 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: BG ★2017
Date: 2004-04-01 02:23
"He'd be better off shoveling snow."
Richard Strauss on Arnold Schoenberg
When told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform his concerto, Arnold Schoenberg replied, "I can wait."
"I would like to hear Elliot Carter's Fourth String Quartet, if only to discover what a cranky prostrate does to one's polyphony."
"Exit in case of Brahms."
Philip Hale's proposed inscription over the doors of Boston's Symphony Hall
"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?"
Igor Stravinsky
"His music used to be original. Now it's aboriginal."
Sir Ernest Newman on Igor Stravinsky
"If he'd been making shell cases during the war, it might have been better for music."
Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saens
"He has an enormously wide repertory. He can conduct anything, provided it's by Beethoven, Brahms, or Wagner. He tried Debussy's La Mer once. It came out as Das Merde."
Anonymous Orchestra Member on George Szell
Someone commented to Rudolph Bing, manager of the Metropolitan Opera, that Geroge Szell is his own worst enemy. "Not while I'm alive, he isn't! said Bing.
"After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a bordello and I won't let any of you in."
Arturo Toscanini to the NBC Orchestra
"We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again."
Sir Thomas Beecham to a musician during a rehearsal
"Jack Benny played Mendelssohn last night. Mendelssohn lost."
Anonymous
The great German conductor Hans von Buelow detested two members of an orchestra, who were named Schultz and Schmidt. Upon being told that Schmidt had died, von Buelow immediately asked, "Und Schultz?"
"Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed."
Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono
"Parsifal is the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6:20."
David Randolph
"One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I certainly don't intend hearing it a second time."
Gioacchino Rossini
"I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music."
Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
"Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on."
Sir Thomas Beecham on an unidentified soprano in Die Walkyre
"Flint must be an extremely wealthy town. I see that each of you bought two or three seats."
Victor Borge, playing a half-filled house in Flint, Michigan
"Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together."
Mel Brooks
"I love Beethoven, especially the poems."
Ringo Starr
"I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere."
Frederic Chopin
"Nice guys finish first. Maybe you don't know where the finish line is"
Paul Kinney
"When she started to play, Steinway himself came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano."
Bob Hope on comedienne Phyllis Diller
Ok, folks, this is only the start. Now it is your turn to add some of your favorites!
BG
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Author: Bob Schwab
Date: 2004-04-01 02:50
I almost wet myself when I read this one.
"He has an enormously wide repertory. He can conduct anything, provided it's by Beethoven, Brahms, or Wagner. He tried Debussy's La Mer once. It came out as Das Merde."
Anonymous Orchestra Member on George Szell
I heard that Toscanini once yelled "assassins!" at his orchestra after a particularly horrific rehearsal.
Bob Schwab
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-04-01 02:56
If you're going to add new quotes please read all the previous ones carefully so we don't get duplicates.
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Author: Tom A
Date: 2004-04-01 11:47
(With thanks to the late Nicolas Slonimsky)
The great pianist Artur Schnabel was playing Mozart violin sonatas with his friend Albert Einstein, an accomplished amateur violinist, but Einstein was having trouble keeping time.
Said Schnabel to Einstein, "For heaven's sake, Albert, can't you count?!"
(With thanks to Sir Simon Rattle)
Messiaen, who was gifted with synaesthesia, to an orchestral trumpeter:
"Could you play that bit a little more greenie-orange?"
(With thanks to the rude but funny bloke sitting next to me in rehearsal)
Sir Thomas Beecham was dress-rehearsing Aida. In the middle of a soprano aria, one of the elephants deposited a load of brown soccer balls on the stage. Beecham instantly said, "Poor timing, but what an excellent critic!"
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-01 13:31
A short dialogue between a teacher at my college and myself...Quote:
Teacher - "You know what Beethoven's teacher looked like?"
Me - "No."
Teacher - "No one knows. Cause he's Haydn!" Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-04-01 14:08
During a particularly nasty Metropolitan Opera negotiation for a contract with the unions, the parties appeared before an arbitrator. Rudolf Bing sneered at the young lawyer representingthe unions.
LAWYER: Your honor! Mr. Bing is trying to show contempt for me?
BING: To the contrary sir, I am endeavoring to hide it.
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Brahms and the music critic Edouard Hanslick were walking down the street together. They came to a house:
HANSLICK: Maestro, that is the house I was born in.
BRAHMS: So -- when you die maybe they will put up a sign.
HANSLICK: And what will it say, maestro?
BRAHMS: "For Sale."
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EARL OF SANDWICH: I am convinced, sir, that you will die either on the gallows or of the pox (syphilis).
DISRAELI: That would depend, sir, on whether I embraced your principles or your mistress.
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-01 17:24
I wonder if classical musicians find humor in anything OTHER than being caustic towards rival classical musicians. Maybe they're just polishing the old image of the temperamental artist.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-04-02 15:39
The famous baryton Dietrich Fisher-Diskau picked up conducting and once met with Klemperer. He approached the big maestro and asked him if he wanted to attend a consert that he was about to give a few days later. Klemperer looked in his agenda and said: "No, not possible. That night I have my lieder-abend".
Leif Segerstam at a rehersal: "Now it's the third time I tell you this. Don't you have any respect for another persons life mission. OBEY".
Other quotations by Segerstam you can find at:
http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/music/segerstam.html
Post Edited (2004-04-02 15:43)
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Author: paulwl
Date: 2004-04-02 18:14
Interesting, Alphie, that you'd choose just another autocratic-conductor quote from a guy who spoke such sublimely surreal English that he put Pedro Carolino* to shame. I particularly love:
Here you should have a little worm.
More grease in the pianissimo.
Please don't play sloppy dactyls that they don't know what it is.
Quasi dim pencil, and feathers are for the wish here.
We still have a pleep.
* author of the classic "English as She is Spoke" http://crossroads.net/honyaku/easis/
Not musicians' humor, but then again, Segerstam's isn't quite either.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2004-04-02 19:52
paulwl wrote: "Interesting, Alphie, that you'd choose just another autocratic-conductor quote from a guy who spoke such sublimely surreal English that he put Pedro Carolino* to shame".
I'll try to translate:
"Here you should have a little worm".
The "worm" refers to the little curved line penciled in meaning a little ritenuto.
"More grease in the pianissimo".
Probably: "play like you had grease instead of resin on the bow". An "airier" sound.
"Please don't play sloppy dactyls that they don't know what it is".
Dactyl is a kind of metre in poetry. He means: "don't play so academic, the audience wount understand".
"Quasi dim pencil, and feathers are for the wish here".
Pencil in "quasi diminuendo and play with a light touch.
"We still have a pleep".
Probably refering to a noice during a recording session.
I've had some of my nicest musical experiences with Leif. He has more intelligence than what's healthy for himself.
Alphie
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