# A flower for a composer



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

If you could, which flower (or plant to be more precise) would you give ... to which composer

For me, I'd plant a Magnolia for Johannes Ockeghem









its an early flowering plant of purity and beauty that makes the world seem so much brighter and better - just like Ockeghem's music does


----------



## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Now this is a great thread to start!

I offer these beautiful lotus flowers to Claude Debussy.


----------



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

You're right, Shangoyal - very apposite selection :tiphat:


----------



## revdrdave (Jan 8, 2014)

For Tchaikovsky...a Chamomile, the national flower of Russia...


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I'll have to think about this for a while... this is an important decision. 

I choose blue/white hyacinths for Glazunov:









Finely detailed, lushly fragrant, and intense in colors, I think this all matches his musical qualities too. Blue for passion, White for sincerity/purity.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Mountain Laurels for that Connecticut Yankee, Charles Ives.


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Rachmaninoff is probably getting tired of lilac bushes now, but lilac it will have to be:

https://www.schubertiademusic.com/d...rgei.++(1873-1943)]+Cliburn,+Van.+++(b.+1934).

Yikes, I hope that URL works...

Here's a shorter one, that may or may not work better:

http://tinyurl.com/or92qme


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

For my favourite Dutch composer Alphons Diepenbrock, the most famous Dutch flowers... tulips...

View attachment 37607


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

A dandelion for Lully - vigorous, garish, impudent, it arrives unasked for in your best flower bed, clings on tenaciously & is soon completely at home, going on to monopolise the whole plot. But you have to admit - c'est magnifique!


----------



## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Hmm... (Scratches his head...) What composer should I give a cactus to?..

And what, no roses so far? That one goes to Beethoven! (Just picture it in your mind.)


----------



## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Carnations for comrade Shostakovitch, no doubt!


----------



## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I'd like to give Richard Wagner a bouquet of Rafflesia!










I think they pair magnificently!

/ptr


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

A paeony for Barbara Strozzi - many-layered, passionate, southern:


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Lavender for William Byrd - neat, pungent, unforgettable...


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

For Bartok, a Strelitzia, spiky and colourful and exotic:


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I give a rose, the flower of NY State, for William Schuman, president of the Julliard School for quite a few years and one of my favorite composers


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Satie - a white orchid

[video]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/White_Orchid.jpg[/video]

Pure, pristine and yet flamboyant.


----------



## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Marigold blossoms for Johann Sebastian Bach.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The flag iris, which is native to Irish marshes, is a fitting emblem for Turlough O'Carolan: simplicity, radiance, beauty.


----------



## Rhythm (Nov 2, 2013)

Why would I have supposed the Tiger Lilly for Mahler? I do. not. know. Until I read this:

Excerpt from the History section | "…In 2002, the tiger lily won The Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. This award is given to plants with *healthy constitutions, stable forms and pest resistance*."​
Who would've known :lol: ?


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I am not sure which flowers I would give Wagner, but I would make sure the bouquet contains some of these:









The leaves of the German oak for the German master.


----------



## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Jobis said:


> Satie - a white orchid
> 
> [video]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/White_Orchid.jpg[/video]
> 
> Pure, pristine and yet flamboyant.


This is perhaps as apt as it can get.


----------



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

for Saint Saens, there could only be a Camelia









sensitive, beautiful, delicate and temperamental. It is reputed that he was the first to publicly play the entire cycle of Mozart's piano concertos - Hmm!


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

josquin de prez - dahlia pinnata

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Dahlia_pinnata.JPG

dense, harmonious and full of warmth


----------



## sangg (Mar 22, 2014)

Naxos did a good job with the "Chill with" series, matching flowers with various composers.


----------



## OldFashionedGirl (Jul 21, 2013)

This to Stravinsky.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

A Scots pine for Sibelius









an Ajuga for Bax









and an Echinopsis for Berg.


----------



## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Webern - The Heather









He wrote so in a letter to Berg:

"The heather [Erica] from the middle of August is my favorite flower. It's most beautiful in a forest clearing, where the sun can reach, that wonderful sun, where it is against the grass, and the bees and bumble-bees are upon it, and that scent. I've indulged in orgies there, standing motionless, my eyes closed, that's my favorite. Have I already told you, that the 3rd piece of my orchestral pieces was born from such an impression. Directly. The scent of heather. But of course, that is the scent of heather which I laid on my mother's coffin. I collected the flowers then from a forest clearing, it was the beginning of September."


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I am not sure which flowers I would give Wagner, but I would make sure the bouquet contains some of these:
> 
> View attachment 37667
> 
> ...


I would give that same bouquet to Brahms - he would then respond by composing his very autumnal clarinet quintet.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

OldFashionedGirl said:


> This to Stravinsky.
> View attachment 37688


Very nice, very nice :lol:


----------



## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

A cactus (flowering variety if you insist) for John Cage, because he would have the good sense to amplify it and put it to good musical use.


----------



## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

four seasons flowers to Antonio Vivaldi

A bouquet to match the variety of sounds and emotions and moods...

1. *almond tree for winter*

exactly like Antonio's music

life is coming through the beautiful flowers of the tree

music is haunting the past, the present, the future









2. *poppy for the spring*

listening to the music, you are reborn, you leave your imagination free to travel









*3. dahlia for the summer*

so colourful, so alive like Vivaldi's notes

the secret in this concert, is the colour...









*4. Hibiscus for the autumn*

can you imagine the music to search for a sheltered spot to grow gloriously?

can you feel the magic?


----------



## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

A sprig of Lilac for Paul Hindemith.










And Roger Sessions.










And Carl Ruggles for his second movement of his composition, "Men and Mountains" called Lilacs.


----------



## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I'll have to think about this for a while... this is an important decision.
> 
> I choose blue/white hyacinths for Glazunov:
> 
> ...


I like that (esp. the apt description).


----------



## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

For Anton Bruckner,

http://www.thelovelyplants.com/category/zone-4a/page/6/


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

...Dionaeas get quite weak after they flower...


----------



## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Sunflower to the man whose music has warmed more hearts than anybody else's - Mozart.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Primroses for Biber - not among the 'big names', but though 'small', fresh, often surprising; fragrant, but with a hint of the wild & untamed; with lyrical, wistful & often perfect beauty.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

One Rosarian developed a Hybrid Tea Rose which they named Igor Stravinsky.

I don't know how popular the variety became, if it did at all, or if it has stayed in circulation (Hybrids come and go all the time.)


----------



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Perhaps the genus Euphorbia for Stravinsky.


----------



## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

I don't give flowers


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> If you could, which flower (or plant to be more precise) would you give ... to which composer
> 
> For me, I'd plant a Magnolia for Johannes Ockeghem
> 
> ...


I would probably give a _Toxicodendron radicans_ to Schoenberg.


----------



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

For Wagner:

https://sp3.yimg.com/ib/th?id=HN.608019459303736543&pid=15.1&P=0


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

How about the elephant-ear flower, or Colocasia (named due to its unusually large leaves that are shaped like a large ear) for Beethoven. They're big, they're splashy, and they've served as a symbol of hope and courage for persons suffering from deafness.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

rrudolph said:


> A cactus (flowering variety if you insist) for John Cage, because he would have the good sense to amplify it and put it to good musical use.
> 
> View attachment 37764


Wicked sense of humor!


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Roses and violets for Prokofiev. Because

Roses are red, and violets are blue
Stalin is dead
and so are you.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

For Tchaikovsky -- they're bold, contrasting, Romantic, and Russia red; and of course who could not imagine the "Waltz of the Flowers" being performed by dancing poinsettias?









For those who feel this is too Mexican a flower for the Russian, well ... give it instead to Carlos Chávez.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Would Berlioz appreciate the poppy? Maybe when he was composing the_ Symphonie Fantastique_.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Bach would probably have not known of the _Lilium longiflorum_, a flower native to Japan. But not only does the simple beauty of the Easter Lily invoke so much of what Bach's music is about (and so much of that music is Passion season music), Bach has recently inspired Masaaki Suzuki, another product of Japan, to achieve great things with his music.

The Easter Lily, for Bach:


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

My choice for Mozart has to be _Bellis perennis_, the common daisy. Classical in design, simple at first glance, yet profoundly beautiful, the daisy, as does Mozart's music, remains a marker for so much of our lives -- it's a common name, we pluck its petals to measure our love, we chain them together for protection and luck ... and it's what we "push up" when we join with eternity. And daisies themselves are long-lived, a durable perennial flower, common to practically all the Earth. A great symbol for Mozart, methinks.


----------

