# Which Musical Mystery?



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

There was an old Scottish Presbyterian lady, apparently, who thought that the main joy of the afterlife would be that 'at last I shall know the truth about the Gowrie Conspiracy.'

If you could find out 'the truth' about one mystery concerned with music, which would it be?

Mine would be the obvious one: did Mozart just die of natural causes?

Any other candidates?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

PS - Feel free to mention more than one mystery - and to give your own solutions too. I'm hoping that the Illustrious Mozartians on this site will tell us what *they* think to be the cause of his death.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The Mozart mystery is the one I'd choose.

But because I love a bit of gossip, I wouldn't mind knowing the answer to the question - 'Were Brahms & Clara Schumann ever lovers?' I think the anwer would be, that (though they loved each other), they were *not*.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

You picked some good ones, Ingenue.

The one I can think of next is - exactly what music did Brahms destroy just before he died?


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

And, of course - what is the hidden theme in the Enigma Variations? (so that's two for me, too. I'll shut up now)


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

What happened to the *rest *of Bach's manuscripts? The ones that were sold and never recovered or lost or just plain disappeared?


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

What did the music of Schumann's sound like that was destroyed because it was supposedly tainted by his madness?

How would Bach have completed the Art of Fugue?

What would Wagner sound like if he had written absolute music rather than Operas?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Another mystery I'd like to know is, what was wrong with Robert Schumann? Was it a 'purely' mental illness like bipolar disorder, or a mental illness caused by a physical condition? I think why he actually died is that he just gave up - he had no hope of leaving the sanatorium and his wife, adhering to medical orders, was not allowed to visit him. So sad!


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Did Tchaikovsky commit suicide as some have suggested?
Did Sibelius really complete and then destroy his 8th Symphony, and if so, what did it sound like?


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

I would want the answer to the Unanswered Question - the perennial question of existence.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

That comes free with the solution to the Musical Mystery...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

What is the origin of the old truism: "There is more to music than meets the eye?"

Why is it desirable that activities end on a high note?

Why does yell(ow)ing the blues turn brass green?


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## Guest (Aug 14, 2013)

Klavierspieler said:


> What would Wagner sound like if he had written absolute music rather than Operas?


I have desired a true Wagner symphony cycle for so long


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Mitchell said:


> I would want the answer to the Unanswered Question - the perennial question of existence.



Number







...............................................


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Was Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved' a real woman? If so, what was her name?


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

Persipentilarina.

It's as good a name as any...


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Number
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for that Taggart! Got a good smile out of it.






@10:00


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Is Volkov/Shostakovich's Testimony fully authentic?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Where did Beethoven hide that @#$%^& cello concerto???


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Taggart said:


> What happened to the *rest *of Bach's manuscripts? The ones that were sold and never recovered or lost or just plain disappeared?


I think I read somewhere once that some of it was used for wallpaper.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

If every single atom in the universe could sing, what would it sound like?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Celloman said:


> If every single atom in the universe could sing, what would it sound like?


God knows! :angel: ---------------------


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Was Glazunov a true professing Christian?

That's pretty much all I care about. I can wait on other Russian conspiracies, like Tchaikovsky's death, Arensky's real reason(s) for insanity, etc, but I want _that _truth for sure. It may be something I'll only find out in death...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Celloman said:


> If every single atom in the universe could sing, what would it sound like?


I think it would depend on the recording engineer, as always.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

If penicillin had been invented 17 years earlier, which direction would Mahler have taken as a composer?


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## TrevBus (Jun 6, 2013)

SuperTonic said:


> Did Tchaikovsky commit suicide as some have suggested?
> Did Sibelius really complete and then destroy his 8th Symphony, and if so, what did it sound like?[/QUOTE
> 
> I also would like to know about Sibelius's 8th? The 9th, 10th and perhaps a lot more? At the height of his career(argumentative perhaps), why did he suddenly stop and go silent? Plenty of speculation but no definitive answer.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

By mentioning a mystery surrounding Mozart's death, are you thinking he may have been murdered? Put your mind at rest! Wolfie died of natural causes. The murder rumours began in the 19th century, some Romantic shenanigans, but really, he was a sickly child and fortunate to have made it to the age he finally did. He could have died before he composed Cosi, for example, but eked out another couple years of wonderful existence.

From memory, the consensus is that he died of some fever. He had always bronchial problems but the actual cause of his death is unknown, for obvious reasons. There was some bloodletting at the bedside and attempts to keep him alive: eyewitnesses say he was bloated terribly and fell into a coma, dying not long after. Whatever it was, it was a terrible, fearful death, a horrible scene for his loved ones to witness.

Just on the murder theories, po' Salieri is cast as the villain of the piece. This is an historical travesty made worse by the fact that it was often repeated in Salieri's lifetime. The fact that Beethoven, Wolfie Jr and Schubert were among his pupils would suggest that they, at least, knew this wasn't true...


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Where did Beethoven hide that @#$%^& cello concerto???


In the fridge......................


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kieran said:


> Just on the murder theories, po' Salieri is cast as the villain of the piece. This is an historical travesty made worse by the fact that it was often repeated in Salieri's lifetime. The fact that Beethoven, Wolfie Jr and Schubert were among his pupils would suggest that they, at least, knew this wasn't true...


Of course, young Ludwig and others may well have put Salieri up to it. Maybe they felt the same way Kozeluch did: "Of course it's too bad about such a great genius, but it's good for us that he's dead. Because if he had lived longer, really the world would not have given a single piece of bread for our compositions."


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Of course, young Ludwig and others may well have put Salieri up to it. Maybe they felt the same way Kozeluch did: "Of course it's too bad about such a great genius, but it's good for us that he's dead. Because if he had lived longer, really the world would not have given a single piece of bread for our compositions."


Your current avatar (8/14/2013) looks more like you than most of them have.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I too really want to know what is allegedly hidden in the Enigma Variations. 

I'd also like to know what the heck Glenn Gould meant by "intuited" when he said (of Wendy Carlos' Switched-on Bach II) "Carlos's realization of the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto is, to put it bluntly, the finest performance of any of the Brandenburgs -- live, canned, or intuited -- I've ever heard." I didn't even know "intuited" is a word, though my spell checker seems happy with it. It sounds like business jargon.


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

A lot has been mention, which I'm also highly intrigued by. But, I'd like to know what became of Hummel and Schubert's friendship. Also, what happened to Hummel's symphonies that he never wrote. I don't think B's symphonies intimidated him, because Hummel was a gifted orchestrator, so, why no symphonies? Damn you Hummel for depriving us from those symphonies! :devil:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Ingenue said:


> Mine would be the obvious one: did Mozart just die of natural causes?













> I'm hoping that the Illustrious Mozartians on this site will tell us what *they* think to be the cause of his death.


As far as I could gather he died of rheumatic fever or something like that. In his day, lots of relatively young people were carried off by all manner of infections. Oh, and contrary to popular opinion, he did not die a pauper and was not buried in a pauper's grave either.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Weston said:


> I too really want to know what is allegedly hidden in the Enigma Variations.
> 
> I'd also like to know what the heck Glenn Gould meant by "intuited" when he said (of Wendy Carlos' Switched-on Bach II) "Carlos's realization of the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto is, to put it bluntly, the finest performance of any of the Brandenburgs -- live, canned, or intuited -- I've ever heard." I didn't even know "intuited" is a word, though my spell checker seems happy with it. It sounds like business jargon.


According to Wiktionary, it is the simple past tense and past participle of intuit, which means "to know intuitively or by immediate perception."

I'm still not totally sure what he meant by it here, though...


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

Why is it that the major mode causes a 'happy' reaction and the minor mode a 'sad' one? Why do these exact intervals affect human brains this way?


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Did Mozart ever actually meet Beethoven? There was a 2 week period in which it could have happened it seems in 1787.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

starry said:


> Did Mozart ever actually meet Beethoven? There was a 2 week period in which it could have happened it seems in 1787.


Quick answer. Nobody knows.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Quick answer. Nobody knows.


Well yes, that's why it's a musical mystery.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

starry said:


> Well yes, that's why it's a musical mystery.


Talking about mysteries always makes me think of Jack Handey. "Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and so is mankind."


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

But 'mank' isn't a mystery in the North of England. If something is 'manky' it's shabby & moth-eaten. If a person is 'manky', they're grumpy and cross.

Now all we need to do is define 'ind'...


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

starry said:


> Did Mozart ever actually meet Beethoven? There was a 2 week period in which it could have happened it seems in 1787.


Seems like even Wikipedia doesn't know, so it's definitely a mystery:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_and_Beethoven


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Klavierspieler said:


> According to Wiktionary, it is the simple past tense and past participle of intuit, which means "to know intuitively or by immediate perception."
> 
> I'm still not totally sure what he meant by it here, though...


My sense is that he means something along the lines of "felt" or "heard in the player's mind".


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

Wallpaper mysteries:

When I visited George Sand's manor house at Nohant, our wonderful guide showed us, in Sand's own bedroom, a date scrawled high up on the wallpaper. No one knows to what it referred. Was it commemorating a private moment between Chopin and Sand? (I like to think so.)
After the breakup, Chopin's own rooms were freshly papered, but Sand saved a piece of the original, which is kept there under lock and key. Perhaps she regretted the breakup? (I like to think so.)


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## Frei aber froh (Feb 22, 2013)

Yes, I'm resurrecting this. I simply have questions that will (well, probably for one) never be answered, and it's kind of driving me crazy...

If I had one mystery: how much of _Testimony_ is authentic?

2) Did Mozart and Beethoven meet? 3) Did Tchaikovsky know he was about to die when he wrote the Pathétique? 4) What's the enigma of the Enigma Variations? 5) How would The Art of the Fugue ended?

These five questions have been haunting me for years, literally.

Mostly, though, I want to know about Testimony.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

arcaneholocaust said:


> I have desired a true Wagner symphony cycle for so long


Always be very careful about what you wish for, because, you know, it could come true.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Re Testimony: Consider that Volkov might have been quite honest. And that it may have been Shostakovich, old and bitter and trying to justify his many betrayals, who was making things up.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I don't believe there are many 'musical mysteries,' i.e. unfinished works are simply unfinished; works lost or destroyed are lost and destroyed. All of this nature are 'what if' speculations vs. anything actually mysterious, including the likes of the apocryphal "what ifs" & "did this-es" of "did Beethoven and Mozart ever meet," etc.

The answers to the "Enigma" of Elgar's variations have been somewhat solved, with a few intelligently well thought out posits. There is no 'big deal' revelation to any of them.

The one musical puzzle I can think of which I believe remains 'unsolved,' is "what is the complete bass-line upon which Bach supposedly built the Goldberg Variations" -- none of it is ever used in its entirety within any variation, or can it be seen in the sum of all of the entire piece as a composite. While this is not an achingly great puzzle which needs any solving or to which a 'solution' would be any more than of petty academic interest, it is still in question as to what the complete line may be / have been.

So many of what are termed mysteries are not: they are not puzzles to be solved to which there was once an answer now lost, or things to which there was once an answer / explanation which has been 'kept secret.'


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

My pick would be: How did Ringo Starr get into the Beatles?

Just kidding,


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> But 'mank' isn't a mystery in the North of England. If something is 'manky' it's shabby & moth-eaten. If a person is 'manky', they're grumpy and cross.
> 
> Now all we need to do is define 'ind'...


the rearmost of an object. Eg "thart as crooked as a dog's ind leg"


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Nay, an ind is a female deer!


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Although I am satisfied with the identification of Antonie Brentano, I would love confirmation that she was Beethoven's "Immortal beloved."


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Hermioneviolageek said:


> Yes, I'm resurrecting this. I simply have questions that will (well, probably for one) never be answered, and it's kind of driving me crazy...
> 
> If I had one mystery: how much of _Testimony_ is authentic?
> 
> ...


1) Re _Testimony_: There is overwhelming evidence that the book is a systematic fraud. See Laurel Fay's "Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony?" _Russian Review _39, no. 4 (1980), 484-93. Volkov's best proof of authenticity is the fact that Shostakovich's signature appears on the typescript of the first pages of all of Testimony's chapters except one. Unfortunately, as Fay shows, those first pages exactly reproduce the opening pages of articles published under Shostakovich's name in the USSR (except for a few time-sensitive references). After the first page, however, each chapter departs from these sources abruptly and, once or twice, almost incoherently. Fay suggests that what Volkov showed Shostakovich was just a collection of very safe and already published articles which he, as an editor of _Sovetskaya Muzika_, was collecting for publication. Then, afterward, he removed all of the previously published material except for the first pages, the ones with the signatures, and created most of the the rest himself by paraphrasing others at second or third hand, repeating rumors already circulating, or just making stuff up. The "testimony" of friends and acquaintances supports the view that _Testimony_ is mostly rumor, second hand quotations and fabrication. Much of this evidence is collected in _A Shostakovich Casebook_ (edited by Malcolm Hamrick Brown).

Bottom line: _Testimony_ is totally unreliable. Nothing in it can be trusted unless it appears in another source.

3) Tchaikovsky had no idea he would soon die of cholera.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Re Testimony: Consider that Volkov might have been quite honest. And that it may have been Shostakovich, old and bitter and trying to justify his many betrayals, who was making things up.


No, Volkov was not honest (see above). And Shostkovich's self-loathing over his actions and failures to act is well documented.

Also, I would love to hear about these alleged "many betrayals." After reading most of the available biographical material on Shostakovich, as well as the testimony of friends, acquaintances and colleagues, I have no idea to what you might be referring.


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## MissLemko (May 11, 2014)

What did write in Liszt's Sketches for a Harmony of the Future? And how did it get lost?
...or maybe I don't want to know. He was definitely not very talented in writing. His 5-row-long incomprehensible sentences...nobody really wants to read that.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Would Scriabin's Mysterium cause the end of the world? We will never know.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Celloman said:


> If every single atom in the universe could sing, what would it sound like?







There's also the "sound" of the planets by the NASA, and after some editing they do sound quite like 'ambient' music.


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

*Scriabin's Mystery*

The mystery of Scriabin's _Mysterium_: what was it supposed to sound (and look) like ? What would the meaning of the piece have been ?


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

And did Rossini actually created the _Tournedos Rossini_ ?

If yes, this would have been the best thing he achieved. It's much better than his music :lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

omega said:


> And did Rossini actually created the _Tournedos Rossini_ ?


"Tournedos Rossini is a French steak dish, purportedly created for the composer Gioachino Rossini by French master chef Marie-Antoine Carême or by Savoy Hotel chef Auguste Escoffier."

Quite illegal in California now, I'm afraid.


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

KenOC said:


> "Tournedos Rossini is a French steak dish, purportedly created for the composer Gioachino Rossini by French master chef Marie-Antoine Carême or by Savoy Hotel chef Auguste Escoffier."


That's what I read, too. But other sources (an old cooking book of my father's) attests Rossini had had the idea of this meal when he was young (he started to work as a butcher).



KenOC said:


> Quite illegal in California now, I'm afraid.


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## Guest (May 23, 2014)

Celloman said:


> If every single atom in the universe could sing, what would it sound like?


I think it would sound a little quarky.

Back on topic, I would want to know what happened to Villa-Lobos' two lost Choros works.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

All these named mysteries are naught compared to that most universal mystery, that mystery of cosmic proportions which the greatest of minds are no nearer solving than they were decades ago:

_*why and how do driers make socks disappear?*_


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## Wicked_one (Aug 18, 2010)

PetrB said:


> _*why and how do dryers make socks disappear?*_


They join hands and while a radiant beam of light is cast down from heavens, the Ode to Joy is heard, and the socks follow the enlightened path to the God of Socks.

They don't disappear, it's a tribute.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

PetrB said:


> All these named mysteries are naught compared to that most universal mystery, that mystery of cosmic proportions which the greatest of minds are no nearer solving than they were decades ago:
> 
> _*why and how do driers make socks disappear?*_





Wicked_one said:


> They join hands and while a radiant beam of light is cast down from heavens, the Ode to Joy is heard, and the socks follow the enlightened path to the God of Socks.
> 
> They don't disappear, it's a tribute.


One theory I read speculated that all socks had heat activated enzymes which, once activated, eat both natural and synthetic fibers.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Yes, but how does the dryer decide *which* sock of the pair should disappear?

Interestingly, (so far) I have only found it to apply to identical socks - if you have "shaped" socks with distinct and marked left and right socks they seem to stay intact. It is only pairs which are identical that suffer from disappearance.

My wife's fiddle teacher has adopted the practice of wearing odd socks in attempt to fool the entity responsible.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Taggart said:


> Yes, but how does the dryer decide *which* sock of the pair should disappear?
> 
> Interestingly, (so far) I have only found it to apply to identical socks - if you have "shaped" socks with distinct and marked left and right socks they seem to stay intact. It is only pairs which are identical that suffer from disappearance.
> 
> My wife's fiddle teacher has adopted the practice of wearing odd socks in attempt to fool the entity responsible.


I think David Hockney is another who managed to foil those same nefarious forces.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

omega said:


> The mystery of Scriabin's _Mysterium_: what was it supposed to sound (and look) like ? What would the meaning of the piece have been ?


The "completion" by Alexander Nemtin probably gives a bit of an idea. If Scriabin had been able to complete (a part of) the Mysterium my guess is that it would've been similar in sound to Prometheus, but longer and even more outlandish.


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