# classical composer and there passions



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Im a mineralogist amateur, and i work the stones..

So i was wondering if a particular composer was a mineralogist or obsessed by thee gemstones,
i was wondering if a particular composer share my enthousiasm for the stones.

Sometime i lisen to classic and i get drawn to my Crystals, im not esoterical i just like em.I heard toru takemitsu was inspired by nature, vegetation and perhaps minerals(rocks).

Strangely enought some classical composer remind me of a perticular stone, when i lisen to ravel i stare at some amethyst?

So what about it guys, i know my question sound a bit odd but *any classical composer inspired by minerals world?*
So that about it , and i feel nerdy :tiphat:


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

I haven't heard of any mineralogist-composers, but then I haven't really looked either. I expect there could also be quite a lot of music inspired by specific minerals.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

deprofundis said:


> Im a mineralogist amateur, and i work the stones..
> 
> So i was wondering if a particular composer was a mineralogist or obsessed by thee gemstones,
> i was wondering if a particular composer share my enthousiasm for the stones.
> ...


Actually, I'm a bit of a composer and I am indeed inspired by gemstones, especially rubies, sapphires, emerald, opals, jade, and a lot more.......before I stopped composing and playing the piano I had planned a piece that had 'Ruby' as part of the title.

I also listen to Ravel a lot and I even think of gemstones while listening to some Ravel pieces! So your post really struck me.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Camille Saint-Saens was a polymath who, besides being a very talented musician, was also interested in math, philosophy, literature, and geology. There's also Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, an Austrian composer and musicologist, who's most famous for cataloging Mozart's works chronologically and thematically--when you hear someone refer to a Mozart piece by its "K number," they're referring to the Köchel catalogue. Outside of music, he was very passionate about botany and geology/mineralogy


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2015)

I suppose that Borodin was passionate about chemistry!


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Harry Partch was passionate about young men. That count?


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

Bruckner had an extensive collection of fingernail and toenail clippings.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Schubert loved to play a good game of darts.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Der Leiermann said:


> Schubert loved to play a good game of darts.


He was also very interested in the books of James Fenimore Cooper, whose works I personally find a bit dry. Maybe they're better in translation?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Prestigious composer, Richard Nixon, had some sort of obscure side job as President of the USA or something like that.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2015)

Not to go all serious on y'all, but Varese saw the principle of crystallization as similar to how he made his music:

"Varese found in the process of crystallization a method of composition which expresses rhythm and form. This process is one which grows from within rather than externally. As an analogy, crystallization accentuates the growth of an idea through minimal expansion. For Varese, the idea is nothing more than a point of departure or the basis for a more expanded structure." (http://stevengrimo.com/varese/chapter_3.html)


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2015)

scratchgolf said:


> Bruckner had an extensive collection of fingernail and toenail clippings.


Really? Never heard that one before! Could I have your source please, Scratchgolf?


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

TalkingHead said:


> Really? Never heard that one before! Could I have your source please, Scratchgolf?


More to the point whose toe and fingernails?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I can't remember this clearly but I feel like at some point I heard of a work of music that involved something like... vibrations through various gems... or something like that.

Not quite the same thing, but Charles Dodge's _Earth's Magnetic Field_ does just what you'd expect with that title.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2015)

I have the same unclear recollection.

No recuerdo. Pero, quiero saber.

Someone help out a couple of halting memories, please.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Well, there's Joan Tower: _Tower's relationship with her mineralogist father is visible in many aspects of her work, most specifically her "mineral works" (including Black Topaz(1976) and Silver Ladders (1986)_.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> Not to go all serious on y'all, but Varese saw the principle of crystallization as similar to how he made his music:
> 
> "Varese found in the process of crystallization a method of composition which expresses rhythm and form. This process is one which grows from within rather than externally. As an analogy, crystallization accentuates the growth of an idea through minimal expansion. For Varese, the idea is nothing more than a point of departure or the basis for a more expanded structure." (http://stevengrimo.com/varese/chapter_3.html)


Well, you beat me to the draw on Varese. I still wonder if any one of his pieces was inspired by Demantoid Garnets, though.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

TalkingHead said:


> Really? Never heard that one before! Could I have your source please, Scratchgolf?


I totally made it up.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

John Cage was an amateur mycologist (i.e. he collected mushrooms).

Anton Webern and Richard Strauss were both keen Alpinists.

Shostakovich was a football referee.

Percy Grainger liked to...well, never mind.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ahammel said:


> Shostakovich was a football referee.


And a heroic member of the proletarian firefighter squad, or so I've heard.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

violadude said:


> And a heroic member of the proletarian firefighter squad, or so I've heard.


That's true. Here he is in firefighter regalia on the cover of _Time_ magazine when the siege of Leningrad was worldwide news.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

trazom said:


> He was also very interested in the books of James Fenimore Cooper, whose works I personally find a bit dry. Maybe they're better in translation?


And also Walter Scott.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Tan Dun's Earth Concerto exists, and also is not the work I was thinking of earlier.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Minerals? Huh, I don't know of any composers who had interest in geology [thanks to those who posted some examples. Learn something new every day]

As for passions, Prokofiev was an avid chess player


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

*Hugo Alfven*,* William Alwyn, *& *Mikalojus Čiurlionis* loved to paint, and they were very good at it.
*Myaskovsky* loved collecting (hunting for) mushrooms.
*Bax* loved to write esp. poetry (in his early years anyway).
*Glazunov* was hugely interested in philology (the study of language in written historical sources).
*Tchaikovsky* loved to travel.
*Mieczysław Karłowicz* was an avid mountain climber (and loved photography).
*Ernest Chausson* loved books, and was extremely well read.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Since I guess the topic's strayed from composers' interests in geology and mineralogy to general interests, I thought I should mention Mozart who was very interested in billiards(an important distinction from pool, when talking about Mozart, is that billiards involves angles), anagrams, mimicry in people's facial expressions, language, dialect, and of course musical style. That's where part of his musical education came from: traveling and learning by attempting the style of other composers. He liked puzzles, and arithmetic--in many autographs of Mozart's scores he fills in the margins with numbers doing basic calculations and occasional algebraic formulas. I know one of his operas, The Abduction from the Seraglio, has a symmetric numerical organization. Finally, shapes and patterns: he'd sometimes amuse himself by seeing what geometric shapes he could make by folding his napkin in various ways.


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

dholling said:


> *Hugo Alfven*,* William Alwyn, *& *Mikalojus Čiurlionis* loved to paint, and they were very good at it.


Schoenberg as well.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> I have the same unclear recollection.
> 
> No recuerdo. Pero, quiero saber.
> 
> Someone help out a couple of halting memories, please.


Maybe it was David Tudor. Or if not, maybe my suggesting it might've been will help us get to the answer.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Charles Ives' Concord Piano Sonata is a kaleidoscopic orgy of sound, so perhaps he was influenced by colorful light patterns.


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