# Composers' hobbies and sports



## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

According to my music encyclopaedia, Dvorak was a railway enthusiast and pigeon fancier, and Mozart played billiards and skittles. Does anybody know of some other examples? Were any composers' hobbies reflected in their music?

Answers.com says Beethoven's hobby was playing piano, but I think for this thread playing an instrument doesn't count, unless it's an unusual one.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Richard Strauss loved playing skat. Puccini loved driving his car (very few people had one in those days of course) and he had a motor boat which he named Butterfly.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Mahler - dogging

Boulez - kicking kittens

Wagner - hating on the Jews

Offenbach - sideburns growing competitions

Bruckner - general heinous activities

Gesualdo - murdering

Lloyd Webber - ruining Saturday night television

Cage - mushroom hunting

Schoenberg - worshipping Baphomet


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Very droll, Argus, very droll...

I made a similar thread about a year back, but restricted to composer's hobbies only:

http://www.talkclassical.com/4581-hobbies-composers.html

Sometimes, you can really sense what a composer's hobby was from listening to his/her music. Janacek loved to take walks in the woods near his home in Brno. His solo piano work _In the Mists _describes these memories in such a poignant way. I would also hazard a guess that he and Dvorak must have been avid gardeners. Webern was a keen collector of crystals and an avid hicker. Perhaps the jagged dynamic changes (how he drops from loud to soft, or high to low notes) reflects the jaggedness of crystals and the ruggedness of the alpine landscape. Ives also loved to be out in nature (in his youth). Riding horses, chopping wood, probably fishing as well were some of his pastimes. No wonder that much of his music has this open, outdoor feeling - perhaps also a bit macho? These are just some examples I can think of regarding this correspondence between a composer's hobbies and the content of their music...


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Andre said:


> Very droll, Argus, very droll...


Thanks.:tiphat:

I thought it was clear to anyone with functioning ears that all Mahler's symphonies are about his experiences in the dogging arena. That motif about halfway through the second movement of his fourth symphony can only be interpretted as a musical manifestation of that time Puccini and the 2nd Viennese school met at the car/carriage park behind the Wiener Staatsoper on a dark midwinter night. The move of a major seventh up followed by a glissando down a major third clearly represents Schoenberg insisting on the sacrifice of a small mammal by Alma to appease his Dark Lord. The modulation from Eb major into E natural represents the tussle that ensued when Mahler took offense and the resolution into Bb major shows the arrival of the local constabulary that chased off the machiavellian fiends and then stayed to watch the rest of the dogging action.

Well, at least that's how I interpret the music.

Oh, and I believe Mahler was also a fan of Fantasy Football and actually played in the first Rapid Vienna team back in 1899 (in goal).


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## Noak (Jul 18, 2009)

Shoenberg playing ping-pong. I don't know if it was his hobby or not, but this picture always puts a smile on my face.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

What a poser...

But anyways, Prokofiev loved chess all his life, and did competitions. He played against people through the mail too, he would write out the board configuration, chart his move, and mail that to another person, who did the same. He also loved literature, and even wrote up a few "futuristic short stories" himself.  I wonder how those go...


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Bach: um... raising children.

Brahms and virtually every other Romantic and 20th century composer who ever lived loved to take walks. Beethoven did too... maybe they were copying him?

Heifetz (who was in fact somewhat almost a sort of composer...) loved ping pong and tennis, and was very competitive in both. (this was more or less to support the Schoenberg thing above...)

Schubert... I'd rather not say.


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## Comus (Sep 20, 2010)




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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Andre said:


> Webern was a keen collector of crystals


That's interesting, because Stravinsky once said this about him:

"Doomed to a total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, the mines of which he had such a perfect knowledge"

As for Heifetz playing tennis, that strikes me as a bit risky for a professional violinist.


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

I think Webern also liked playing skittles.
Elgar was a football fan (supported Woverhampton Wanderers FC.).
I gather Stravinsky was no slouch as a poker player.
Satie collected umbrellas but maybe this can be seen as an eccentricity rather than a hobby.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Fsharpmajor said:


> As for Heifetz playing tennis, that strikes me as a bit risky for a professional violinist.


Interestingly, a lot of professional musicians play/played tennis; several pianists, though I can't think of any off the top of my head, and I know Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern often played tennis.



Argus said:


> Mahler - dogging
> 
> Boulez - kicking kittens
> 
> ...


I have one to add to this:

Shostakovich - chain-smoking


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

World Violist said:


> I have one to add to this:
> 
> Shostakovich - chain-smoking


That reminds me:

Glazunov: Drinking vodka surreptitiously using a rubber tube while teaching... or should I say instead of teaching?


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

Huilunsoittaja said:


> That reminds me:
> 
> Glazunov: Drinking vodka surreptitiously using a rubber tube while teaching... or should I say instead of teaching?


That made me chuckle - almost as devious as Gene Vincent decanting spirits into his hollow walking stick.


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## Sebastien Melmoth (Apr 14, 2010)

Comus: thanks for that wonderful Schönberg clip: gives even more reasons for his fascination besides his music!


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## JSK (Dec 31, 2008)

Shosakovich - being a soccer referee.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> That reminds me
> 
> Glazunov: Drinking vodka surreptitiously using a rubber tube while teaching... or should I say instead of teaching?


The reminds me! I thought I read somewhere Shostakovich liked to drink vodka surreptitiously while refereeing for sports games by filling some kind of inflatable fruit with the alcohol and eating the fruit at games.

*edit*
And totally did not see the post above me


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

World Violist said:


> Brahms and virtually every other Romantic and 20th century composer who ever lived loved to take walks. Beethoven did too... maybe they were copying him?
> 
> .


Exactly. All this nature walks and getting in touch with nature was invented by Beethoven, just as slanting of the head to the left was invented by Alexander the Great.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Tchiakovsky - hitting on little boys. 

Seriously, after reading a biography, this seemed to be the only thing that interested him outside of music.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

Berlioz -- stalking, obsessing, lusting.

Oh what a character...


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