# Strange But True Classical Music Facts...



## Guest (Oct 13, 2012)

I'll start. Benjamin Franklin (that one) wrote a string quartet! I found only one recording of it by the Kohon Quartet. No need to rush out and buy it, but impressive nonetheless.

How about something really bizarre?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I think it's bizarre how Heddy Lamar was listening to George Antheil changing keys on the piano and they hit on a method to confuse enemy radar.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Here's an interesting fact: in species counterpoint the interval of a perfect fourth is considered dissonant and is categorised with seconds, sevenths and tritones but the perfect fourth's inversion (perfect fifth) is considered consonant.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Here's an interesting fact: in species counterpoint the interval of a perfect fourth is considered dissonant and is categorised with seconds, sevenths and tritones but the perfect fourth's inversion (perfect fifth) is considered consonant.


Species counterpoint sounds kinda dumb. Not looking forward to studying that.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Species counterpoint sounds kinda dumb. Not looking forward to studying that.


You obviously don't know Johann Joseph Fux


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## googlebordello (Sep 22, 2012)

Mental Floss said:


> For all the chatter about how Mozart makes your kids smarter (false!) or how it helps with the SATs (possibly), the one thing that Mozart definitely seems to do is make sludge-eating microbes digest faster. A sewage treatment plant in Treuenbrietzen, Germany, has experimented with different operas, playing them at high volume through loudspeakers set up around the site. "The Magic Flute" seems to work best. Anton Stucki, the plant's chief operator, believes the reverberations quicken the pace for breaking down refuse. "We think the secret is in the vibrations of the music, which penetrate everything-including the water, the sewage, and the cells," he says. "It creates a certain resonance that stimulates the microbes and help them work better." Stucki doesn't even like opera; he's a rock 'n' roll fan. But he tolerates Mozart because it makes the microbes more efficient, saving the plant up to $1,250 a month.


Here's the original link.


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Chopin was terrified of being buried alive, and asked to have his heart removed after his death so there was no chance he would 'wake up' in his grave. It's preserved in alcohol in a church in Warsaw.

(But considering how common it was for people to be mistakenly thought dead and buried back then, maybe his phobia wasn't that bizarre..)


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

This is what Wikipedia has to say about the Endlessly Rising Canon from _The Musical Offering:_

Canon per tonos (Endlessly rising canon)
The canon per tonos (endlessly rising canon) pits a variant of the king's theme against a two-voice canon at the fifth. However, it modulates and finishes one whole tone higher than it started out at. It thus has no final cadence.

1 octave (G Schirmer edition of Well Tempered Clavier) = 6mm

One canon iteration = approx. 25 secs

6 iterations = 1 octave, therefore: 1 octave or 6mm every 2.5 mins
= 144mm/hour
= 3.456m/day
= 1.26km/year (assume that endlessly rising canons are not subject to gravity)

Having started in 1747, it should now be somewhere over 334.5km and will reach lunar orbit in a further 304,814 years.

2 octaves = 7 ledger lines and takes 5 minutes, therefore 1440 ledger lines/day, 525960/year, or 139,379,400 to date (purists may wish to subtract 5 for the original clef)

The starting note should now be approx. 7,293,042,855 hz (somewhat beyond the hearing range of bats)

Philosophical rejoinder to skeptics:

Dear Sir; Your astonishment's odd;
This canon will 'ternally plod
Forever on higher
(like Heavenly Choir)
Since it's heard by, Yours faithfully, God.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Here's an interesting fact: in species counterpoint the interval of a perfect fourth is considered dissonant and is categorised with seconds, sevenths and tritones but the perfect fourth's inversion (perfect fifth) is considered consonant.


That's changed my whole day and I'll bet not many people know that!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

moody said:


> That's changed my whole day and I'll bet not many people know that!


I had always found it bizarre that the inversion of that particular dissonant interval gives a consonant one. It is unique in that regard.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> You obviously don't know Johann Joseph Fux


I do, and I intend to learn it well. I just think some of the rules I've heard in it are really stupid and arbitrary, and music is better when it breaks them.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The London symphony orchestra made its first tour of America 100 years ago under the legendary Artur Nickish . The management changed the ship it was going to sail on at the last minute .
The original ship chosen was - THE TITANIC ! Imagine if had actually gone on that ill-fated ship .


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I had always found it bizarre that the inversion of that particular dissonant interval gives a consonant one. It is unique in that regard.


That's just what I always say.


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Here's an interesting fact: in species counterpoint the interval of a perfect fourth is considered dissonant and is categorised with seconds, sevenths and tritones but the perfect fourth's inversion (perfect fifth) is considered consonant.


It's only a dissonance if there are only two voices, or if it is the bottom interval in a three or more voice texture. You can have a fourth 'on top' without resolution. Its status is more situational than the other dissonances.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Oops . That should be spelled "Nickisch ", not Nickish .


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Heh, I'm kinda weird though X3 I think the Major second, minor seventh, Major 9th isn't dissonant. To me, the only ones which are consistently dissonant are minor seconds (and Major sevenths) and tritones (except when spread by many registers), certain voicings of thirds and sixths when spread apart by several registers, and pretty much everything except octaves and unisons in the lowest registers. And even then, dissonance isn't something bad or to be avoided. Its all about color and drama, and dissonant intervals are full of those things.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Oops . That should be spelled "Nickisch ", not Nickish .


no inappropriate nick-names here, please. It' s Nikisch ! ;-)


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> Heh, I'm kinda weird though X3 I think the Major second, minor seventh, Major 9th isn't dissonant. To me, the only ones which are consistently dissonant are minor seconds (and Major sevenths) and tritones (except when spread by many registers), certain voicings of thirds and sixths when spread apart by several registers, and pretty much everything except octaves and unisons in the lowest registers. And even then, dissonance isn't something bad or to be avoided. Its all about color and drama, and dissonant intervals are full of those things.


Well, the rules we're talking about here are based on Palestrina. That our taste has evolved beyond that of 16th century church musicians isn't surprising.  But someone like Bach also follows those rules to a large extent. Also keep in mind that dissonances here doesn't mean 'bad' and 'shouldn't be used', it just means that they need to be resolved into a consonance. It's this use of dissonance that brings drama to renaissance and a lot of baroque music, (though it's not the only means of doing so.)


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Heh, I'm kinda weird though X3 I think the Major second, minor seventh, Major 9th isn't dissonant. To me, the only ones which are consistently dissonant are minor seconds (and Major sevenths) and tritones (except when spread by many registers), certain voicings of thirds and sixths when spread apart by several registers, and pretty much everything except octaves and unisons in the lowest registers. And even then, dissonance isn't something bad or to be avoided. Its all about color and drama, and dissonant intervals are full of those things.


But when taking lessons in counterpoint and harmony you're supposed to write something _dans le style de_... With a Mozartian aria, you can't use Schubertian harmonies. 
Species counterpoint is worse than that : you aren't supposed to aim at interesting music, but just write so that you won't break any centuries old rule. In the context of specie counterpoint, an interesting melodic line is a scale... Don't even think about drama when doing species counterpoint, it'd be like adding drama to Hanon. I'm actually wondering if Hanon isn't more musical than species counterpoint.
I find it very strange that musicians are supposed to be taught with the same set of rules since 1600 even though music has encountered...uh ... _a lot_ of changes since then.

When I talked about this to my former harmony teacher - who's mainly concert organist, organ teacher and analysis teacher, and someone who studied in two of the three best conservatories in France - he told me it was outdated and that he didn't understand why we were supposed to work on this nowadays - I was quite reassured.
But there are persons who think it's useful (Dutilleux included...).

(Yes I hate specie counterpoint ^^ I decided I won't learn it this way. I'm partly learning the piano so that I can play complex polyphonic music after all)


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Praeludium said:


> he told me it was outdated and that he didn't understand why we were supposed to work on this nowadays - I was quite reassured.


This is not only in music teaching. Almost all of the university careers have these kind of things. Now that I'm at the end of my years as a student, I can say that the current system can be sometimes quite inefficient for transmitting the knowledge, the important knowledge.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Norse said:


> Chopin was terrified of being buried alive...


Very common fear indeed in those days. But there were precautions: "The coffin pull bell, also known as "Bateson's Life Revival Device" or "Bateson's Belfry," was created in England by inventor George Bateson. The device featured an iron bell, mounted on the outside of a coffin, with a string attached to the corpse's hands, in the hopes that a gravedigger would hear the bell ringing if by some chance the person was still alive."


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Moreover, with the music of Palestrina, dissonances are never to be employed on strong beats, and that is the second most important rule.

BurningDesire, it's usually the case, although not with the perfect fourth, that if one interval is reckoned consonant, that its inversions will also be reckoned consonant. The major 2nd, minor 7th, and major 9th are but inversions of the same notes. However, you will find that in the stricter counterpoint of the Roman School, and also the Venetian School, that the major second, and its associated inversions, is dissonant. When you come to the study of oblique motion, and its usual employment in Fourth Species Counterpoint, the major second must resolve into a consonant interval, probably the imperfect consonances since the suspension must be resolved conjointly. That said, since you are usually working with a cantus firmus, the perfect consonances are a legitimate, although in my experience slightly less probably, resolution.

With strict counterpoint in general, I find it to be an excellent way to learn the tonal structures of music. By learning the characteristics of the intervals, you can develop a very good familiarity with the effects of certain musical idioms. In counterpoint, the voices cannot move in sixths or thirds for very long, for that would be to destroy the independence of the voices--each voice must be regarded as an equal, even if the soprano voice probably gets slightly more attention. Further, sixths and thirds are so mellifluous that the listener would lose interest in the music very quickly. The lessons of counterpoint, in my opinion, are primarily about the treatment of movements and intervals that best engender, within their narrower context of consonance and dissonance, the releasing of music energy. The music is supposed to be filled with dissonance, else the melodic momentum of the piece would quickly fade. There is supposed to be tension, but it must be relatively constrained. 

Realizing that the lessons are perhaps more important about learning a stricter treatment of suspension and resolution, will give you a keen insight into the functions of suspension and resolution in more modern music as well. I think that working diligently through Fux's "Steps" will ultimately make you feel a great deal more comfortable in composing and interpreting music. There's much usefulness in those exercises, and remember that Fux may have been inspired by and devoted to Palestrina, but his replication of Palestrina's style is very imperfect. Fux wrote music that Palestrina couldn't have, for the latter obeyed stricter rules of which Fux was not aware.

Definitely study Fux, but don't let it limit you. The world of music has evolved enormously since then! Knowing the systems of the distant past can give you a clearer understanding of the systems of the nearer past, and even the present.

Best of luck with you!


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> You obviously don't know Johann Joseph Fux


????????? really???????????????????


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> I do, and I intend to learn it well. I just think some of the rules I've heard in it are really stupid and arbitrary, and music is better when it breaks them.


I don't believe the purpose of studying species counterpoint is to learn a set of "rules" to use for writing better music, it's to train your mind to work in a certain way so that you will naturally and intuitively make better decisions when it comes to voice leading. Doing the exercises are what's important, not learning how to do the exercises.

This book might be helpful: http://www.amazon.com/Counterpoint-Composition-Study-Voice-Leading/dp/023107039X


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Praeludium said:


> I find it very strange that musicians are supposed to be taught with the same set of rules since 1600 even though music has encountered...uh ... _a lot_ of changes since then.
> 
> .... my former harmony teacher - who's mainly concert organist, organ teacher and analysis teacher, and someone who studied in two of the three best conservatories in France -... told me it was outdated and that he didn't understand why we were supposed to work on this nowadays - I was quite reassured. But there are persons who think it's useful (Dutilleux included...).


,
You might be able to arrange to tutor the subject privately: you won't be able to avoid the rules, but if is going to be such a travail you may want to minimize the agony of sitting in a classroom of your peers all struggling with the same thing.
Unless you already know it and can pass an exam, the chances of a waiver are more than slight, more like nil.

And it is just one semester -- which you can endure readily enough -- in the light of the reality you will not be able to avoid modal counterpoint as a requirement, that should be a far better reassurance.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Apparently Tchaikovsky was afraid his head would fall off. True story. So when he conducted the orchestra, he held his head with his free hand....


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Burningdesire, species counterpoint is very important training for any serious music student . I went through it long ago, and it's tough . But you can learn so much about the nature of music from it .
Work at it diligently ,please , for your own musical good !


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

The 18th century Bohemian composer Anton Filtz died what is probably the weirdest death of any composer. He liked to eat live spiders because he claimed they tasted like fresh strawberries ! Apparently, he ate too many and died . Some of his music has been recorded .


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2012)

superhorn said:


> The 18th century Bohemian composer Anton Filtz died what is probably the weirdest death of any composer. He liked to eat live spiders because he claimed they tasted like fresh strawberries ! Apparently, he ate too many and died . Some of his music has been recorded .


His 8 tarantella dances were very popular


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Schubert was abducted by a flying saucer in his early 20s. But that story is well-known.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

superhorn said:


> The 18th century Bohemian composer Anton Filtz died what is probably the weirdest death of any composer. He liked to eat live spiders because he claimed they tasted like fresh strawberries ! Apparently, he ate too many and died . Some of his music has been recorded .


:lol:

What a shame, he could be a real spiderman and help his society!


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

There are a few weird deaths that befell various composers (some of these have been seen before in a previous thread):

Alkan - died, crushed by a bookcase that fell on top of him.
Chausson - died after losing control of his bicycle while going down a steep hill, crashing into a wall.
František Kocvara (Kotswara) - died of 'erotic asphyxiation' when a sex game with a prostitute went tragically wrong.
Johann Schobert - died from eating poisonous mushrooms thought to be safe.
Stradella - died in a duel after the husband of one of his many mistresses hired a 17th-century hit man to teach him a lesson.
Webern - Shot by an American GI after the end of WWII by breaking curfew to light an after-dinner cigar.

Some other unusual facts:

Berlioz - wrote the majority of the _Symphonie fantastique_ whilst high on opium.

Gesualdo - murdered his wife and her lover when he caught them 'in flagrente delicto' when returning home unexpectedly one night.

Mozart - loved playing billiards and skittles - and drinking lots. He was also obsessed with toilet humour and the grosser bodily functions, often writing about them in his letters. It is said that he composed the _Kegelstatt_ Trio (Kegelstatt = German for skittles), K 498 while actually playing a game.

Shostakovich - wrote his 'Tahiti Trot' as a bet when he was a student. Shostakovich's teacher, the conductor Nikolai Malko, bet Shostakovich that he couldn't write an orchestration of Vincent Youmans' _Tea for Two_ after just one hearing. Shostakovich succeeded and won the bet.

Shostakovich - before his evacuation from Leningrad during WWII, Shostakovich was an active member of the fire-fighting team in the city.

Tchaikovsky - wrote the _Pas de deux_ from the 'Nutcracker' ballet as a bet. He said he could write a piece whose main theme was a simple descending major scale. He did it and won.


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

Norse said:


> Chopin was terrified of being buried alive, and asked to have his heart removed after his death so there was no chance he would 'wake up' in his grave. It's preserved in alcohol in a church in Warsaw.


Not in the communion wine, I hope...


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

Delicious Manager said:


> Webern - Shot by an American GI after the end of WWII by breaking curfew to light an after-dinner cigar.


That's sad. I am so sorry for him. 

Best regards, Dr


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Delicious Manager said:


> There are a few weird deaths that befell various composers (some of these have been seen before in a previous thread):
> 
> Alkan - died, crushed by a bookcase that fell on top of him.


Urban legend, according to wikipedia.


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

And according to various sources it's also more likely that Shostakovich was portrayed on top of a Leningrad building in fireman's uniform solely for propaganda purposes - you know the sort: 'USSR's great composer stands defiant against the Fascist Enemy with the brave citizens of Leningrad'. The truth appears to be rather more mundane - he was airlifted to the relative safety of Moscow on Stalin's orders soon after. This isn't to denigrate DSCH's fortitude - if left in Leningrad I'm sure he'd have pitched in and done what was asked of him.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> And according to various sources it's also more likely that Shostakovich was portrayed on top of a Leningrad building in fireman's uniform solely for propaganda purposes - you know the sort: 'USSR's great composer stands defiant against the Fascist Enemy with the brave citizens of Leningrad'. The truth appears to be rather more mundane - he was airlifted to the relative safety of Moscow on Stalin's orders soon after. This isn't to denigrate DSCH's fortitude - *if left in Leningrad I'm sure he'd have pitched in and done what was asked of him.*


Or died of starvation. There was no way they were going to leave him in Leningrad during the siege.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Re Alkan's death, crushed by a falling bookcase as he tried to fetch a Talmud from a high shelf:



Art Rock said:


> Urban legend, according to wikipedia.


But as somebody said, it s_hould h_ave been true!


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## dionisio (Jul 30, 2012)

Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A US vice president wrote a genuine hit song. Charles Gates Dawes, a banker who became VP under Calvin Coolidge in 1925, wrote a piece for violin and orchestra called "Melody in A Major." Carl Sigman added lyrics in 1951 and it became "All in the Game," a #1 hit for Tommy Edwards a couple of years later. It's since been sung by a lot of others, several doing well in the charts with it: Nat King Cole, Cliff Richard, the Four Tops, Tom T. Hall, Merle Haggard, Van Morrison, Bobby Vee, Isaac Hayes, Jackie DeShannon, Cass Elliot, Elton John, Nick Lowe, Bobby Blue Bland, Art Garfunkel, Keith Jarrett, and Freddy Fender.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

KenOC said:


> A US vice president wrote a genuine hit song. Charles Gates Dawes, a banker who became VP under Calvin Coolidge in 1925, wrote a piece for violin and orchestra called "Melody in A Major." Carl Sigman added lyrics in 1951 and it became "All in the Game," a #1 hit for Tommy Edwards a couple of years later. It's since been sung by a lot of others, several doing well in the charts with it: Nat King Cole, Cliff Richard, the Four Tops, Tom T. Hall, Merle Haggard, Van Morrison, Bobby Vee, Isaac Hayes, Jackie DeShannon, Cass Elliot, Elton John, Nick Lowe, Bobby Blue Bland, Art Garfunkel, Keith Jarrett, and Freddy Fender.


Ah, I hadn't known that about my favorite president and vice president duo.


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## Knhee (Dec 28, 2012)

When Bach was alive, apparently he was more renowned for other things than his composing- mostly organ playing (but probably because of his ability to improvise).

I'm not sure if this one is true but apparently Mendelssohn's wedding march was incidental?


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Well this is sure strange enough!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Knhee said:


> I'm not sure if this one is true but apparently Mendelssohn's wedding march was incidental?


LOL: 'Incidental' as in 'incidental music for a play,' in this case, Shakespeare's _A Midsummer's Night Dream._ (Thus making it no more incidental than Grieg's Peer Gynt suite.)

He wrote the overture and a bit of other music for a production when he was seventeen years old. Some years later, he wrote additional music, which now comprises the entire concert suite, including a chorus and some songs.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Well this is sure strange enough!


As is this ~ aspiring young pianist en route to professional, perhaps, at the Aspen Music Camp.,.. future powerbroker.... well, have a look


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Bela Bartok, whenever possible, preferred to practice the piano, and to compose -- in the nude.


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

Edward Elgar's favourite football team was Wolverhampton Wanderers - possibly the only thing he had in common with Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Interesting that Mendelssohn wrote the incidental music (including the Wedding March) 16 years after the overture, and only five years before his death. He hadn't lost the touch, obviously!


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## Knhee (Dec 28, 2012)

PetrB said:


> LOL: 'Incidental' as in 'incidental music for a play,' in this case, Shakespeare's _A Midsummer's Night Dream._ (Thus making it no more incidental than Grieg's Peer Gynt suite.)


Sorry my english is not great here- a visiting friend from Safrica had written that one and that is what he had meant (I think). So he was purely trying to state that it was probably not composed directly for or solely for the purpose of marriage but a play (although a marriage in a play? not sure I haven't seen it myself).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Mahler once wrote a song while using the facilities of his summer home. He had the idea and sketched it out before he came out.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Mahler once wrote a song while using the facilities of his summer home. He had the idea and sketched it out before he came out.


That's a weird phrasing. You mean he wrote a song in draft while he was on the toilet?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> That's a weird phrasing. You mean he wrote a song in draft while he was on the toilet?


Yes. Exactly that.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

Beghora said Paddy!! I suppose all the chords were turds so they were


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes. Exactly that.


The first "theme" of the first movement of the 9th Symphony was sketched out on toilet paper.


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

SottoVoce said:


> The first "theme" of the first movement of the 9th Symphony was sketched out on toilet paper.


'Movement' being a term never more appropriate than in this instance, perhaps?


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)




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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Arnold Schoenberg was tridecaphobic.

Yep, His Nibs Mr. Twelve-Tone Hisself was irrationally afraid of the number thirteen!

This little tic is what accounts for the weird (and incorrect) spelling of his opera title, "Moses und Aron" -- because he noticed that "Moses und Aaron" was thirteen letters 

I guess he was more than fortunate the existing diatonic and additional chromatics of the western scale totaled twelve pitches instead of thirteen....


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

I heard good old Mozz was sort of a Sid vicious of his time...lol


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Have you heard Mahler's turd ( I mean 3rd) symphony ?


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## HeartofGold (Aug 23, 2013)

I heard that at the age of 2 Mozart had identified a pig's squeal to be a G sharp.
I don't know if that's actually true or not.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> Species counterpoint sounds kinda dumb. Not looking forward to studying that.


Now don't be lazy, for Fux sake...



superhorn said:


> The London symphony orchestra made its first tour of America 100 years ago under the legendary Artur Nickish . The management changed the ship it was going to sail on at the last minute .
> The original ship chosen was - THE TITANIC ! Imagine if had actually gone on that ill-fated ship .


Well, in that case, they might have had a pretty good band on deck to play some final songs as the ship went down... 



PetrB said:


> Arnold Schoenberg was tridecaphobic.
> This little tic is what accounts for the weird (and incorrect) spelling of his opera title, "Moses und Aron" -- because he noticed that "Moses und Aaron" was thirteen letters


Someone should have pointed out to him that "Moses und Aaron" contains fifteen characters, if you count the spaces. You could drive phobics crazy with that sort of thing. 

Trivia concerning scientists and music:

Another composer who is more known for work outside of music: astronomer Patrick Moore wrote several operas. Incidentally, he had no formal qualifications in astronomy.

Brian May, guitarist in the group Queen, has a PhD in astrophysics.

Charles Darwin enjoyed music, but was apparently virtually completely tone deaf. No wonder he enjoyed music: he could listen to the same piece over and over and experience it like a new piece every time. 

Albert Einstein was an amateur violinist. His cousin was Alfred Einstein, noted musicologist.

Richard Feynman was a quite skilled player of bongo drums. But he didn't like classical music, which is just about the only flaw I can find in his outlook.


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## Dimitri (Jun 27, 2013)

Somebody who would know once told me that Percy Aldridge Grainger only ate white foods, but I have never been able to confirm this with another source.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Percy Grainger was an indefatigable builder of electronic musical machines, some programmable. Many are lost, but some survive on display at the Grainger Museum.

http://www.rainerlinz.net/NMA/articles/FreeMusic.html

He also had some odd tastes, by most reckonings. He wrote his future wife, "As far as my taste goes, blows [with the whip] are most thrilling on breasts, bottom, inner thighs, sexparts." She didn't seem to mind.


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## LindnerianSea (Jun 5, 2013)

Maestro Carlo Maria Giulini once stopped rehearsing with the LSO - I think, in the 80s - as the orchestra was too 'rude' to him. He afterwards said in an interview that he would never make music with the orchestra again. 

...quite baffled. Just how rude does the orchestra have to be to treat such a huge and generous figure as Giulini like that ?


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## LindnerianSea (Jun 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Percy Grainger was also an indefatigable builder of electronic musical machines, some programmable. Many are lost, but some survive on display at the Grainger Museum.
> 
> http://www.rainerlinz.net/NMA/articles/FreeMusic.html
> 
> He also had some odd tastes, by most reckonings. He wrote his future wife, "As far as my taste goes, blows [with the whip] are most thrilling on breasts, bottom, inner thighs, sexparts." She didn't seem to mind.


Wasn't Percy Grainger the Aussie who considered the Nordics half-Gods ? Also, didn't he create this thing called "blue-eyed English" ? Absolute eccentric !


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

LindnerianSea said:


> ...quite baffled. Just how rude does the orchestra have to be to treat such a huge and generous figure as Giulini?


When John Williams was appointed the Principal Conductor of the Boston Pops, some members of the orchestra hissed loudly when rehearsing one of his pieces. He immediately marched into managements' offices and tried to resign. But ruffled feelings were smoothed over and apologies made, and Williams continued in that role for another nine years.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Bela Bartok, whenever possible, preferred to practice the piano, and to compose -- in the nude.


Sounds like this man needs to be my new role model


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Very common fear indeed in those days. But there were precautions: "The coffin pull bell, also known as "Bateson's Life Revival Device" or "Bateson's Belfry," was created in England by inventor George Bateson. The device featured an iron bell, mounted on the outside of a coffin, with a string attached to the corpse's hands, in the hopes that a gravedigger would hear the bell ringing if by some chance the person was still alive."


Many believe this is where both the expressions "dead ringer" and "saved by the bell" originated - but this has more or less been proved erroneous - however charming.


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Enrique Granados, Spanish composer of 12 Danzas espanolas (1890) and Goyescas (1911) had a morbid fear of water his entire life. He made his first ocean voyage to perform a piano recital for President Woodrow Wilson. 

Afterwards he made a live recording in NYC, which made him miss his boat back to Spain, so he took one to England, and then boarded one for France. 

His boat, the Sussex, was torpedoed in the English Channel by a German U-boat.

In a failed attempt to save his wife Amparo, whom he saw flailing about in the water some distance away, Granados jumped out of his lifeboat and drowned. 

Ironically, the part of the ship that contained his cabin did not sink and was towed to port, with most of the passengers on board.

One of his 6 surviving children went on to become a swimming champion.


*language stolen from Wikipedia.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Percy Grainger was an indefatigable builder of electronic musical machines, some programmable. Many are lost, but some survive on display at the Grainger Museum.
> 
> http://www.rainerlinz.net/NMA/articles/FreeMusic.html
> 
> He also had some odd tastes, by most reckonings. He wrote his future wife, "As far as my taste goes, blows [with the whip] are most thrilling on breasts, bottom, inner thighs, sexparts." She didn't seem to mind.


I thought that was for him,he was the masochist wasn't he ?


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

LindnerianSea said:


> Wasn't Percy Grainger the Aussie who considered the Nordics half-Gods ? Also, didn't he create this thing called "blue-eyed English" ? Absolute eccentric ![/Q
> 
> To what thing are you referring ?


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Alan Hovhaness
Heinrich Gebhard
Theodor Leschetizky
Carl Czerny 
Ludwig van Beethoven

Hovhaness was a fourth-generation student of Beethoven. 

He was also a lifelong friend of Sibelius, who was his only daughter's Godfather.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

DrKilroy said:


> That's sad. I am so sorry for him.
> 
> Best regards, Dr


I know---and he was particularly unlucky as GIs hardly ever hit what they aimed at.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Heh, I'm kinda weird though X3 I think the Major second, minor seventh, Major 9th isn't dissonant. To me, the only ones which are consistently dissonant are minor seconds (and Major sevenths) and tritones (except when spread by many registers), certain voicings of thirds and sixths when spread apart by several registers, and pretty much everything except octaves and unisons in the lowest registers. And even then, dissonance isn't something bad or to be avoided. Its all about color and drama, and dissonant intervals are full of those things.


Now you've blinded me with science,I really feel lucky to have you as a friend. Hilltroll can't do naughty talk like that.


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

The beginning of the third movement of Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra sounds quite jazzy!






Best regards, Dr


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

Chopin ordered Julian Fonta, executor of Chopin's work, to destroy all unpublished works, probably because Chopin didn't think they were good enough. However, Fontana ignored his wishes and published almost all the pieces. Among these pieces are the waltzes op. 69 and Fantaisie Impromptu, which are very popular today.

Verdi's La Traviata was a failure at its premiere. However, nowadays it's the most performed opera in the world according to Operabase.com (553 performances in 2012/2013 season)


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Strange but true:

Bach committed parallel 5ths in _The Art of Fugue_. (eg., the 7th from last measure in Contrapunctus V)


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Celloman said:


> Strange but true:
> 
> Bach committed parallel 5ths in _The Art of Fugue_. (eg., the 7th from last measure in Contrapunctus V)


Apparently the first edition of Fux's book had some errors...


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

A fun fact that I just came across:

On the progressive rock album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project the orchestral prelude to "The Fall of the House of Usher", is in fact - although uncredited - the opening music of Debussy's unfinished opera "La chute de la maison Usher", in an alternative orchestration made by band member and composer Andrew Powell. The album was released in 1976 and was therefore the first recording ever of music from La chute de la maison Usher.

Link.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I don't know about a pig's squeal, but he identified the note of a ticking or chiming time piece I think.


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

150 years ago, when Schubert finished his 9th symphony, musicians all over Europe thought the piece was unplayable.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Got a pet in the house? Apparently, "calm" classical music (I suppose they mean not too loud or lively... we're not talking about Tchaikovsky's 6th, first movement, or O Fortuna, if you know what I mean) affects the heart rate of many animals, calming it down to a slightly slower pace. Other types of music with large amounts of bass, electric guitars, you know! the contemporary music.... It can excite or agitate the animal.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Not all contemporary music... Just read what I described! You'll get it!


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Flamme said:


>


This being an English language forum, this post has been severely overlooked.

Which is a shame, since as well-known as Mozart's "bathroom jokes" are, a composition entitled "Lick me in the ****" is something quite remarkable.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The "Three B's" originally meant Bach, Beethoven, and Berlioz. The conductor Hans von Bülow expelled Berlioz and substituted Brahms. In the 1880s he wrote, "I believe in Bach, the Father, Beethoven, the Son, and Brahms, the Holy Ghost of music."

Wagner suggested replacing Brahms with his own disciple Bruckner, but it seems nobody got excited about that.


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## Guest (Aug 27, 2013)

DaDirkNL said:


> 150 years ago, when Schubert finished his 9th symphony, musicians all over Europe thought the piece was unplayable.


Why?...........................................


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Saint-Saens requested that _The Carnival of the Animals_ not be performed during his lifetime. He was afraid of destroying his reputation as a "serious" composer. :lol:


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

KenOC said:


> The "Three B's" originally meant Bach, Beethoven, and Berlioz. The conductor Hans von Bülow expelled Berlioz and substituted Brahms. In the 1880s he wrote, "I believe in Bach, the Father, Beethoven, the Son, and Brahms, the Holy Ghost of music."
> 
> Wagner suggested replacing Brahms with his own disciple Bruckner, but it seems nobody got excited about that.


Strange but true classical music _fact_: The Holy Trinity of music is in _fact_ Debussy, Koechlin, and Messiaen.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

It is scientifically proven that people who play classical music on an instrument have better ability to decipher sounds from each other, especially when they become elderly. I assume that most of us play an instrument? If not, it's okay! But I definitely suggest that you choose one and play!! I play the piano, and I LOVE IT!


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

WAIT, SERIOUSLY?! MOZART WROTE SOMETHING ENTITLED LECK MICH IM WHAT?!?!?! Or am I just being really gullible or the like?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mstar said:


> WAIT, SERIOUSLY?! MOZART WROTE SOMETHING ENTITLED LECK MICH IM WHAT?!?!?! Or am I just being really gullible or the like?


Nope, it's 100% true. Not like he published it or anything, though...it's more like something he meant to be heard by friends and acquaintances only.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Another Mozart oddity: He wrote aleatoric or "chance" music using (as I remember) playing cards and dice. This predated John Cage by just a bit! Somewhere on the web there's a simulation of Mozart's mechanics -- you roll the dice and the program will give you a minuet.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

beethoven dropped an old case full of his sheet music in the rain and had to redo them all by memory.


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

mstar said:


> WAIT, SERIOUSLY?! MOZART WROTE SOMETHING ENTITLED LECK MICH IM WHAT?!?!?! Or am I just being really gullible or the like?


Read up on Mozart. You'll be blown away. I know I was.


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

Andante said:


> Why?...........................................


Because it was so complex, and because it's a very tiring piece to play for both strings and winds.


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

Since I haven't seen this one yet: Mahler finished the first movement of his tenth symphony before his ninth. Why? Out of fear that he would die after his ninth, just like Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, and some other composers.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DaDirkNL said:


> Since I haven't seen this one yet: Mahler finished the first movement of his tenth symphony before his ninth. Why? Out of fear that he would die after his ninth, just like Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, and some other composers.


Mahler's 9th was written in 1908-09. His 10th was written afterward, in the summer of 1910. Only the first movement was completed enough to be performable.


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## DaDirkNL (Aug 26, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Mahler's 9th was written in 1908-09. His 10th was written afterward, in the summer of 1910. Only the first movement was completed enough to be performable.


My apologies then, I wasn't aware of that.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Mozart wrote another odd canon.

Lyrics:

Lick my *** nicely,
lick it nice and clean,
nice and clean, lick my ***.
That's a greasy desire,
nicely buttered,
like the licking of roast meat, my daily activity.
Three will lick more than two,
come on, just try it,
and lick, lick, lick.
Everybody lick their *** for themselves.


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Burroughs said:


> Mozart wrote another odd canon.
> 
> Lyrics:
> 
> ...


Do you happen to have the original German?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

DaDirkNL said:


> Since I haven't seen this one yet: Mahler finished the first movement of his tenth symphony before his ninth. Why? Out of fear that he would die after his ninth, just like Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, and some other composers.


You're confusing the finished first movement of the 10th Symphony with Das Lied von der Erde, which Mahler wrote between his 8th and 9th symphonies, and subtitled "A Symphony for Tenor and Alto (or Baritone) soloists and Orchestra". Initially the title page had "9th Symphony" written on it, but he crossed it out at some point. Many have speculated that this was out of fear of the "Curse of the Ninth".


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## GiulioCesare (Apr 9, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> You're confusing the finished first movement of the 10th Symphony with Das Lied von der Erde, which Mahler wrote between his 8th and 9th symphonies, and subtitled "A Symphony for Tenor and Alto (or Baritone) soloists and Orchestra". Initially the title page had "9th Symphony" written on it, but he crossed it out at some point. *Many have speculated that this was out of fear of the "Curse of the Ninth".*


Oh silly him!

What were the chances he also died after completing his ninth symphony and before he could complete his tenth?


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Andante said:


> Why?...........................................


Because of its great length and the difficulty of the fourth movement.. The strings on the fourth movement can't cope to the demands of the music. This article explains:

_Older brother Ferdinand hoarded the manuscript of No. 9, which Robert Schumann finally saw in 1838, and took to Leipzig. Orchestras in Vienna and Paris flatly refused to play it, however, and London musicians laughed derisively during rehearsals in 1844, when Mendelssohn tried without success to perform it there as he had in Leipzig ("with cuts" -- big ones). Strings in particular hated playing its endlessly repetitive patterns: their pre-Wagner and pre-Bruckner bow arms were not ready for Schubert's "heavenly lengths." When all repeats are observed, the Ninth lasts over an hour, with almost no let-up in momentum. Three of Schubert's four movements employ sonata form -- the first, the finale, and the song sections in an ABA scherzo. Only the slow movement is written in expanded song form (ABABA).
_


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

peeyaj said:


> Because of its great length and the difficulty of the fourth movement. The strings on the fourth movement can't cope to the demands of the music.


Another explanation I've read was that the violins were quite insulted over their role in the 4th movement. Just endlessly repeated figures, when they were used to taking the melody, most of the time at least. This is kind of like the famous story of the cellist in the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Rasumovsky Quartet #1 -- when he read the opening, he threw his score on the floor and trampled on it.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Poor Robert Schumann.... It is said that he experienced auditory hallucinations of angels', then demons', voices near the end of his life. He also stated that he thought Schubert's ghost visited him one night and told him what to write down (music, of course). Unfortunately, or fortunately, for I do not really know which, most of Schumann's works were destroyed by Clara Schumann and Brahms during the period.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Burroughs said:


> Mozart wrote another odd canon.
> 
> Lyrics:


Couldn't bring myself to quote the rest of that odd thing.

Oh.... Thanks, Mozart. Now I'll have weird nightmares of him and a bunch of friends singing that.... AUGH!!!!

Just kidding.... But still.... I just never thought it of Mozart.  :lol:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

mstar said:


> WAIT, SERIOUSLY?! MOZART WROTE SOMETHING ENTITLED LECK MICH IM WHAT?!?!?! Or am I just being really gullible or the like?


When I was a teenager my mother worked at a huge library and could get hold of all manner of records. She once found one titled "Der Heitere Mozart" or something like that, and it contained some of his more playful music, some merely silly, some quite thoroughly obscene. Also a silly song to the tune of Haydn's "Surprise" movement.

This sort of thing likely contributed to Mozart's reputation as obscene little genius guy, as depicted in _Amadeus_.


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## Guest (Aug 30, 2013)

DaDirkNL said:


> Because it was so complex, and because it's a very tiring piece to play for both strings and winds.


Surly that is down to poor musicians


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## isridgewell (Jul 2, 2013)

I read the post about George Antheil and Heddy Lammar discovering a system to confuse enemy radar. Well, I watched a documentary about this only yesterday! It transpires that Lamar was a very intellectual woman, and came up with the plan to help protect the Atlantic convoys. The navy had tried guiding torpedos to the target but the Germans always jammed the frequency. Lammar approached Antheil who basically used piano rolls as he had in ballet mecanique to randomly switch frequencies.

Unfortunately, whilst patent was given to the idea, the war office never really took the idea seriously and it was forgotten until Lammar was in her eighties and virtually penniless, when mobile phone and internet companies modified the idea and used it as the basis for the technology to enable multiple users of a single signal. Lammar was given credit (unlike Antheil) and died very rich!


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

My strange fact for the day. That this piece exists:






:tiphat:


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Shostakovich regularly sent himself postcards in order to check if the mail was still running.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Hannibal Lecter enjoys the music of Bach, especially right after bludgeoning someone to death. Strange but true!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

isridgewell said:


> Lammar was given credit (unlike Antheil) and died very rich!


Actually Hedy Lamarr deserved the credit. It was really her idea, and she brought in George Antheil to figure out how to make a mechanical controller due to his experience in (unsuccessfully) working on a controller for multiple player pianos in his Ballet Mechanique. I don't think Antheil ever designed that new controller. The Navy Department rejected the idea in part because they thought the controller would be too large to fit in a torpedo. Anheil was of the opinion that it need be no larger than a pocket watch, but I don't know if he was ever able to provide any substantive evidence of this.

Per Wiki: "The idea was not implemented in the USA until 1962, when it was used by U.S. military ships during a blockade of Cuba after the patent had expired. Perhaps owing to this lag in development, the patent was little known until 1997, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave Lamarr a belated award for her contributions. In 1998, an Ottawa wireless technology developer, Wi-LAN Inc., acquired a 49% claim to the patent from Lamarr for an undisclosed amount of stock.[SUP]"[/SUP]


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Celloman said:


> Saint-Saens requested that _The Carnival of the Animals_ not be performed during his lifetime. He was afraid of destroying his reputation as a "serious" composer. :lol:


More likely that was because a number of the movements are severely negative lampoons (and bluntly obvious ones, at that) of the typical audience members of his time -- not exactly the right press if you are dependent upon those same audience members for a living


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Andante said:


> Surly that is down to poor musicians


Many a composer, including some before Schubert, like Mozart and Beethoven, have composed pieces which were very demanding of the best virtuosi soloists and players of their own time.

I think we might be shocked if we could hear recordings of the premieres of many a classical work, i.e. they would be sloppy beyond any of our expectations of what we expect of professional performers.

For the string players for the Schubert, it was as much, or more, about physical stamina and endurance to be able to play a piece of that length, with all their parts rather fully busy throughout, without getting very sore arms, and fatigued enough that halfway through the piece they began to be prone to many errors.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

PetrB said:


> For the string players for the Schubert, it was as much, or more, about physical stamina and endurance to be able to play a piece of that length, with all their parts rather fully busy throughout, without getting very sore arms, and fatigued enough that halfway through the piece they began to be prone to many errors.


Not quite the music for stockings and petticoats, no?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Not quite the music for stockings and petticoats, no?


... but a mere preliminary warm-up to Wagner, but Wagner has all the spectacle to distract from how lengthy and, uh, terribly long it all is. String players _hate_ Wagner's writing in the ring, basically if they're at all really active, it is endless arpeggios -- demanding yet booooooring.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Strange but true: After, lord knows, how many authoritative books on Beethoven have been published, new ones still come out, revealing absolutely nothing that we don't already know. Strange but true.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Norse said:


> *Chopin was terrified of being buried alive*, and asked to have his heart removed after his death so there was no chance he would 'wake up' in his grave. It's preserved in alcohol in a church in Warsaw.
> 
> (But considering how common it was for people to be mistakenly thought dead and buried back then, maybe his phobia wasn't that bizarre..)


I read that author Edgar Allen Poe had the same fear. In fact one or two of his horror stories played on that theme.


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## Minor Sixthist (Apr 21, 2017)

It's a very common belief that the use of tritones in sacred composition was forbidden and punishable by law in the Middle Ages because it had strong associations with Satan, but there's actually no evidence to suggest it - and you could actually find lots of hymns from that period that include harmonic and melodic tritones. It likely became a myth because in the Gradus ad Parnassum, Fux referred to the interval as the 'diabolus in musica' ('devil in music'), but that was presumably because of its dissonance and wasn't relevant to a possible usage ban. On top of that, the Gradus was published in 1742, already toward the end of the Baroque Era, so it wouldn't make sense for it to be relevant to a ban of the interval by the Catholic Church 500 years prior. It is, from what I've read, just a myth encouraged by the negative context in which the tritone is often used in Western music (take Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre, for example.)


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