Things Composers Never Said

[Nick Armstrong]

There's an amusing little parlour game going the rounds on Twitter at the moment under the "hashtag" #ThingsComposersNeverSaid

e.g.

"Off-stage brass bands are an egregiously indulgent and shameful waste of ensemble resources" Walton

"Ah yes, the singer will need to breathe" Bach

"Just sing it an octave lower, ladies" Beethoven

"All together now..." Schoenberg

"Right, I'm done with that cabaletta, just to put in the one cadence" Rossini

"What I've always wanted to do is write a five act grand opera with ballet" Webern

"No vodka for me. I've got an opera to finish" Mussorgsky

"Nothing wrong with a good tune you can whistle" Berg.

"It's just a simple boy-meets-girl love story" Britten

"I've always thought that sparse harmonic language and simplicity were the keys to my work" Korngold



Any of the bright sparks on here got any others?

[verismissimo]

"You're quite right, Imperial Highness, far too many notes." WA Mozart

[Richard Tarleton]

First thoughts are always the best - Anton Bruckner

[Pabmusic]

That'll do. (RVW)

[pastoralguy]

"One day, my time will come". George Lloyd

"Less is more". Gustaf Mahler

"A saxophone concerto. What a good idea". Glazunov

[aeolium]

"Too loud at the back..." - Berlioz

"I'd better swap those movements around again - those damn critics are saying I screwed it up" - Mahler

[Padraig]

"I'd better swap those movements around again - those damn critics are saying I screwed it up" - Mahler

"I screwed it up" -Mahler

[mercia]

"I'll finish with the tenth sonata then try something different" - D Scarlatti

[Serial_Apologist]

Unfinished? You've got to be joking! - Schubert

[mercia]

I shall be very annoyed if anyone messes with this 24th Caprice - Paganini

[Nick Armstrong]

Some great ones! Prize so far to mercs, for me!!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Who cares if you listen!" (Milton Babbitt)

[Richard Tarleton]

Your majesty, I really don't deserve everything you've done for me - Richard Wagner

[ahinton]

"Who cares if you listen!" (Milton Babbitt)

Yes, I do wish that more people would realise that Babbitt never actually said that (still less felt it!).

As to the one mentioned above about the order of the middle movements of a certain symphony, what its composer didn't say but wished he had said was
"I only decided suddenly to change the order of those movements to fool my most abrasive critics; my decision might have been musically questionable, but it certainly succeeded where those critics were concerned!"

"My dear friend Erik Chisholm sought to persuade me to write some nice simple chorale preludes for the organ; oh, how I wish now that I'd had the wisdom to accept his invitiation!" (Sorabji, following Chisholm's premature death in 1965)

"Why do so many people seem to think that I cannot compose my own symphonies unaided?" (Bruckner, 1891)

"Some day in the future, some of my works will be attributed to my second wife and some gullible people will actually believe that she is their true author" (J S Bach, on his deathbed)

"Some day in the future, a widely admired pianist will say something like "there are only three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists and bad pianists", yet I am none of those" (Fryderyk Chopin to his friend Charles-Valentin Alkan, 1840s)

[kea]

Right, finished that piece, time to start a new one ~ Pierre Boulez

My music speaks to the heart ~ Igor Stravinsky

The plot of an opera needs to be easily comprehensible ~ Karlheinz Stockhausen

I think I'm going to write some piano sonatas and maybe a string quartet ~ Hector Berlioz

Bit louder please ~ Morton Feldman

This piece doesn't actually deconstruct anything ~ Helmut Lachenmann