# Athletic Composers



## Guest (Mar 31, 2019)

TIL Debussy played tennis with Ravel.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

HSW said:


> TIL Debussy played tennis with Ravel.


I never suspected we could ever associate the music of these two sublime Impressionists with "racquet"!


----------



## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

HSW said:


> TIL Debussy played tennis with Ravel.


Gershwin and Schoenberg also played tennis together, and Prokofiev is also said to have enjoyed the game.

Shostakovich was a certified soccer referee, Elgar was a cyclist, Charles Ives played baseball and football (American), Leonard Bernstein was a swimmer and a skier, Benjamin Britten played tennis and cricket in his boyhood. I imagine others composers participated in athletics at some point in their lives; this would make a good essay for someone to write...


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

According to the composer's godson Ignaz Moscheles, "Mendelssohn could throw my ball farther than anybody else; and he could run faster too." Mendelssohn's friend Julius Schubring added that the composer was "a vigorous and skillful gymnast," "a very good swimmer," and "a good horseman."

Roger Sessions climbed the Matterhorn in 1929.

Chevalier de Saint-Georges, sometimes referred to as “The Black Mozart”, was a swimmer, runner, marksman, and widely known as Europe's greatest fencer.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Percy Grainger was a keep-fit nut - he even designed his own tracksuit, allegedly.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Arnold Schoenberg loved to play ping-pong and was photographed doing so.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Chausson liked bicycling...died doing it. Harl McDonald was a rodeo cowboy. Mozart was a billiard player. Given he had 27 kids, JS Bach sure had a lot of exercise! Sport and exercise as we know it are fairly new human activities. A lot of composers got theirs by walking...maybe the oldest and best way.


----------



## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Brian Ferneyhough. His mandible gets plenty of work.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Honegger was a good swimmer, football player and racing car driver.

Karlowicz enjoyed skiing and was killed by an avalanche while doing so in the Tatra mountains.

Sibelius loved skiing too.


----------



## Guest (Mar 31, 2019)

SONNET CLV said:


> I never suspected we could ever associate the music of these two sublime Impressionists with "racquet"!


Jeux .


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Root said:


> Jeux .


Touché! .


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> Percy Grainger was a keep-fit nut - he even designed his own tracksuit, allegedly.


first name that I thought when I saw this topic. I remember reading he used to run from town to town during his concert tours.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

norman bates said:


> first name that I thought when I saw this topic. I remember reading he used to run from town to town during his concert tours.


I am a very very *VERY *minor composer who ran track and cross-country in high school. :tiphat:


----------



## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Haydn70 said:


> I am a very very *VERY *minor composer who ran track and cross-country in high school. :tiphat:


I know, I found this photo of you online. Your legs need work, your arms are like spaghetti.


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Roger Sessions climbed the Matterhorn in 1929.


That would beat all the other composers.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Gordontrek said:


> Shostakovich was a certified soccer referee...


Shostakovich's daughter reminisced about her father being umpire for tennis matches at Crimea during the 1950's. It was a popular Summer resort for government officials. One of the players was head of the KGB, General Ivan Serov. Whenever Serov raised objections, Shostakovich would say that the umpire's decision was final. "My father confessed he took immense pleasure in saying this to the head of the KGB," she said.



elgars ghost said:


> Percy Grainger was a keep-fit nut - he even designed his own tracksuit, allegedly.


True, made from towels. He made different designs, this is one of the more flamboyant ones:

https://grainger.unimelb.edu.au/discover/collection#&gid=0&pid=5


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Red Terror said:


> I know, I found this photo of you online. Your legs need work, your arms are like spaghetti.


Yes, that was taken after I had slimmed down a bit.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Berlioz is credited as one of the inventors of the modern biathlon, when he strapped barrel staves to his feet one winter and trudged through the snow to try to shoot Francois Habeneck. But Habeneck was vacationing on the Riviera, and Berlioz went after a partridge instead, but missed.


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Mahler liked taking long walks and take therapy from Freud while doing this.

This pic was probably taken by Freud, as selfies didn't yet exist


----------



## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Off topic (no composer), former RCO Chief Daniele Gatti even commuted on his bicycle in the Concertgebouw.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Roger Sessions climbed the Matterhorn in 1929.





Bulldog said:


> That would beat all the other composers.


I'm not so sure. According to a lot of the critics I've read, Bach and Beethoven, just to name two of the most prominent, have "scaled the greatest heights" with their musical offerings.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> Percy Grainger was a keep-fit nut - he even designed his own tracksuit, allegedly.


Percy was a total fitness nut. When he sailed by ship, he insisted on going below and shovelling coal. Once arrived, he would literally run from town to town for his concerts, often arriving on stage just in the nick of time. But hey, he loved his mother!


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

SONNET CLV said:


> I'm not so sure. According to a lot of the critics I've read, Bach and Beethoven, just to name two of the most prominent, have "scaled the greatest heights" with their musical offerings.


And this was before the day of bottled oxygen, mind you.


----------



## Guest (Apr 1, 2019)

Moritz Eggert has been posting fitness stuff to his facebook story lately.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

5 Athletic Composers: https://www.wqxr.org/story/five-most-athletic-composers/


----------



## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Brahms did a lot of hiking in the mountains of Germany.


----------



## Flutter (Mar 26, 2019)

I thought this was gonna be about pieces............oh well, I'll drop and run anyway


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I read somewhere that Rachmaninoff was keen on rowing as a young man.

(That's rowing as in boats and oars, not as in having a blazing row with someone.)
(Not even with Stravinksky)


----------

