Musical Pulp
  • Hermann von Helmholtz: smart fellow

    A sonorous body produced by periodic vibrations.
    Hermann von Helmholtz defined music as.

    Without music, life would be a mistake.
    Said Nietzsche, a chronic insomniac whose eyesight was dire.

    Music is neither good or bad — to the deaf.
    Said Spinoza.

    Henriette Sontag, the soprano at the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth, turned Beethoven around to face the audience so that he would see the applause.

    Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. Said Joseph Haydn to Mozart’s father Leopold.

    Brahms the blondie

    Fredric Chopin was an anti-Semite.

    Brahms had blond hair.

    As did Mozart.

    The first pianist to perform with the side of the piano facing the audience was Franz Liszt — out of vanity for his profile.

    Franz Liszt: he's so vain, he probably thinks this post is about him

    Few brains, is how Felix Mendelssohn described Liszt.

    Mendelssohn and Queen Victoria were friends.

    Richard Wagner wore pink underwear.

    Bach had twenty children, of whom nine survived him.

    Mozart had seven children, only two of whom lived.

    Et tu, Wagner?

    Carl Orf was an anti-Semite.

    The night before the audition that gained her admission into the Stockholm Academy of Music, Birgit Nilsson milked ten cows on her family’s farm.

    A symphony is no joke.
    Said Brahms, who was 43-years-old before he completed his first one.

    When Mozart was 14-years-old, his father took him to the Sistine Chapel to hear Gregorio Allegri’s “Miserere” — upon hearing which that one time Mozart transcribed from memory.

    Julia Ward Howe was paid five dollars by the Atlantic Monthly for “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

    Igor Stravinsky was an anti-semite.

    Mussorgsky died stark raving mad from alcoholism.

    Beethoven, chronically preoccupied, was known to lather his face and forget to shave.

    Puppies and first operas should be drowned.
    Said Carl Maria von Weber.

    Mussorgsky: let's par-tay!

    A bit of a concierge, is how the French composer Claude Debussy described the French writer Marcel Proust.

    Chopin was buried in concert dress. The painter Eugène Delacroix was one of his pallbearers.

    Children, be comforted. I am well.
    Said Joseph Haydn — and then died.




About The Author

Ray Harvey

I was born and raised in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. I've worked as a short-order cook, construction laborer, crab fisherman, janitor, bartender, pedi-cab driver, copyeditor, and more. I've written and ghostwritten several published books and articles, but no matter where I've gone or what I've done to earn my living, there's always been literature and learning at the core of my life.

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