Brahms’ pranks

Hannes was not always solemn – far from it!  He could be as full of fun and wild pranks as any boy.  With Christian he worked out a scheme which they both found hugely entertaining.  They would knock at the door of a house where, perhaps a century before, some illustrious citizen of Hamburg had once lived.

“Is  Herr Georg Friedrich Handel at home?” they would ask with great seriousness.

“Herr Handel?” The housewife would look puzzled .  “Why, no – I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Are you quite sure now?” the young rascals would insist with feigned astonishment.  “We understood that this was his house.” Then they would hurry off, shaking with laughter.

Source: Goss, Madeleine & Schauffler, Robert (1943) Brahms The Master. New York: Henry Holt and Company, p.182-183.

ScribeFire

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

Featured Content

The musician’s role: maintain our trust in the world
“I feel that tolerance, love and social harmony can and should be the by-products of an artist’s way of life and creation.  I would like to believe that beauty and truth, two great disciplines, when combined as they are in music, where order is based on self-restraint and a better understanding of repose, will lead […]
Learning
“Learning makes a man fit company for himself.”   —  La Harpe Day, E. P. (1884) Day’s Collacon: An Encylopaedia of Prose Quotations.  International Printing and Publishing Office, p. 498.  Digitally archived at: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Qo\_Mhkcu8iAC, accessed 8 September 2021. 
Practising an art
Practising an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You […]
The piano, as distinct from the harp
Beethoven on the development of the piano as an instrument in its own right: There is no doubt that so far as the manner of playing it is concerned, the pianoforte is still the least studied and developed of all instruments; often one thinks that one is merely listening to a harp.  And I am […]
Ravel’s fine attributes as a composer
On his tour to America in 1928, Ravel was highly praised by music critics.  In the New York Times, Olin Downeswrote: Never to have composed in undue haste; never to have offered the public a piece of unfinished work; to have experienced life as an observant and keenly interested beholder, and to have fashioned certain […]
Reverie II
Reverie II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano (left hand) Product medium: PDF score
Beethoven as a boy
In his Beethoven: Biography of a Genius, Marek provides an insight into Beethoven as a boy: The boy was looking out of the window, his head cradled in his hands.  His mien was serious, his glance rigid. Cäcilia Fischer came along the courtyard and saw him. “How are you, Ludwig?” she shouted up to him.  […]
Men of genius
“Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849), Kavanagh, London: George Slater, p.49.  https://books.google.com.au/books?id=i8ENAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed 4 September 2021.
1.2: The Fundamental Vibration of Music
1 1 1   For Pythagoras (c. 570 BCE – c. 495 BCE), the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, numbers were not merely a mathematical phenomena, but were representative all levels of existence, from the individual, to society, to the universe as a whole. In Metaphysica (Metaphysics), Aristotle wrote: Pythagoreans applied themselves to mathematics, and […]
The Lord Has Revealed To All Nations His Saving Power (Setting ii) – Psalm 97 (98)
Title: The Lord has revealed to all nations his saving power (Setting ii) Text: Psalm 97 (98): 1-4. R. cf. v.2 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample: