Book of Musical Anecdotes

by Lebrecht, Norman

• ISBN13: 9781439199947
• ISBN10: 1439199949
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-05-01
• Publisher: Free Press

Summary

Here is one of the most enjoyable and illuminating books ever published for the music lover, a feast of delightful anecdotes that reveal the all-too-human side of the great composers and performers.There are stories of appetites (Handel eating dinner for three), embarrassments (Brahms falling asleep as Liszt plays), oddities (Bruckner's dog being trained to howl at Wagner), and devotions (a lovely admirer disrobing in tribute to Puccini). There are memorable accounts of Stravinsky telling Proust how much he hates Beethoven, of Tchaikovsky's first bewildering telephone call, of Dvorak's strange love of pigeons, and of Verdi's intricate maneuvering to keep the now-famous melody of "La donna e mobile" top secret.There is also wonderful trivia (Beethoven loved to cat "bread soup" made with ten raw eggs), along with eccentric strategies (Verdi, disturbed by the sound of street organs playing arias from his operas, hired them all for a season and kept them locked in a room). There are examples of musicians munificent generosity (Haydn called Mozart "the greatest composer known to me, either in person or by name"), and scathing dismissal ("Have you heard any Stockhausen?" the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham was asked. "No," he replied, "but I believe I have trodden in some").Collected from thousands of books, articles, and unpublished manuscripts (with historical sources provided in extensive notes), these anecdotes appear in their original form, throwing fresh light on familiar figures in the musical hall of fame. For browsing, reading, research and amusement, this book is a grand entertainment for concert-goers, record-buyers, operamanes, gossips and music lovers everywhere.

Author Biography

Norman Lebrecht is a historian, cultural commentator, broadcaster and award-winning novelist. His 12 books about music have been translated into 17 languages.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Arne, Thomas Augustine

Auber, Daniel

Bach, Johann Christian

Bach, Johann Sebastian Balakirev, Mily

Balfe, Michael William

Bartók, Béla

Beecham, Sir Thomas

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Bellini, Vincenzo

Bennett, Sir William Sterndale

Berg, Alban

Berlioz, Hector

Bernstein, Leonard

Bizet, Georges

Boccherini, Luigi

Boito, Arrigo

Borodin, Alexander

Boulez, Pierre

Brahms, Johannes

Britten, Benjamin

Bruch, Max

Bruckner, Anton

Bull, Ole

Bülow, Hans von

Burney, Charles

Busoni, Ferruccio

Caffarelli

Cage, John

Callas, Maria

Caruso, Enrico

Casals, Pau (Pablo)

Chaliapin, Feodor

Chastelain de Coucy

Cherubini, Luigi

Chopin, Frédéric

Cimarosa, Domenico

Clementi, Muzio

Copland, Aaron

Corelli, Arcangelo

Couperin, François

Czerny, Karl

d'Albert, Eugen

Debussy, Claude

Delibes, Lßo

Delius, Frederick

de Reszke, Jean

Donizetti, Gaetano

Dvorák, Antonin

Edison, Thomas Alva

Elgar, Sir Edward

Farinelli

Fauré, Gabriel

Field, John

Foster, Stephen Collins

Franck, César

Frederick the Great

Furtwängler, Wilhelm

Gay, John

Gershwin, George

Gesualdo, Don Carlo

Gilbert, Sir William Schwenk

Glazunov, Alexander

Glinka, Mikhail

Gluck, Christoph Willibald von

Godowsky, Leopold

Gottschalk, Louis Moreau

Gounod, Charles (François)

Grainger, Percy (Aldridge)

Granados, Enrique

Grétry, André

Grieg, Edvard

Guido of Arezzo

Halévy, Jacques Fromental

Handel, George Frideric

Hanslick, Eduard

Haydn, Franz Joseph

Heifetz, Jascha

Henze, Hans Werner

Herschel, Sir William

Hindemith, Paul

Horowitz, Vladimir

Humperdinck, Engelbert

Ives, Charles

Janácek, Leos

Joachim, Joseph

Josquin des Pres

Jullien, Louis Antoine

Karajan, Herbert von

Korngold, Erich Wolfgang

Krenek, Ernst

Lassus, Roland de

Lanner, Joseph

Lehár, Franz

Leoncavallo, Ruggero

Leschetizky, Theodor

Ligeti, György

Lind, Jenny

Liszt, Franz

Lully, Jean-Baptiste

rdLuther, Martin

Machaut, Guillaume de

Mahler, Gustav

Malibran, María

Marais, Marin

Mascagni, Pietro

Massenet, Jules

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix

Melba, Dame Nellie

Messiaen, Olivier

Meyerbeer, Giacomo

Monteverdi, Claudio

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Mussorgsky, Modeste

Nielsen, Carl

Nikisch, Artur

Nordica, Lillian

Offenbach, Jacques

Paderewski, Ignacy Jan

Paganini, Niccolò

Paisiello, Giovanni

Patti, Adelina

Philidor, François André

Porpora, Nicola

Prokofiev, Sergei

Puccini, Giacomo

Purcell, Henry

Quantz, Johann Joachim

Rachmaninov, Sergei

Rameau, Jean-Philippe

Ravel, Maurice

Reger, Max

Richter, Hans

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolay

Rossini, Gioacchino

Rostropovich, Mstislav

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques

Rubinstein, Anton

Ruggles, Carl

Saint-Saëns, Camille

Salieri, Antonio

Sammartini, Giovanni Battista

Sarasate, Pablo de

Satie, Erik

Schnabel, Artur

Schoenberg, Arnold

Schröder-Devrient, Wilhelmine

Schubert, Franz

Schumann, Clara

Schumann, Robert

Schütz, Heinrich

Schweitzer, Albert

Scriabin, Alexander

Segovia, Andrés

Shostakovich, Dmitri

Sibelius, Jean

Smyth, Dame Ethel Mary

Sousa, John Philip

Spohr, Ludwig

Spontini, Gaspare

Stockhausen, Karlheinz

Stokowski, Leopold

Stradella, Alessandro

Strauss, Johann I

Strauss, Johann II

Strauss, Richard

Stravinsky, Igor

Sullivan, Sir Arthur

Szell, Georg

Tartini, Giuseppe

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

Telemann, Georg Philipp

Thalberg, Sigísmond

Thomas, Theodore

Toscanini, Arturo

Varèse, Edgar

Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Verdi, Giuseppe

Vieuxtemps, Henri

Viotti, Giovanni Battista

Vivaldi, Antonio

Wagner, Richard

Weber, Carl Maria von

Webern, Anton von

Wieniawski, Henri

Wolf, Hugo

Ysaye, Eugène