Classical bitchery

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I found this quite fun - who knew how catty all these great composers could be about each other?

• "He has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour." - Rossini on Wagner
• "After Rossini dies, who will there be to promote his music?” - Wagner on Rossini
• “A composer for one right hand.” - Wagner on Chopin
• "He composes by splashing his pen over the manuscript and leaving the issue to chance." - Chopin on Berlioz
• “A regular freak, without a vestige of talent.” - Mendelssohn on Berlioz
• “A tub of pork and beer.” - Berlioz on Handel
• “He’d be better off shovelling snow than scribbling on manuscript paper.” - Richard Strauss on Schoenberg
• "He is no longer of any interest to me, and whatever I may have learned from him, I am thankful to say I misunderstood." - Schoenberg on Strauss
• "Such an astounding lack of talent has never before been united to such pretentiousness." - Tchaikovsky on Strauss
• "He can’t compose a single note without someone’s help.” - Tchaikovsky on Borodin
• ""What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius." - Tchaikovsky on Brahms
• “Hygienic, but unexciting.” - Liszt on Brahms
• “Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?” - Stravinsky on Villa-Lobos
• "Bach on the wrong notes." - Prokofiev on Stravinsky
• “He wrote marvellous operas but dreadful music.” - Shostakovich on Puccini
• "A man of great talent who lacks the essential quality that makes great masters." - Bizet on Verdi
• "A very tolerable imitation of a composer.” - Vaughan Williams on Mahler
• “If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.” - Ravel on Saint-Saëns

Miaow!

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Composers in the collage:

First row - Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven;
Second row - Gioachino Rossini, Felix Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi;
Third row - Johann Strauss II, Johannes Brahms, Georges Bizet, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák;
Fourth row - Edvard Grieg, Edward Elgar, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Aram Khachaturian

A cultural outing - in Kings Cross?

We had a very cultured evening at the brand new concert venue King's Place (near Kings Cross) tonight, in the company of our friend the lovely pianist Daniel Grimwood and his equally talented cohort, the cellist Jamie Walton.

They played a stunning set of sonatas by Beethoven, Britten, Brahms and Prokofiev, each very different in style and complexity, and all beautifully played with a passion and verve that we could hardly have expected. It was exhausting to watch, exhilarating to hear, and downright fantastic! The venue itself is so squeaky-clean and new that Madame Acarti likened it to John Lewis, but as auditoriums go it certainly has a lot of potential and is highly recommended for a visit.

Here are Daniel and Jamie giving their all to the Polonaise by Chopin:

Daniel Grimwood and Jamie Walton - Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major, Op. 3 by Frédéric Chopin

And here is the beauteous Daniel himself in a fascinating explanation of the difference between types of piano, and about his latest recording:

Daniel Grimwood talks about his recent recording - Années de Pelerinage by Franz Liszt

Buy Daniel's CDs online

Buy Jamie and Daniel's recordings