was rather hoping he had been named after a favourite football team but he was born too early for that.

[Oates]

It is interesting how many composers have non-commonplace names. Even moving in Anglicised circles I have never come across anyone else with the name of Moeran, Britten, Finzi, Bantock, Elgar, Bowen, Tippett, Gipps, Boughton, Delius, Holst, Gurney, or Ireland. (I realise some of these names and linage are not from GB.) 

I have known people named Brian, Jacobs, Bush, Howells, Bate, Vaughan and Williams, however.

[Rosalba]

It is interesting how many composers have non-commonplace names. Even moving in Anglicised circles I have never come across anyone else with the name of Moeran, Britten, Finzi, Bantock, Elgar, Bowen, Tippett, Gipps, Boughton, Delius, Holst, Gurney, or Ireland. (I realise some of these names and linage are not from GB.) 

I have known people named Brian, Jacobs, Bush, Howells, Bate, Vaughan and Williams, however.

Actually, I have known people called Britten, Bowen, Boughton, Gurney, and Ireland.

The Irelands, Robert & Peter, were identical twins in my class at junior school.

It's very interesting though, now you've pointed it out, how many 'British' composers have originally 'non-British' backgrounds. I could come up with a half-baked theory here about a meeting of cultures leading to creativity, but half-baked stuff can lead to dyspepsia, so maybe not.

[Oates]

Actually, I have known people called Britten, Bowen, Boughton, Gurney, and Ireland.

The Irelands, Robert & Peter, were identical twins in my class at junior school.

I should therefore point out my very limited social circle and Northern proletarian background...

[Rosalba]

Aha - but I have a 'northern proletarian background' too, which the Ireland twins were part of!

[DaveF]

It is interesting how many composers have non-commonplace names. Even moving in Anglicised circles I have never come across anyone else with the name of Moeran, Britten, Finzi, Bantock, Elgar, Bowen, Tippett, Gipps, Boughton, Delius, Holst, Gurney, or Ireland. (I realise some of these names and linage are not from GB.) 

I have known people named Brian, Jacobs, Bush, Howells, Bate, Vaughan and Williams, however.

There used to be a UK haulage company called Tibbett and Britten - used to make me laugh every time one of their trucks shunted me off my bike into the ditch.

[ritter]

Two rather florid Italian names that I like:

- Ildebrando Pizzetti
- Italo Montemezzi

[Rosalba]

One of my favourites - the English baroque composer Richard Mudge.

There's mudge hilarity to be had over the imudgeinative playing on his name.

[Oates]

Aha - but I have a 'northern proletarian background' too, which the Ireland twins were part of!

Luck of the draw - I did know someone called Branden Spong, whose name sounds like he should have been composing a succession of challenging, atonal symphonies in the 1960s. No idea what happened to him in reality!

[vandermolen]

It is interesting how many composers have non-commonplace names. Even moving in Anglicised circles I have never come across anyone else with the name of Moeran, Britten, Finzi, Bantock, Elgar, Bowen, Tippett, Gipps, Boughton, Delius, Holst, Gurney, or Ireland. (I realise some of these names and linage are not from GB.) 

I have known people named Brian, Jacobs, Bush, Howells, Bate, Vaughan and Williams, however.

An interesting point.

[vandermolen]

Vagn Holmboe.
Thelonious Monk.
Grazyna Bacewicz.

Yes, I like Vagn Holmoe too, as well as his music.

[Overtones]

I like to pronounce Chačaturjan (because it is usually mispronounced - the first sound is aspirated)

And I like to call Liszt and Chopin by their first names in their original language - Ferenc and Fryderyk. In the latter case I also use the polish pronounciation for the last name - though I am not sure if that was what he was actually addressed like.

[Roasted Swan]

My favourite is a 1920's composer of a novelty piano foxtrot called "Dancing Fool".  The composer is - allegedly - but this is printed on the music - Sascha Chwat - I kid you not.......