# Composer Clerihews



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

The clerihew was invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, and has the following properties:

It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; it mostly pokes fun at famous people.

It has four lines of irregular length and metre for comic effect.

The rhyme structure is AABB

The subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme, including the use of phrases in Latin, French and other non-English languages.

The first line contains, and may consist solely of, the subject's name. Bentley is said to have suggested that a true clerihew has to have the name at the end of the first line, as the whole point was the skill in rhyming awkward names.

Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd, anachronistic or commonplace setting, often giving them an over-simplified and slightly garbled description.

The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length parody the limerick, and the clerihew in form also parodies the eulogy.

A well known example by Bentley himself:

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. Paul's."


(Acknowledgements to Wikipedia for the description.)


I thought that it might be instructive to construct composer clerihews which conveyed some true but eccentric information about our favourite composers without being satirical (and definitely not abusive). 

Have fun, everyone.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Here are two composer clerihews to start us off.

The first was posted by member Dr Johnston, originally in the STI thread:

For composition Mahler
Disliked the parlour,
But emphatically said
That he'd much prefer a shed 


My first attempt (tweaked slightly from its STI original):

Though composer Frank Bridge
Didn't share her cottage
His good friend Marjorie Fass
Thought his compositions had 'class'


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
was always happy, when creating art
but he lost his happy face, 
when Salieri stole his ace


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

and an other one


Clara Schumann
was a lady and loved her man,
and any rumours about Johannes spread,
were always dropped down dead


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

TurnaboutVox said:


> originally in the STI thread:
> 
> (tweaked slightly from its STI original):


Boy, that's an unfortunate abbreviation.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

My favorite (not original):

Sir James Dewar
Is a better man than you are
None of you asses
Can liquefy gases.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

TurnaboutVox said:


> It has four lines of irregular length and metre for comic effect.


Not to mention giving one a *lot* of leeway.

Prolific old D. Scarlatti
wrote over five hundred sonati.
To keep matters confusing,
Three catalogs we're using.

Best I can do at slightly past bedtime.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Not as bad as Scarlatti
But Haydn's sonati
Have catalogs two
Yes, a real zoo!

I use the Landon
With abandon.
The Hoboken
is broken.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Benjamin Britten
By Aldeburgh was smitten;
He bought a house there by the sea
And settled down to become its Queen Bee.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

violadude said:


> Boy, that's an unfortunate abbreviation.


Your username.............


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

I like this thread

Antonio Vivaldi
had no desire for bacardi
but whenever the red priest went out to dine
he always had a bottle of red wine


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Giovanni Battista Lulli
Relished Life's Pleasures - *fully* ; 
He morphed to Jean-Baptiste Lully in France - 
The Nation's Fool, but the King of Dance.

Jean-Féry Rebel -
Known chiefly for 'Elements', truth to tell;
It's hip - in the modern sense, *wicked* or *evil*;
Historically, though, the idea's medieval.

George Frederick Handel
Had a boring life - not one dark scandal. 
But his music makes up for that: *Messiah*
Sets the world on fire.

The name of *Pur*-cell
Is a cultural shibboleth; a curse'll
Fall on you if you say it Pur-*cell*,
And the cognoscenti will sneer as well. :devil:


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

With regard to fidelity Bax
Was inclined to be rather lax,
But when it came to composing 
He was really quite imposing.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Oft-maligned composer Schoenberg
Was compared by some to an ice berg
But his head, they all glean
Looks squeaky clean

Vienna Court Opera conductor Mahler
Asked "Can I leave in the Fall or
Barring that,
Enough time to get my hat"


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Dim7 said:


> Your username.............


Ya, that's why I don't abbreviate it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Milton Babbitt
Had a strange habit:
Write some electronic scores,
Toast marshmallows for s'mores.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Erik Satie
Wrote three Gymnopedies
They've become the height of kitsch
Can you tell me which is which?


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

J.S. Bach
Was quite the patriarch
But when not busy siring
He'd knock out tunes like Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Manuel de Falla
Was a musical high-flyer.
But his religious contemplations
Led to andalucinations


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Maurice Ravel
Wrote for orchestra quite well.
His soul, should anyone asque,
Was unapologetically Basque.

Jean Sibelius
Had few failures.
But his Symphony number 8
Became ashes in the grate.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

And finally, to lower the tone still further....

Percy Aldridge Grainger:
Than him, few men were stranger.
His taste for flagellation
Has not enhanced his reputation.

Mussorgsky, Modest,
Was too often pissed.
Had his habits been cleaner
He would never have written Kovanshchina.

I think that's enough.....


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Ludwig van Beethoven
Was never betrothen
Perhaps it compensated
That his music was celebrated


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Frederick Delius
Knew pleasures libidinous
Though blind from pox and couldn't write
He could shout out tunes that Fenby might


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Dr Johnson said:


> J.S. Bach
> Was quite the patriarch
> But when not busy siring
> He'd knock out tunes like Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring.


:tiphat:
Good enough to go into The Bumper Book of All-time Brilliant Clerihews.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I wish the subject line did not look like 'Composer Cashews".


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Claude Debussy
Never knew the Watusi
But at the Cakewalk
He was not inclined to baulk.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Dr Johnson said:


> Benjamin Britten
> By Aldeburgh was smitten;
> He bought a house there by the sea
> And settled down to become its _Queen_ Bee.


You naughty one but so true :lol:


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> :tiphat:
> Good enough to go into The Bumper Book of All-time Brilliant Clerihews.


Thank you. I feel bound to say that I think there are others equally deserving of your generous praise.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber
Had a wife and couldn't keep her

oh . . . never mind. Wrong rhyme.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Anton Webern
Was musically taciturn
He was the very soul of brevity
And so he would have considered my ludicrously prolonged last line as uncalled-for levity


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## Stirling (Nov 18, 2015)

It was Bach to start with
though no one knew it a the twith
There were too many unclosed fours
and not enough open Fiofths


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> :tiphat:
> Good enough to go into The Bumper Book of All-time Brilliant Clerihews.


no doubt Dr Johnson has already been registered in the All-time Brilliant Clerihews book
he is good

but please Ingelou have in mind that...

Poor clara
she had all the charm of Scarlett O'Hara
but while for her english is not much to say,
she always thought "after all, tomorrow is another day" hahaha


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

MarkW said:


> Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber
> Had a wife and couldn't keep her
> 
> oh . . . never mind. Wrong rhyme.


no, you are doing very well

create an iambic or trochaic tetrameter

go on


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Made haste to escape in a drosky
When he couldn't face getting his leg over 
Antonina Ivanovna Miliukova.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin
A Frenchman who orchestrated Rudyard Kiplin'
His 'Jungle Book' songs did not bring worldly success
But eccentric projects were what he did bes'


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Scriabin nearly lost his mind
When he thought his music could transfigure mankind
And while his music was considered modern and hip
This self-appointed messiah died from a pimple on his lip


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Michael Tippett
Would order vintage wine and sip it -
The bill he left owin'
To Meirion Bowen


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

This one is about a famous opera singer and is only two lines, but it's really good . 

Boris Christoff was rather pissed off when somebody called him a vulgar Bulgar .


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

The rustic Bruckner, Anton
Seldom used rope or crampon,
But his massive symphonies
Were built on vertiginous antiphonies.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Dr Johnson said:


> The rustic Bruckner, Anton
> Seldom used rope or crampon,
> But his massive symphonies
> Were built on vertiginous antiphonies.


Very good indeed!

I couldn't find a suitable rhyme for Bruckner either, Dr J.


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2016)

clara s said:


> an iambic


mmmmm...Belgian beer...


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## Guest (Feb 12, 2016)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Very good indeed!
> 
> I couldn't find a suitable rhyme for Bruckner either, Dr J.


What about Xenakis then, would "knackers" do?


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

dogen said:


> What about Xenakis then, would "knackers" do?


Give it a go and let's see!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

There was a composer named Bartok
who never once listened to Car Talk

Never mind.


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2016)

KenOC said:


> There was a composer named Bartok
> who never once listened to Car Talk
> 
> Never mind.


That was going somewhere.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

John Cage
Was was said to be a sage.
His music's never violent
But sometimes can be silent,
And that sends some
Into a rage.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

William Byrd
Was seldom hyrd
Speaking with malice
Of dear Thomas Tallis


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

A Diva I know told me, "though I am older,
I feel I could manage the role of Isolde"
Her success was so great she attempted Brunhilde
But it damn well near killed her.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

dogen said:


> That was going somewhere.


That was going to become a limerick, but Ken bailed out just in time


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> That was going to become a limerick, but Ken bailed out just in time


But bailed back in with a (fine) limerick about John Cage @post 46.


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2016)

An American name of Coates
Found it hard to let go of notes
So much that she became quite friendless
While her albums, endless.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Benjamin Britten
Probably would have written 
Less vocally over the years
If not for Peter Pears.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Alberic Magnard's gun
Was fired, not for fun
At invading German forces
Altering history's courses


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

This is fun!

Some people find Borodin
A horrid din.
Personally, I thinka 
He's better than Glinka.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Poor Anton Bruckner
His was to Hanslick ne'er*
music pleasant to review
A man posterity's been kinder to

(* It's the classic "Bruckner problem" - his name doesn't rhyme with anything in English).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Claudio Monteverdi
Would tell ye if he heerd ye
Which parts of his scores
Were done by other boors


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Luigi Dallapiccola
Was somewhat particular 
Though a serialist, he was lyrical
However, for him to make the top of the Classic FM chart would take a somewhat particular miracle.


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2016)

(A reviewer in Folk Roots, unable to find anything to say about the actual music in Music From a Round Tower, wrote instead the following clerihue)

Dirk Mont Campbell
Does like to ramble.
Music From a Round Tower
Seems to last for weeks but is actually just under an hour.


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