Grotesque or Unacceptable Behaviour of Musicians?

[trunks]

I just read from the local columns that Johannes Brahms the German composer was known to have the inhumane desire (and actions) to kill cats with arrow shots in order to alleviate stress.

OMG . . . this was very sick indeed!> I truly hope this piece of information is incorrect, otherwise I might well contemplate on reassessing his music because music to some extent reflects the composer's personality.

Any input on weird personalities of Brahms or other musicians? Such as Robert Schumann finished up being a schizophrenic who ended his own life . . .

[thracozaag]

Two words: Percy Grainger

koji

[trunks]

Two words: Percy Grainger
koji

Hm . . . the Australian pianist/composer who championed Edvard Grieg's music?
How?

[thracozaag]

 Just read some of the books about him and/or his letters.  He was a strange, strange, STRANGE man.

koji

[ahmedito]

Gulda!!!!

I mean, theres a video of him and 2 other musicians (one of them his wife). Everyone is naked, and playing jazzy stuff, Gulda has his chest painted bright green and is playing a trumpet made out of a garden hose, and he kees screaming out stuff in german..... wierder than taht, you mean?

[bernhard]

Hm . . . the Australian pianist/composer who championed Edvard Grieg's music?
How?

Percy Grainger was heavily into S&M (he loved being whipped) and there were persistent rumours that he had an incestuous affair with his mother. He was also a racist and a nazi ideas sympathiser. There has been a recent movie (very good actually) about him – “Passion” - with Richard Roxburgh as Percy Grainger and Barbara Hershey as his mother, directed by Peter Duncan.

[bernhard]

Gulda!!!!

I mean, theres a video of him and 2 other musicians (one of them his wife). Everyone is naked, and playing jazzy stuff, Gulda has his chest painted bright green and is playing a trumpet made out of a garden hose, and he kees screaming out stuff in german..... wierder than taht, you mean?

Why?

Wasn't Gulda Martha Argerich's teacher for a while?

Vladimir de Pachman was weirder.

[faulty_damper]

I just read from the local columns that Johannes Brahms the German composer was known to have the inhumane desire (and actions) to kill cats with arrow shots in order to alleviate stress.

OMG . . . this was very sick indeed!> I truly hope this piece of information is incorrect, otherwise I might well contemplate on reassessing his music because music to some extent reflects the composer's personality.

Any input on weird personalities of Brahms or other musicians? Such as Robert Schumann finished up being a schizophrenic who ended his own life . . .

You know what else is really sick?  Almost all pianists eat meat!  Can you believe that!  MEAT!  That's totally disgusting.

Last night, for dinner, I ate steak and chicken with some rice and tomatoes.

[bernhard]

You know what else is really sick?  Almost all pianists eat meat!  Can you believe that!  MEAT!  That's totally disgusting.

Last night, for dinner, I ate steak and chicken with some rice and tomatoes.

Tamas Vasary is a vegetarian.

Anyway I was far more sickened by you eating tomatoes, who were probably still alive. Not to mention rice grains (poor little foetuses...)

[chopinetta]

LOL

[tosca1]

I believe that most musicians, past and present. in their private, personal lives are no different from anyone else.  We should judge them purely in terms of their contribution to music.  To reject Brahms  because of some allegation of a desire to kill cats with by shooting them with a bow and arrow is almost laughable.  There are some who  argue that the angst of conflict in the composer's personal life made the musical output even greater.  Consider, for example, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and of course Beethoven who all  struggled with tragedy and  intense suffering in their personal lives and manifested highly unconventional behaviour. This was the alchemy for  the creation of their greatest works.
Kind regards,
Robert.

[Clare]

Was De Pachmann the guy who instead of doing piano exercises, used to milk cows every morning instead? He was the guy who hid his playing from the audience one time because Godowsky was there and he didn't want his fingering to get stolen, wasn't he? I do know that he had a mysterious succession of stinky dressing gowns he'd always claim to have been originally owned by Chopin.

And that Brahms cat rumour was something the Wagner crew made up to make Brahms look bad. They said Brahms wrote down the tunes of the wailing cats and that's how he came up with melodies. So it's not true.

Percy Grainger came from my home town! His mum was syphilitic and used to whip him every day when he was a kid. That's probably why he ended up the way he did with all the S&M. I think one time, Percy was playing a concerto in rehearsal, and in one of the orchestral bits, he jumped off the stage, ran to the end of the auditorium, touched the wall, then ran back and got there in time for his next entry.

I don't understand the racism thing because Percy used to hang out with people of other cultures on his giant treks to the next city. Mm. Oh, well. He certainly was a strange one.

[monk]

Well, I regard it as grotesque behavior that all the classical pianists are practicing 8 hours a day to play the same pieces over and over that all classical pianists play (the nickname "rachlisztchopin" says it all *LOL*). With almost no chance to add something significant to the music world.
For me most of them are just like crazy robots who program themselves.

For me, only musicians who also compose / improvise are really great musicians. And VERY FEW real geniuses who play really individual interpretations (Gulda, Gould, Pires, Richter...)

Best Wishes,
Monk

[ahmedito]

So true

[cziffra]

unfortunately...  :-/

[cziffra]

i always like the story of beethoven in the midst of inspiratuion: he was about to go to bed, and decided to shave.  after lathering up, he had a sudden idea, got so excited with it he wrote it down and forgot about the shavig, going straight to bed

he woke up the next morning with the cream still there.

[eugene_oneg]

For me, only musicians who also compose / improvise are really great musicians. And VERY FEW real geniuses who play really individual interpretations (Gulda, Gould, Pires, Richter...)

Just as a  side note, Glenn Gould was a also a composer in addition to being a great interpreter and spoke exactly like you do on the subject. He went even further and said something like pianists in the XXth century ceased to be musicians when they stopped being composers. I have never heard any of his compositions tough.

Speaking of weird behavior, I read of a pianist in the 19th century who after he gave his last public performance subsequently came back on the concert platform a few years later but played behind a veil so that he would hold his promise. Sorry I do not remember his name but I find this very funny.

The story of P. Grainger running to touch the hall wall during a concerto is really funny.

[Joseph_Hoffman]

dePachmann once walked out on stage, sat down at the piano, ajusted the piano stool...reajusted the piano stool...played a few notes...reajusted the piano stool....repeated the first few steps....reajusted the piano stool...called for a single sheet of paper....placed the paper on the piano stool...was finally satisfied with the height of the stool and began playing.

He He He

[JK]

The violinist and teacher (and yes I realise he's wasn't a pianist!) Sandor Vagh used to stand right next to his pupils with his face almost touching theirs and shout things like "Why you play bad??!!", he also used to refuse to teach people if they were too thin!!

[faulty_damper]

i always like the story of beethoven in the midst of inspiratuion: he was about to go to bed, and decided to shave.  after lathering up, he had a sudden idea, got so excited with it he wrote it down and forgot about the shavig, going straight to bed

he woke up the next morning with the cream still there.

And apparently got dressed and went out into town with the cream still on it!

Is this grotesque?  Unacceptable?  Nope, it's perfectly acceptable for genius.

[Bob]

I heard a story of a concert pianist who got extremely annoyed with a bad piano leg.  He stormed off stage and came back with an ax to chop the piano leg off.

[ahmedito]

OK...
listen to this story of Glen Gould....

He walks into the stage to play the Goldberg variations, sits down. And plays the first notes completely wrong, I mean horribly out of place.
He stops bewildered and takes a deep breath. He starts again, lifts his hands and plays the 2 notes that begin the variations on a piano dynamic. Once again completely wrong.
Third time he tries it, he plays the same 2 notes wrong.... his face is that of a guy  who thinks the piano is somehow wrong, and that he is playing the right note.
He gets up enraged yelling all kinds of swera words !"#"#R&#$&$%/$%/&!!!, etc. He lifts the piano bench and throws it back stage. He walks of the stage and you hear him yell, demanding the score.... silence for some minutes, then he yells AHA!!!
He walks back on stage and plays the two notes, now correctly still standing up in a FFFF dinamic, and then continues playing and finishes the variations flawlessly....
is this grotesque behavior or what???