Favourite composer names.

[vandermolen]

I have some 20's piano sheet music of a fox-trot "Dancing Fool" by Sascha Chwat.  I've often wondered if this was a pseudonym!

Great name!

[DaveF]

The final organ voluntary on Sunday from Mass at St Mary, Bourne Street, SW1, which I've been live-streaming recently (very good choir, directed by Stephen Rice of Brabant Ensemble fame, and splendidly High Anglican) was a merry little number called Chelsea Fayre by Reginald Goss-Custard.

[vandermolen]

The final organ voluntary on Sunday from Mass at St Mary, Bourne Street, SW1, which I've been live-streaming recently (very good choir, directed by Stephen Rice of Brabant Ensemble fame, and splendidly High Anglican) was a merry little number called Chelsea Fayre by Reginald Goss-Custard.

Brilliant!

[DaveF]

Brilliant!

Straight out of Wodehouse, isn't he?  Obviously a pal of Gussie Fink-Nottle.  I expect it's pronounced kü-TAR.

[Florestan]

My latest operatic discovery: Daniel-François-Esprit Auber.

[DavidW]

I'm sure this has been mentioned... Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.

[Florestan]

I'm sure this has been mentioned... Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.

Although that picture is labelled as Dittersdorf on the internet, I very much doubt it's really his portrait. He lived 1739 - 1799, while the fashion of the man in this painting is at least 50 years older than the year of his birth. 

This one is much more like his time:

[DavidW]

Darned google images!! That will show me.

[Florestan]

Darned google images!! That will show me.

Nothing to do with you personally, it just stroke me as anachronistic.

[calyptorhynchus]

Just thought of this nugget seeing this thread again... not a composer but Monty Python member John Cleese. The family name was actually Cheese, but JC's father got fed up with all the jokes and changed it to Cleese. Pythonesque you might say.

[DaveF]

I used to think that "Brian Eno" was a made-up name, perhaps taken from the initials of English National Opera (although why an art-rocker turned ambient droner would want to name himself after such an institution wasn't explained).  But no; Enos are not uncommon in Suffolk, the destination of numerous French Huguenot refugees originally called Hennaud.  His full name is rather impressive: Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.

[JBS]

I used to think that "Brian Eno" was a made-up name, perhaps taken from the initials of English National Opera (although why an art-rocker turned ambient droner would want to name himself after such an institution wasn't explained).  But no; Enos are not uncommon in Suffolk, the destination of numerous French Huguenot refugees originally called Hennaud.  His full name is rather impressive: Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno.

With that accumulation he could be a member of the Royal Family.

[vandermolen]

I'm very surprised by the relative popularity of this thread - so much so that I'm allowing myself a new choice of three:

Klaus Egge

Susan Spain-Dunk

Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov

[Florestan]

Romanian female composers:

Hilda Jerea
Liana Alexandra
Carmen Petra Basacopol
Felicia Donceanu

Don't even try to pronounce their names... 

[DaveF]

With that accumulation he could be a member of the Royal Family.

The St John le Baptiste de la Salle bit was given at his baptism in the Roman Catholic Church.  His Huguenot ancestors would have been appalled.