# Help me sabotage Chris



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Inspired by one of Ingélou's thoughtful ideas for a thread [redacted]:



Ingélou said:


> Imagine that a person (Chris) fancies another person & knows that the fancied one knows a lot about classical music. They have to go on a first important date in a week's time. Chris has told his/her date that s/he is a classical music newbie but s/he really would like to make an effort. Chris vows that in that week, s/he will listen to music for two or three hours a day, trying to get an 'overview' of Western Classical Music from 1600-2000.


I realized:



science said:


> If this lady's all that hot and into dashing young men who love classical music, I might just tell Chris that Beethoven's greatest work is known as "Unicorns on Parade," which they played when the sun came up in the movie _2001_, and then arrange a meeting with her myself at a later date.


And now I realize that I really want to pursue this line of thought. What exactly should I tell Chris to ensure that he makes a terrible impression on this girl that I want to steal from him later?

For example:

Tchaikovsky's greatest work is the Cannon Concerto #1812 in D minus. He wrote it to celebrate Napoleon's invasion of Russia.

The greatest French composer of all time is Darius Milhaud, pronounced "Mile-how-OOD." His most famous work, _The Cow on the Roof_, inspired the ending of the movie _Oh Brother, Where Art Thou_.

Although Milton Babbit's scores for movies like _Casablanca_ and _Psycho_ won great popularity with the public at large, scholars were unimpressed with his argument that composers ought to seek to please a general audience. He even wrote a popular book entitled _Sinclair Lewis_.

The first evidence that Mozart's music makes people smarter was given by Galileo, who first conceived of the heliocentric model of the universe while listening to Mozart's opera _The Planets_.

Vivaldi dedicated his most famous work, "The Four Seasons," to a friend who had one of the earliest pizza restaurants. That's why they play it so often in restaurants.

No one has ever made a joke about Cage's 4'33" before, so if you do, she'll definitely think you're clever. You should probably make several jokes about that, actually.

Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are undoubtedly masterpieces, but since very few people play a brandenburg today, modern performances usually feature a piano instead.

One of the greatest tragedies in the history of music was the early death of Schubert. After that, composers were usually more careful about who they allowed to touch their harpsichords.

Finally, Chris, if you have any luck with this girl, you want to put Crumb's Black Angels on. Turn it up really loud and push "play" right as you're about to kiss her.


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## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

Ravel's 'Bolero' was inspired by the composer witnessing the sight of a not very bright yet _tres hottie _young woman endlessly turning in circles in an attempt to see if her bustle was correctly in place.

As a very young man, Shostakovich nearly entered the Russian 'Circus Nikulin' but was stopped after being told his proposed act 'Popka - the Chortling Equilibrist Clown' was too far ahead of its time. The effect on him was to be lifelong, both in his demeanour and habit of sneaking the motif of *LHBY played on a swanee whistle into his work whenever possible.

* 'Lookout! He's Behind You!'

Leonard Bernstein had the habit of punching Glenn Gould in the back of the head when no one was looking and then crying and saying _"It wasn't me it was Elmer!_"


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

The greatest piece of recent classical music is Shostakovich's 'Riot of Spring', written in 2010 as a musical commentary on the Arab Spring.


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## Matsps (Jan 13, 2014)

Chopin's piano music leaves a lot to be desired and if she's polite and tries to defend him, show your manhood by telling her what's what about Chopin. 

Wagner's Ring Cycle is all you need to listen to during the week to get an introduction to all classical music. Following on from the works of the Russian school in the 1930s, it is a homage to all composers from Bach to Bernstein, while his Wagner tuba is considered one of the greatest and most important additions to the modern day orchestra.


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## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

Play trivia with her -

The original title of Debussy's 'La Mer' was 'Never go swimmin' with bowlegged women.'


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

One little known fact about Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata is that he nearly threw away the last two movements when he realized how good the first one was. He often asked performers to play the first movement only, and that's why it's usually heard that way today.

King Henry VIII commissioned Handel's _Music for the Royal Fireworks_, hoping that attending to "the royal fireworks" while listening to it would help his wife conceive a son.

Unfortunately, Handel was never able to stop prior composers from stealing so many of his ideas.

In his time, Wagner had very controversial political views, but today nearly all Europeans would agree with him.

Composers of contemporary music often worry that their works will suffer from overexposure, becoming too popular, leading to a backlash and eventual obscurity. They'd prefer old masters like Beethoven and Brahms to be performed more often; unfortunately, that's just not what the public wants.

These days, it's really hard for Asian women to become famous classical musicians. That's probably because so many members of the audience are older white men who aren't attracted to them. If they hope to have any success at all, they have to dress very conservatively.

Shostakovich was one of the few composers to enjoy the unwavering support of the Soviet authorities, although at times they had to warn him not to be so conservative. Stalin himself asked Shostakovich why his music couldn't be more like jazz, but Shostakovich just couldn't bring himself to write such depressing music.

Heterosexual women often find successful male musicians attractive, but anyone familiar with the lonely life of André Previn (edit: and Liszt and Wagner) knows there are exceptions.

Messiaen made a lot of music about his religious beliefs, but things have really degenerated. Now there's the spectralists, a whole tradition of composers who try to communicate with ghosts to help their compositions.

The only thing more popular than English cuisine is English composers of the classical era.

In American high schools, prom takes place on a single night, but in Britain it lasts for eight weeks. Of course the last night at the proms is the most popular, because by then everyone's tired of dancing to the latest hits so they sit down and enjoy some classical music.

Generally, the most respected members of an orchestra are the viola players, who are technically known as "violets." The color "violet" was originally named for the color their faces turn as they play such difficult parts.


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## Guest (Apr 8, 2014)

I would tell Chris to inform his potential belovèd that all music is simply abstracted, reified utterance and that, in outer space, nobody can hear you scream.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine was meeting with a Russian author. Jerry told her that Tolstoy's Masterpiece was originally titled "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing." (The first part of a popular song of the 60s). She repeated Jerry's comment to the author causing a bit of consternation.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine was meeting with a Russian author. Jerry told her that Tolstoy's Masterpiece was originally titled "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing." (The first part of a popular song of the 60s). She repeated Jerry's comment to the author causing a bit of consternation.


That reminds me of the Friends episode where Chandler suggested that Joey use the stage name "Joseph Stalin."


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Pshhh! Elementary examples! :tiphat:

Say that Glazunov is actually _the _most acclaimed classical composer today, and tell about how much Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov (and throw in his contemporaries Beethoven and Mozart into that list too ) wished they could be as brilliant and popular as him.


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

No tell him that how much you admire Mozarts creativity on Leck mich im Arsch, and how underrated the piece is and it should played more.

Depending about how chris acts and what kinda personality the girl has, she may interpret it as a joke and actually laugh or she will start to think " what the F is he talking about."


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Debussy is the greatest living French composer next to arguably Stravinsky.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

The word "art" actually comes from Moz*art*'s name. Yep. It's a fact.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Chris says "My top three? Lang Lang - he's sooooo hot; Andrew Lloyd Weber - he's sooooo original ...... no, wait, where are you going?"

exeunt omnes before he gets to number 3!


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

"Chopin" is correctly pronounced "Chop-in"
"Bach" is correctly pronounced "Batch"
"Beethoven" is correctly pronounced "Bee-thuh-ven"
"Messiaen" is correctly pronounced "Messy-Ian"


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

The movie Amadeus was praised for it's historical accuracy
Beethoven was so angry when his new hearing-aids didn't work and he couldn't hear his piano that he ripped all of the instruments strings out.
Mozart was known for his mature sense of humour
Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony was so awful it is now know as the pathetic symphony
Most famous composers ate cheese whilst composing.
The devils' trill sonata was written after the composer had been sent to hell to have music lessons with the devil.
Liszt was so untalented at playing the piano he had to compose fiendishly hard music to compensate.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

advise Chris to surprise the fancied one with tickets to an Andre Rieu show.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

Mahler's Adagio for Strings is too beautiful. You can really feel that torturous love he felt for that blonde Polish boy.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

deggial said:


> advise Chris to surprise the fancied one with tickets to an Andre Rieu show.


That could backfire very badly...if the fancied one in question actually enjoys Rieu.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

Vivaldi's Le Quattro Stagioni was originally called Le Quattro Stagioni / Buffalo, NY. The 4 concertos comprised of 12 total movements. The first 9 were called Winter and the final 3 were called Rain and Construction. After receiving some negative feedback on the internet, Vivaldi returned to the drawing board.


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## helpmeplslol (Feb 1, 2014)

science said:


> One little known fact about Beethoven's "Moonlight" sonata is that he nearly threw away the last two movements when he realized how good the first one was. He often asked performers to play the first movement only, and that's why it's usually heard that way today.


This is your ideal sentence.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Atonal music is really just a bunch of random notes thrown together.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Mozart wrote some of my favorite songs. My favorite is... *hums Beethoven's 9th*


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The biggest bone of contention in classical music is whether or not Arnold *Schoenberg* should have had a hair transplant.

All works that become popular are vulgar, *Tchaikovsky's *_Piano Concerto #1_ being a case in point. A far greater piece is by an obscure Monrovian composer of the 18th century who was already writing microtonally for piano, but I conveniently I forgot his name.

*Brahms *stole all of Beethoven's ideas, *Beethoven *stole all of Haydn's, and *Haydn* had a wig so he wasn't that interesting anyway.

*Wagner's *operas encapsulate all that is worthy of humanity, just don't mention the war (well, since we want to sabotage poor Chris, maybe we should mention it?).

*Ligeti *became famous on the back of a film score, but he also looked a bit like a mad professor so that kinda helped.

As he got further into being a master of symphonic form, *Sibelius* lost all his hair, and his symphonies where the equivalent of a follicularly challenged Finnish gentleman who liked cigars and pure spring water.

*Sofia Gubaidulina *is significant for two things. One is that she is partially of Tatar origin - that's where tartare sauce comes from, just add the "r" and "e" - the other is that nobody can pronounce her name correctly (or nowhere near so).

*John Cage's *_4'33"_ is actually a compilation of all the pauses in *Bruckner's* _Symphony #2_, also dubbed _Pausensymphonie_ or _Symphony of Pauses_. Bruckner wanted to go one further, the missing final movement of his supposedly unfinished _Symphony #9_ was meant to be exactly four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. So Mr. Cage wasn't that original after all, he was both a charlatan and a plagiarist!

Its said that* Brahms *burnt more works than he published but there's a theory going around that they just got lost in his bushy beard.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some more -

*Beethoven's* _Ode to Joy_ was originally conceived as a beer barrel song in the classic German tradition meant for a television commercial. However, Beethoven wasn't happy with the fee the advertising execs where offering him, so he made it it into his most highbrow symphony and sold it to the publishers for more cash.

Traditionally, scholarly opinion has been that *Bach* was a great composer with more artistically significant and profound output than anyone else in the Baroque era. Recently however the opinion that *Handel* was greater has emerged, based on evidence of him wearing a bigger wig.

The composer *David Diamond *and the singer *Neil Diamond* where not related, but they where seen together only once in 1978, drunkenly singing _Sweet Caroline_ at a karaoke night in a bar in downtown Tokyo.

*Arthur Sullivan* invented rock n'roll, not* Elvis Presley*. This is based on the fact that Sullivan used the chords of _Hound Dog_ in his overture to _The Gondoliers_ and he also had bigger sideburns.

*Claudio Monteverdi *and *Andrew Lloyd Webber* collaborated on a opera titled _The Coronation of the Phantom of the Poppera_. It was a flop, but Lloyd Webber recycled the material into the musical _Phantom of the Opera_ which became a hit, thus selling out, whilst Monteverdi pursued a solo career as a drag queen performing in the night clubs of Paris, London and New York.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some more - enjoying this, Chris is my scapegoat!

_The Guide to Classical Music: Composers 101_

*Richard Wagner* is a composer known for doing a series of operas about some ring that gets lost by a fat lady who sings, and found again in some river. Those who listen to the four operas in his trilogy risk severe bloating of their egos.

*Alexander Scriabin *was a Russian composer who did a series of piano sonatas, one dedicated to Black Sabbath, the other pinching tunes from The Beatles' White Album. Some people thought Scriabin was a genius but most just said he was bonkers.

*Arthur Honegger* was a composer who penned three great works: one about some train, another about a rugby match, and a pacifist symphony that can double as accompaniment to a requiem mass (kinda handy like all the tools in a Swiss army knife).

*Pierre Boulez* is a French composer known to be a sourpuss, before each photoshoot for an album cover he is known to bite on a lemon to prevent any minute possibility of smiling.

*Edvard Grieg* was a composer who composed some piece about internet trolls chasing some dude called Peer Gynt away from a mountain in Norway.


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## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

More trivia:
A recently discovered backstage rider for Maria Callas' dressing room states that it must contain:

Freshly cut flowers (with all the brown ones taken out, of course.)
One dozen clean towels - must be new/laundered and not stolen from some hotel.
Spacious towel bag (with discreet hidden compartment).
Dartboard, darts, photo of Renata Tebaldi.
100 'Woodbine' brand untipped cigarettes.
Selection of balloon animals, including (but not limited to) Horsey. Spider - but not too realistic please. Moo cow. Big Scary Dinosaur Rarr! 
Copy of '1001 Tourist Phrases in Italian'.
Boxed set of the award-winning Fox Network reality series 'Oooh those Onassisisisis!'
Groucho Marx fake glasses and moustache.


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

Classical music was actually invented by an Icelandic monk in 1346 and then spread with whaling ships to the rest of Europe. Sweden became the dominant power in classical music for centuries, producing more composers than the rest of the world combined (Johansson, Andersson, Carlsson, Svensson, Eriksson, Larsson etc). The Swedish hegemony was finally broken in the 1950s by a generation of Norwegian microtonalists (Grieg, Sibelius, Borodin). The reason Swedish music is seldom played today is Sweden's strict copyright laws.


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## Gangwolf (Apr 26, 2014)

Mozart killed Salieri and entered his body.


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