September 1, 2019 – davidbruceblog #2

101

I figure that 100 poems make a book. Are you planning to self-publish?

elleguyence

ugliest breakfast
chores to do, messy bedsheets
love on the weekend

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The Weather Girls: It’s Raining Men (YouTube)

The Weather Girls – It’s Raining Men (YouTube)

The Weather Girls’ official music video for ‘It’s Raining Men’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aZJBLAu1E

David Bruce: 250 Music Anecdotes — Invective, Language, Letters

Invective

• Arturo Toscanini occasionally burst into fits of great rage during rehearsals. One such fit occurred when he was rehearsing the NBC Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The rehearsal went along normally until the scherzo, but Toscanini became furious and accused the celli of playing without life, without bite. He accused the celli of taking it easy and insulting both him and Beethoven. He broke his baton, he ripped his score to shreds, and he pushed the conductor’s stand off the stage. Then he pulled out his watch and threw it to the floor, shattering the watch and sending its parts in many directions. He swore that he would never conduct such jack*sses again, and then he stomped off to his dressing room, shouting insults all the way. The next day at rehearsal — yes, he did show up — he showed the members of the orchestra a cheap watch that he had brought — it bore the inscription “For Rehearsals Only.” The rehearsal went exceedingly well. Samuel Antek, a violinist in the NBC Symphony Orchestra, wrote, “Toscanini’s rage, somehow, always achieved a musical purpose. Childish, petulant, unreasoning as it was, we somehow respected and admired his capacity to be so moved and aroused by his feeling for his work.” Toscanini really did feel that strongly about music. In Atlanta, Georgia, during a tour, the NBC Symphony entered a huge auditorium that smelled of horses and their manure because a horse show had recently been held there. A boxing ring was in the center of the auditorium because of a prizefight that would be held that night. The NBC Symphony Orchestra would rehearse now, and then play the following night. One workman who was wearing a hat walked by Toscanini, who knocked off the hat and said, “Ignorante! Take off the hat! Is a church here!” The workman was dumbfounded, so Toscanini explained, “Where is music is a church!”

• Italian is rich in invective, and conductor Arturo Toscanini made rich use of it when he wanted to criticize a musician or a singer. Once, he was heaping Italian invective upon a musician when he realized that the musician did not understand Italian and so did not understand what he was saying. Because his knowledge of English was limited, Mr. Toscanini was forced to tell the musician, “You bad, bad man.”

Language

• Leonard Bernstein and his family spoke a language that he helped to create with a childhood friend named Eddie Ryback. They named the language with an amalgamation of their names: Ryback plus Bernstein equals Rybernian. Nina, Mr. Bernstein’s daughter, explains, “It’s basically a way of mispronouncing things — Yiddish words as well as people who just talk funny.” A London Timesarticle explains that “I love you” becomes “Mu-la-du,” and the appropriate response is “Mu-la-dumus” (“I love you more”). Sometimes, Mr. Bernstein would put on what his children considered to be airs, and they would tell him in Rybernian, “La-lutt” (“Shut up”). Nina says, “[T]hat would bring him right down to earth.”

• Jazz banjo player Eddie Condon was witty. He once remarked about the 1940s bebop musicians, “They flat their fifths; we drink ours.” And he once said about French writers who criticized American jazz, “We don’t tell them how to stomp on grapes….”

• In the early 1970s, saxophonist Pat Patrick asked Thelonious Monk, “What’s happening?” Mr. Monk replied, “Everything is happening all the time — every googleplexth of a second!”

Letters

• Richard Barthelemy, the voice coach and accompanist of Enrico Caruso, was French, and the French have a reputation for having a certain regard for a good turn of praise. A high-society woman once sent opera singer Enrico Caruso a very nice gift, which pleased him. Mr. Caruso sent back a souvenir, and he asked Mr. Barthelemy to compose a nice letter to accompany the gift. Mr. Barthelemy did compose the letter, and soon afterward the high-society woman invited him to lunch and said to him, “I have a favor to ask you, for which I desire secrecy. I am going to have you read an extremely charming letter from Monsieur Caruso in which he begs me to accept the lovely souvenir here. I want to thank him, and I’ve thought of you for that. Would you do me the pleasure of composing an answer to his letter which would have a true French turn to it? I’ll recopy it and send it to Monsieur Caruso.” Mr. Barthelemy composed the letter.

***

250 Music Anecdotes (Kindle eBook: $1.99):

https://www.amazon.com/250-Music-Anecdotes-David-Bruce-ebook/dp/B00JJYTYQO/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=david+bruce+250+music+anecdotes&qid=1565099313&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

Buy the Paperback:

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