Which composers of any period would you invite to dinner and why?

[teamsaint]

Bruckner.

We'd both hate the very idea of organising/attending dinner-parties in the possible company of God-like figures such as Wagner, intellectuals like Mahler, and thorough incomprehensibles like Brahms, so we'd probably just decide to pop down to the local pub
and get sloshed instead,

?!

[scottycelt]

?!

[rauschwerk]

Telemann: after coffee I'd get out some MS paper and see if he were willing to show how he could write an eight part motet "as easily as most people could write a letter" as was apparently the case.

Mozart: to hear him talk of his reverence for Haydn and (entertainingly I hope) of his low opinions of certain other musicians.

Percy Grainger: to argue with Mozart about the point of sonata forms and development sections, and perhaps to regale us with anecdotes about his folksong collecting.

Michael Tippett, who I imagine could make lively conversation about all kinds of things.

[burning dog]

Apparently Michael Nyman supports QPR and Mark Anthony Turnage is an Arsenal fan.

I

I fear Nyman's music has gone the same way as his (our) team. The influence of Marcuse?

[ahinton]

I think that I'd invite Elliott Carter - because if he turned up I'd have the immense pleasure of handing him a glass of something nice (and French, naturellement!) and greeting him with "ah! - I knew you were having us on!"...

He'd doubtless be a great dinner guest anyway, provided that one did not sit him - as I was told someone once did at a dinner party in NYC - next to John Cage and, of course, I wouldn't do such a thing...

[ahinton]

I fear Nyman's music has gone the same way as his (our) team.

Oh. I didn't know that it had gone (Nyman's music, I mean). Where? How far away and for how long?

Ahem...

[MrGongGong]

Oh. I didn't know that it had gone (Nyman's music, I mean). Where? How far away and for how long?

Ahem...

The same 8 bars of Don Giovanni for a very long time indeed ............ ?

[ahinton]

The same 8 bars of Don Giovanni for a very long time indeed ............ ?

Oh. No change there, then.

[MrGongGong]

Oh. No change there, then.

Nothing wrong with that though
and if it is an invite to dinner then there's a perfect soundtrack (but i'd stick to the "vegetarian option" )

[Serial_Apologist]

I think that I'd invite Elliott Carter

Would the menu be A La Carter?

[Nick Armstrong]

Would the menu be A La Carter?

Get Pierre Boulez along and you could opt for the special surprise menu, a.k.a. the Carte ...explosante-Prix-Fixe

[MrGongGong]

Get Pierre Boulez along and you could opt for the special surprise menu, a.k.a. the Carte ...explosante-Prix-Fixe

I know someone who DID go to dinner with Boulez , and showed me in precise detail HOW he held his knife and fork

I wondered whether he cut everything up into precise squares before eating ............?

[Nick Armstrong]

I know someone who DID go to dinner with Boulez , and showed me in precise detail HOW he held his knife and fork

I wondered whether he cut everything up into precise squares before eating ............?

I have his autograph - tiny writing in a little box, left and top edges made of the "P", right edge made of the "z" and underlined to close it off

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I have his autograph - tiny writing in a little box, left and top edges made of the "P", right edge made of the "z" and underlined to close it off

Yes; he signed my LP of pli selon pli (as did Phyllis Bryn-Julson) and I thought he'd written "Thanks"!

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd have loved to have spent an evening discussing with Jonathan Harvey how apparently he managed to square Christianity with Buddhism, as to my understanding they are predicated on entirely different assumptions.

Maybe he's found the answer now