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| Displaying Composing Anecdotes: 229 Found | Tempo Gabriel Faure was once asked what the ideal tempo for a song should be. "If the ...
Sounds of Silence (long) On the Planets' debut album, Classical Graffiti, producer Mike Batt intro...
Burt Bacharach: Perfectioni... Burt Bacharach's famed perfectionist streak was not always appreciated by his co...
Phil Spector: The Screw In 1961, legendary producer Phil Spector teamed up with Lester Sill to form Phil...
Otherworldly Collaboration In his last year, Jullien toyed with the notion of setting the Lord's Prayer to ...
Grand Eunuch Among Richard Rodgers' many celebrated words was his score for "Chee-Chee," a mu...
Funky Tunes? In 2003, Aaron Funk, who normally recorded under the name Venetian Snares, relea...
Oscar Levant: Elegy Shortly after George Gershwin's death, Oscar Levant was approached by a man who ...
Ninth Beethoven's notoriously difficult, groundbreaking Ninth (once called "the hammer...
Miraculous Mandarin Bela Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin was not well received at its debut ...
Stock Explanation? Having played a piece on the piano, Joseph Schillinger would challenge his audie...
Gershwin One day George Gershwin was informed that a woman for whom he had long harbored ...
Composing? Shortly after the death of a well-known composer, someone, unaware of the news, ...
April in Paris One April, a friend of Vernon Duke's, inspired by his famous song "April in Pari...
Hot Composer At the tender age of 15, Oliver Knussen was commissioned by Benjamin Britten to ...
Red Flag? One evening while touring with The Rape of Lucretia, Benjamin Britten's l...
Ambition A young man once asked Mozart for advice on composing a symphony. Mozart replied...
Youre the Top! Irving Berlin once wrote a private salute to (Yale grad and musical scholar) Col...
Ta-Ta Dumdum Oscar Hammerstein's wife, Dorothy, was not shy about singing her husband's prais...
Comic Inspiration The British composer and comedian Richard Thomas once developed an addiction to ...
Connoisseur Johannes Brahms was once invited to dinner by a noted wine connoisseur. In the c...
Look Ma! The French composer Erik Satie once appended the following direction to one of h...
Stravinsky / Schonberg Artur Schnabel: "You may find this hard to believe, but Igor Stravinsky has actu...
What Knobs While visiting New York for their legendary Shea Stadium gig in 1965, the Beatle...
Barrel Organs One summer Verdi rented a sizable cottage at a fashionable Italian resort. One d...
Minor Problem MGM composer Victor Young was no wastedr to the vagaries of idiot producers. He ...
Wal-Mart Symphony Leos Janacek, the first composer to reproduce the musical patterns of speech in ...
Movie Music Irving Thalberg once sent an emissary to persuade Arnold Schoenberg to produce a...
Makropoulos Affair During the rehearsals of The Makropoulos Affair, the composer Leos Janace...
Two Bits Henry Cowell once composed a piece for flute and piano entitled simply "A Bit". ...
Expert Witness Alexander Borodin was once called upon to testify (as an expert witness) in a ca...
Yesterday Paul McCartney's classic song "Yesterday" - voted the most popular song of the 2...
Krenek "The newly exiled composer Ernst Krenek was applauded politely when he played th...
Wozzeck The composer David Raksin was once told by a director that he did not want "any ...
Pas de Deux After the debut performance of Billy Rose's "The Seven Lively Arts" on Broadway,...
Maddalena's Ghost (long) As a student at the Conservatory in Naples, Vincenzo Bellini gave singing lesson...
Ben Taylor "I've really never heard a song with good lyrics that I didn't like."
Ben Taylo...
Rossini Roast Rossini was visited one day by a man seeking his opinion of a pair of oratorios ...
Crossini? Rossini was in the habit of marking errors in his students' compositions with sm...
Concerto for Orchestra Serge Koussevitsky generously commissioned Concerto for Orchestra when Be...
Festive Piece Arriving to visit Rossini one morning, Arthur Sullivan found the composer playin...
Valet Offenbach once dismissed his valet, but gave him such a fine reference that many...
Rachmanin-off During a dinner party held in his honor one evening, Sergei Rachmaninoff mention...
Hurry Stravinsky was once urged by a publisher to hurry to complete his latest composi...
Donizetti Gaetano Donizetti, the composer of more than seventy operas, was famously prolif...
Anton Rubinstein: Wake Up Call So marked was Anton Rubinstein's penchant for sleeping in each morning that he o...
ASUC "I was in the audience at Ohio State when Frank Zappa spoke to the American Soci...
Disney's Fantasia Walt Disney was delighted with the music in his classic animated feature ...
Hellmesberger Joseph Hellmesberger was notoriously suspicious, often accusing other composers ...
Spector Insult Legendary producer Phil Spector was once asked whether he enjoyed the work of An...
Billow Dr. Thomas Morell (1703-1784), the librettist of many of Handel's works, was rou...
Rakes's Progress After a performance of Igor Stravinsky's The Rakes's Progress one evening...
Airplane Music The great composer Arnold Schoenberg was once consulted by a fellow musician abo...
Icy Reception At the debut performance of Arnold Schoenberg's first song cycle (in 1900), a fi...
French Enough? One day Twentieth Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck listened to some music for ...
Brepus? "Samuel Goldwyn knew everything about films - costumes, settings, characters, di...
Organ Squared In September, 2001, the longest musical performance in history began in a former...
Musical Puzzles Many composers have written "musical puzzles," compositions that were amusing to...
Imaginary Landcape The composer John Cage's Imaginary Landcape No. 4 (1953), never
sounds t...
Modernist Composer The avant garde composer John Cage was famed for producing eclectic works incorp...
Walt Disney: Fantasia After using part of the "Pastorale Symphony" in Fantasia (1940), Walt Dis...
Tempo Mental? Whenever he collaborated with David Lynch on a film, Angelo Badalamenti sought t...
Novel Insult A young composer once asked for Hans von Bulow's opinion of his latest compositi...
Octopus Symphony? Mozart once bet Haydn a case of champagne that his older colleague could not pla...
Una voce? A singer once gave a glorious rendition of Rossini's famous aria "Una voce," emb...
Donizetti's Children Gaetano Donizetti, the composer of more than seventy operas, was once asked whic...
Three Weeks Legendary studio chief Jack Warner once asked composer Harry Warren how long it ...
Second Fiddle Beethoven, who believed that he was communing with God while composing, spared n...
Experience When a certain score ignited a minor sensation on account of the "originality" d...
Orgasm Theme (long) "When David Selznick engaged Dimitri Tiomkin to do the music for ...
Impressions of a Lucky Day "Malcolm Sargent was given his first chance of conducting by Sir Henry Wood, who...
Lohengrin Gioacchino Rossini was once asked his opinion of Wagner's opera ...
Parsifal Richard Wagner was not without his critics. "Parsifal," fellow composer D...
Gustav Mahler: Niagara Visit The Austrian composer Gustav Mahler once visited Niagara Falls. His verdict? ...
Slow Mode "I'd had a synth [synthesizer] for about a month," Depeche Mode's Martin Gore on...
Charles Ives The American composer Charles Ives, whose works anticipated those of later music...
Puccini's Operas Dimitri Shostakovich once asked Benjamin Britten what he thought of their fellow...
Chord One day Carl Ruggles was visited in his studio by Henry Cowell, who found the co...
Resuahnnat While visiting Rossini at his home one day, a friend was surprised to find a sco...
Battle Symphony Beethoven was once commissioned by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the inventor of the s...
Wolf & Brahms Hugo Wolf so detested his fellow Viennese composer Johannes Brahms that he refus...
The Egg Timer "My father, the pianist and composer Leslie Bridgewater, never forgot the discip...
Volga Boatman MGM composer William Axt was once assigned to compose some music for a film call...
Korngold In 1935 Warner Bros. hired the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold to work on the s...
Cranky Critic Elliot Carter's work was not universally well received. "I would like to hear El...
Brahms One day in his twilight years, Johannes Brahms announced his plan to stop compos...
Sympathy in F Minor? Rossini once complained to fellow composer Giacomo Meyerbeer that he was feeling...
Beethoven's Deafness "Beethoven said, 'This is a beautiful piano. I got it as a gift from London. Loo...
Long Live Berg When excerpts from Alban Berg's Lulu were first performed in Vienna in 19...
Lorenzo Da Ponte The libretto for Don Giovanni (Mozart's opera about the legendary lover D...
Stranger Music Avante garde composer Nicolas Varchausky once bugged an elevator in the Colon Th...
Moonlight Sonata "One evening as [young Beethoven] was out walking he passed a cobbler's house wh...
Challenge On September 17th, 2000, a stage musical based on Dr. John Gray's bestselling se...
Operatic Outlook A friend of Luigi Arditi's, told of the composer's plans to visit Birmingham one...
Ode to Joy? In 1818, London's Royal Philharmonic Society commissioned Beethoven to produce (...
Mozart: Little Star Mozart, the paragon of musical prodigies, produced one of his most recognizable ...
Rossini's Overtures "Wait until the evening before the opening night [before writing an overture]," ...
F or F sharp During the rehearsal of one of Anton Bruckner's symphonies one day, the conducto...
Tempest Haydn once tested various arrangements of discords and harmonies on a piano in a...
e. e. cummings is the poet Pierre Boulez once agreed to compose something for a concert in West Germany. Th...
Circus Polka "Stravinsky's Circus Polka was composed precisely for the circus - for the Ringl...
Composer's Toast After conducting his two piano concertos in Berlin one evening, Johannes Brahms ...
Bernd Kremling During a performance in Bayreuth in 2003, German conductor Bernd Kremling, famed...
Suckers In 1970, the Rolling Stones decided to leave their label (Decca Records) and sta...
Kiddy Pop While working on the soundtrack for The Brave (Johnny Depp's directorial ...
Gershwindler "George Gershwin reserved one unpublished little waltz for affairs of the heart,...
Gershwin & Stravinsky: Musi... George Gershwin once considered taking lessons from Igor Stravinsky. "How much w...
Schoenberg Opera Arnold Schoenberg was not entirely pleased with the Frankfurt premiere of his on...
Six Fingers Arnold Schoenberg was once told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform...
Water Method Beethoven often dipped his head in cold water before composing. He also regularl...
Bolerolerolero... Maurice Ravel was often criticized for composing "artificial" music. "There is a...
Mehul? One day Maria Cherubini was shown a score which was purported to have come from ...
Agitated Critic Claude Debussy's La Mer was not without its critics. "By dint of looking ...
Elegy "It is said, with what truth I know not, that Liszt got Verdi to give him a lett...
Young Mozart "[In August, 1764] while our father lay dangerously ill," Mozart's sister Maria ...
Borodin's Finale One day Alexander Borodin began playing the piano in a completely novel style. "...
Heavenly Blooper During a rehearsal of Puccini's Tosca one day, Maria Jeritza slipped and ...
Classic Rossini Gioacchino Rossini took great pride in his ability as a composer. "Give me a lau...
Symphony for Axe & Bludgeon In 1925, Walter Damrosch had the pleasure of conducting Aaron Copland's ...
Copland's Car For many years Aaron Copland earned very little from his compositions. "Aaron," ...
Salut d'Amour Before a concert one evening, Fred Gaisberg accompanied Sir Edward Elgar to the ...
Gluck's Last Judgment Near the end of his life, Christoph Gluck was asked by Salieri whether a bass or...
Bach's Counterpoint Thomas Beecham once complained about one of Bach's compositions: "Too much count...
Elgar-thon In October 2003 - as part of a fund-raising drive for Sargent Cancer Care and th...
Erwin Schulhoff: In Futurum "One morning [in 2004], the French pianist Philippe Bianconi sat at a scruffy ol...
Cole Porter: Pailletted Gown "People who meet Cole Porter for the first time often find his personality baffl...
NASA: Tax Dollars at Work In 2004, NASA selected "avant-garde electronic violinist" Laurie Anderson to ser...
Charles Ives: The Great Inv... "In the nineteen-eighties, the writer Maynard Solomon suggested that [The Americ...
Irving Berlin: Counting Ble... One night during a spell of insomnia, Irving Berlin's wife suggested that he try...
Almost Always? "To the playwright George S. Kaufman, sentiment was an otiose emotion that actua...
V During World War II, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) played the openi...
Pause Little love was lost between Berlioz and Cherubini, his instructor at the Conser...
What the Devil? While fishing aboard a boat one day with his friend Frants Beyer, Edvard Grieg w...
Artificial Sincerity? Maurice Ravel was frequently criticized for composing "artificial" music. Igor S...
Magic Flute? Such was Mozart's inexperience in romantic matters that he once called upon a se...
Starling Mozart once kept a starling as a pet and musical companion. One of his notebooks...
Schoenberg Smeared Arnold Schoenberg, famed for his controversial twelve-tone (atonal) system, was ...
Worse Than a Flute "What is worse than a flute?" the composer Cherubini once asked - and immediatel...
Mozart's Barber Mozart's barber frequently complained about his famous patron. While the hair it...
Cage's Wall "Schoenberg said I would never be able to compose," the avant-garde composer Joh...
Chance Occurance The avant-garde composer John Cage was famed for incorporating the element of ch...
Mozart: Magic Flute? Such was Mozart's inexperience in romantic matters that he once called upon a se...
Wine Merchant In 1802 the Irish singer, actor, and composer Michael Kelly (the former manager ...
Young Tchaikovsky "Tchaikovsky worked in an astonishing way," Nikolay Rubinstein, director of the ...
Musical Translation "At the dinner given for Richard Strauss by the Lotos Club at its old
home on F...
Haydn's Quintet Haydn was once asked by Prince Lobkowitz why he had never written an instrumenta...
Cherubini & Napoleon "My dear Cherubini, you are certainly an excellent musician," Napoleon once told...
Master's Death The music critic Ludwig Karpath once found Gustav Mahler sitting, dejected and s...
Silk & Satin "Wagner's sybaritism is one of the less repellent features of his personality. H...
Red Priest Vivaldi, called "the red priest" after his ordination (at the age of fifteen) on...
Can't Be Wrong? (long) While playing cards one evening in 1942 with Paramount composer Victor Young and...
Rossini's Duet Rossini was notoriously lazy. One morning while he was composing a duet in bed, ...
Finished Piece Igor Stravinsky was once commissioned by the Venice Festival to contribute an or...
Two Piccolos The French playwright Ernest Legouve met one of his closest friends at a concert...
Beggar's Opera? Mozart was once accosted by a beggar claiming to be a distant relative. Though h...
Variations in C Minor One day years after its completion, Beethoven chanced to hear his own Variations...
Brian Wilson: Beach Boy Following the release of Pet Sounds, Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson did...
Funny Boy "Singer Watty Burnett [once recalled] being in the studio when Lee 'Scratch' Per...
Vain Schoenberg "Arnold Schoenberg went to Venice in September 1925 to conduct his Serenade Op. ...
Once Upon a Time "Delius returned to England from France in 1918 with a new orchestral work for t...
Satie "Erik Satie thought it might be amusing to compose music not to be listen...
Young Beethoven Beethoven once expressed his wish to find a patron who would pay him an income f...
Appassionata Sonata Beethoven was once asked to explain the meaning of the Sonata in D Minor, Op.31 ...
Mad Ravel The debut performance of Maurice Ravel's Bolero (in Paris on November 22,...
Atonal Irony While visiting the pianist Artur Schnabel one day, Arnold Schoenberg challenged ...
Dvorak Concerto Johannes Brahms was amazed by Antonin Dvorak's cello concerto. "Why on earth did...
Brutal Brahms Johannes Brahms could be brutally sarcastic and rude - even to his friends. He o...
Pete Townshend: Mystic Rhythms "[In 1971] Pete Townshend had been at work on a science-fiction rock-concept wor...
Cole Porter: At Long Last... "On October 24, 1937, Cole Porter went out for a horseback ride at the Piping Ro...
Schoenberg & Mann Arnold Schoenberg, famed for his controversial twelve-tone (atonal) system, was ...
Berlioz & the Critics After completing the composition of his l'Enfance du Christ, Berlioz attr...
Eric Rohmer Stories of Eric Rohmer's idiosyncrasies abound. An ardent environmentalist, he n...
Mozart: Musical Game Mozart once devised a musical game which allowed anyone to compose a piece (in w...
Mozart Mozart composed, transcribed, rehearsed, and performed his Linz Symphony ...
Rubbish Among Rimsky-Korsakov's pupils at the St. Petersburg Conservatory were Glazunov,...
Young Elgar When he was five years old, the composer Edward Elgar was discovered one day sit...
Surprise Symphony While composing his so-called "Surprise Symphony" (the 94th), Haydn relished the...
Part Pianist Many fans of Arvo Part's work have been haunted by his minimalist compositions. ...
Scarlatti's Cat One day the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti's cat struck several notes on th...
Brahms' Requiem Johannes Brahms' Requiem was not without its critics. "It is so execrably...
Blue Danube Johannes Brahms and Johann Strauss (the Younger), who greatly admired one anothe...
Waltz in D Flat George Sand's little dog was in the habit of running around and around, chasing ...
Right Hand Man The composer and pianist Frederic Chopin was not without his critics. "A compose...
Garbage Music Jesus Lizard's David Yow was once asked about legendary producer Steve Albini's ...
Turangalīla-Symphonie Olivier Messiaen's monumental avant-garde Turangalīla-Symphonie was not u...
Villa-Lobos "Why is it," Igor Stravinsky once wondered, "that whenever I hear a piece of mus...
Stravinsky's Music Igor Stravinsky was not without his critics. "His music used to be original," Si...
Arminius One day Johannes Brahms, who could be incredibly rude even to his friends, heard...
Mahler Mahler sought inspiration for much of his music in the beautiful landscapes of h...
CSNuttY One day in 1975, Neil Young stormed out of a recording session with Crosby, Stil...
Eighth Symphony "In 1930 there were rumors that Jean Sibelius had started work on his Eighth Sym...
Kern & Berlin Jerome Kern was once asked where he would place Irving Berlin in the pantheon of...
Hammerstein's Return "The 46-year-old Oscar Hammerstein was considered something of a has-been. He ha...
Composing "I was immensely fascinated watching Benjamin Britten compose a score," Ronald D...
Enigma Variations Sir Edward Elgar was amused that no one could figure out the "enigma" in his ...
Bach Critic Johann Sebastian Bach was not without his critics. "All Bach's last movements," ...
Tragic Overture Johannes Brahms' Tragic Overture was not without its critics.
"Brahms' ...
Francs Juges Hector Berlioz's Les Francs Juges was not universally well-received. "His...
Symphonie fantastique Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique was not universally well-received....
Rachmaninov & Stravinsky Though little love was lost between Sergei Rachmaninov and his fellow composer I...
Auber & Bizet "I've heard your work," Daniel-Francois Auber once told his fellow composer Geor...
Composer "When Benjamin Britten was staying with me in Devon I asked him to witness my si...
Aaron Copland: Jewish Cowboy Many of Aaron Copland's fans have wondered how a young Jewish music-lover from B...
Counterpoint Critic Christoph Gluck was not without his critics, chief among them rival composer Geo...
Barbaric Chord The Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev was evicted from his lodgings on several o...
Angry von Weber While attending a production of Mehul's opera Joseph in Egypt one evening...
Young Beethoven As a child, Beethoven made such a poor impression on his music teachers that he ...
Mozart & Ferdinand Archduke Ferdinand of Austria once offered Mozart a qualified compliment on his ...
Madame Butterfly In February 1904, Puccini's Madame Butterfly debuted at the La Scala oper...
Waterloo Bridge "In 1912, two Irish music hall players were spending an afternoon in a pub at St...
Film Composer The composer Elmer Bernstein once found himself working on a film score for lege...
Rossini's Mass Though it was customary for composers to mark the end of a piece with "Glory be ...
Christmas Gift Lewis H. Dedner got a remarkable gift one Christmas Eve. He awoke from a dream w...
Mahler's Third Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony was not without its critics. "It's all very well,...
Max Steiner Though Joseph Carl Breil was the first composer to prepare an original score to ...
Fifth Symphony? Johannes Brahms once sent Hans von Bulow the only manuscript copy of his Fourth ...
Holy Minimalist Though he professed great admiration for such composers as Philip Glass and Stev...
Rhapsody in Blue "George Gershwin was on a train journey for the premiere of ...
Innocent Criticism "There is no reason... innocence should not be a valid theme for music," Colin W...
Caricature of Ravel "I wanted to make a caricature of romanticism," Maurice Ravel once remarked of <...
Humiliating Profession The composer Charles Gounod was not pleased when demands were made for major cha...
Reluctant Modernist In 1917, the forty-three-year-old Arnold Schoenberg was conscripted into the Aus...
Nietzsche & Wagner Friedrich Nietzsche worshipped Richard Wagner when they first met (in 1868) and ...
Bernstein & Copland Leonard Bernstein was once asked about Aaron Copland's influence on his music. "...
Saint-Saens Camille Saint-Saens was not without his critics. "If he'd been making shell-case...
John Bull John Bull once visited a famous American musician at St. Omer's, pretending to b...
Miklos Rozsa "The Lost Weekend is a tough psychological drama about a drunken writer w...
Copying Out "How [Felix Mendelssohn] composed I enjoyed only one opportunity of witnessing,"...
Rossini & Liszt Young Franz Liszt once played a new piece for his fellow composer Gioacchino Ros...
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