A Musical Dinner Party with a Twist

[antongould]

J S Bach
Glenn Gould
Paul Simon
Kathleen Ferrier
Ethel Smyth
Ravel

[vinteuil]

Rameau
Scarlatti
Haydn
Rossini
Berlioz
ETA Hoffmann

[ahinton]

Leon Dudley Sorabji and his alter Persian ego 'Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji'? Please have some respect for people who decide to change their names in later life.

There's a difference here, though; "Leon Dudley" was always going to be provisional, wherea Schönberg merely changed the spelling of his name rather than his name per se. I have immense respect for both of them incidentally!...

[Beef Oven!]

There's a difference here, though; "Leon Dudley" was always going to be provisional, wherea Schönberg merely changed the spelling of his name rather than his name per se. I have immense respect for both of them incidentally!...

Then you will have no trouble with dropping 'Leon Dudley S' and 'Schönberg' in favour of the wishes of the individuals concerned.

[Pabmusic]

Rossini
Erik Satie
Elgar
Percy Grainger
Ethel Smyth
Robert Green Ingersoll
Dittersdorf
Vaughan Williams

There's at least one "odd" one there, who wasn't a composer, but there you go...

[And EE, being bi-polar, might not have been in the mood.]

[ahinton]

Then you will have no trouble with dropping 'Leon Dudley S' and 'Schönberg' in favour of the wishes of the individuals concerned.

I have never used "Leon Dudley" as anything more than what it was as described above; as to Arnie, I tend to refer to Schönberg when speaking or writing about him up to the time when he made known his wish to change the spelling of his surname.

[Beef Oven!]

I have never used "Leon Dudley" as anything more than what it was as described above; as to Arnie, I tend to refer to Schönberg when speaking or writing about him up to the time when he made known his wish to change the spelling of his surname.

His name change was applied retrospectively and it's not for you to decide. Btw, when did Leon Dudley S change his name?

[ardcarp]

Well, you did say singers in th OP, so I'll have half of The Sixteen. But to ensur 'gender balance' SATB needs to be represented. BTW Pabs, who is Ingersoll?

[Lat-Literal]

Andre Previn
Peter Skellern
Malcolm Arnold
Billy Joel
George Martin
Carole King

Interesting selection.

Andre Previn and Carole King both crossed my mind yesterday when considering who to put forward. George Martin didn't but George Harrison did and GM would be an excellent guest. I could probably pass a note to Stilgoe for you about Skellern as he is occasionally in the local shops. However, he doesn't readily enter into conversation. The album you want is the one Pete did in the late 1970s with the Grimethorpe Colliery Band as the latter bring out the best in him with quiet, sensitive arrangements. It is quite rare.The cover is of a red rose above a colliery. I didn't like the Astaire stuff he did one jot and the jury is out on whether he should have ultimately become the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

[vinteuil]

... and, to find out what was really going on -

Frances Purcell
Maria Barbara Bach
Anna Magdalena Bach
Maria Constanze Mozart
Mme Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dudevant née Dupin [George Sand]
Isabella Colbran






.

[ahinton]

His name change was applied retrospectively and it's not for you to decide. Btw, when did Leon Dudley S change his name?

Whose? Sorabji's or Schö/oenberg's? I am well aware that neither change was for me to decide, not least because each occurred well before I was born, so I have not sought to make any such "decision". As to when Sorabji's changed, that's a simple question with complex and unanswerble questions; all of Sorabji's music manuscripts - the earliest known surviving one of which is his first piano concerto - use only the name Kaikhosru or Kaikhusru Sorabji, whereas a few published "letters-to-the-editor" from the years of WWI use "D. K. Sorabji" as though Leon had already been consigned to the dust but Dudley was somehow contriving to hang on, for some unaccountable reason. I have a suspicion that what may have been behind the "Dudley" one might have arisen from an effort at creating a smokescreen of English respectability, though one conferred upon him rather than being of his own making (Alan Bush, later to strike up a long-stnding friendship with Sorabji, had thed middle name "Dudley" but I have no idea if the two ever discussed that subject!)...

[pastoralguy]

Wallace Hartley, the leader of the Titanic's orchestra. I'd like to know what really happened that fateful night with regard to the band playing until the last moment and did they actually play 'Nearer thy God to thee'?

Bill Wyman to ask if he really did sleep with over a 1000 women during his Stones years.

Jean Sibelius. Why did he virtually give up composition at the height of his powers and did he actually finish his eight symphony?

Igor Oistrakh. Did he feel overshadowed by his famous father?

Chi-Chi Nwanoku. We actually have had a meal with her and she's great company!

Yehudi Menuhin. What was it like to be the greatest musical prodigy of modern time and to tell us the REAL story of his upbringing?!

[ahinton]

Oh, I don't know; maybe

Dmitry Shostakovich
Arnold Schö/oenberg
Jascha Heifetz
J S Bach
Ferruccio Busoni
Joseph Turner

and, if I could have another half dozen,

Sacheverell Sitwell
Lili Boulanger
Elizabeth David
Elliott Carter
Franz Liszt
Oscar Peterson

...or something...

[EdgeleyRob]

Charles Valentin Alkan
Edward Elgar
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Adrian Boult
Jimi Hendrix
Yehudi Menuhin

[verismissimo]

For a long time I’ve been curious about a dinner party in Paris on 18 May 1922. Now all has been revealed in Stephen Klaidman’s recent book, a biography of the hosts that evening, Sydney and Violet Schiff. The Schiffs were committed patrons of (and friends with) artists, writers and musicians, and Sydney himself wrote autobiographical novels under the pseudonym Stephen Hudson.

It was a late dinner in an upstairs room at the Hotel Majestic, following the first night of Stravinsky’s new burlesque-ballet at the Opéra, Le Renard, which was given by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, the same group who had shocked Paris with The Rite of Spring. Diaghilev and several of his dancers came to the dinner, as did the designer of the new production, one Pablo Picasso.

But not content with having the leading composer, artist and impresario of the day (and maybe of the century) at their dinner, the Schiffs had also invited two writers, arguably the greatest literary innovators of the twentieth century: Marcel Proust and James Joyce. Proust arrived around midnight and proceeded to make conversation with Stravinsky, saying how much he loved the late quartets of Beethoven and comparing Stravinsky with Beethoven. Sensing that this was Proust trying to show off his connoisseurship in music, Stravinsky took offence: “I detest Beethoven,” he announced. Joyce arrived around 2:30am, shabby and drunk. Proust had not read any of Joyce’s work ‒ Ulysses was causing a great stir at the time, but not with Proust. And Joyce had read just a few pages of Proust’s magnum opus, In Search of Lost Time, and disclosed to a friend some time later that “I cannot see any special talent but I am a bad critic.” They found little to say to each other, these two titans of literature.

At the end of the “evening” they shared a taxi together with the Schiffs. Joyce lit a cigarette, but was silent. Proust talked incessantly – but not to Joyce.