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Your "funniest"/ most "hilarious" anecdote relating to classical music: experienced, heard of, read about?
Many if not most exchanges here on this forum, relate to classical music concerned with its beauty, mechanics, emotional sadness, or some kind of relevant data thereof.
So I thought that it might be nice just as a change of pace so to speak, to focus on its humorous/comical aspects personally experienced in some way.
What are your favorite anecdotes? About a pompous instructor/teacher you once had? A happenstance during or at a live concert, recital or opera performance? Something you've only read about? Whatever?
Alberich
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Oh you guys: what a "riot"; don't think I've ever enjoyed myself so much on-line, as reading all of your responses here.
Think I'll print them all out, and hang them on the wall.
Alberich
19 Answers
- lynndramsopLv 61 decade agoFavorite Answer
experienced:
we were in the middle of the Auction scene of Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress". You have to be intensely concentrated, because Stravinsky throws one of his usual rhythmic eccentricities at you, and one bat of the
eyelids and you're out.
Well, the fellows in the sound booth were reviewing the previous week's symphony concert recording of Beethoven #6, and somebody pushed the wrong button. the hall was immediately flooded with gentle pastoral F major, and we in the chorus blinked in dread panic.
Our "auctioneer" a seasoned stage critter with a wonderful sense of humor, laid the gavel down for a second, until the speakers were shut off, then picked it up again, and added ad lib, that one was for free, now back to the auction, and picked up his line so easily that the dumb-founded conductor was able to bring in everyone right where they should have been.
the next best experienced:
I was in the audience, because it was Ariadne auf Naxos, and there is no chorus. the fellows doing the commedia dell'arte were lined up for their big quintet with Zerbinetta, and had been staged in a classic clown routine, with ladder. Since they were lined up by size, it couldn't go very wrong, could it? One of them , probably our auctioneer from above, made a joke, and they all started laughing. So hard that only Zerbinetta was left singing. The four of them laughed so hard that the audience was infected, and it was literally the funniest thing I've ever heard. Laughed till I cried.
Heard of:
my first singing teacher, who was quite a vivacious woman in her young years, told me about a performance of Carmen by Chicago lyric. She and her tenor weren't the best of friends, and by the 4th Act, where Carmen throws the ring back at Don Jose, and runs at her with a knife, the tenor decided he'd had enough, and simply stormed off stage. She made it look like a heart attack, and the headlines in the Culture section of the next day's newspaper read:
Carmen dies of natural causes. probably in the late 60s, if anyone wants to check back that far...
Read about: there are a couple of delightful books Great Operatic Disasters and More Great Operatic Disasters by Hugh Vickers.
- hafwenLv 61 decade ago
Hi Alberich!
Well, the funniest anecdote I've heard is only second hand, I'm afraid, but it was experienced by my best friend, so I can promise you it REALLY happened.
My friend (who is Estonian) was holidaying back in Tallinn some years ago, and one night, he attended a performance of Mozart's "Magic Flute." The performance was wonderful, the orchestra was superb...and not surprisingly, the audience was transfixed by the action on stage.
But my friend was mesmerised by what was happening OFF-stage...apparently, unbeknown to the two participants, there was an explicit shadow play occurring there behind the curtain - an X-rated "sub plot," if you like...and all my friend could do was watch in horrified fascination!
And to this day, he still can't understand why he was the only one in the audience who noticed! Needless to say, nowadays "The Magic Flute" evokes some rather unorthodox associations for him!
Hafwen x
- 1 decade ago
Well, a conductor once told me a story about when he was still a young cello student at the London RAM. Now, the students were sent around England to help out local orchestras in order to gain performance experience and probably develop ensemble playing.
So, on one job, he was sent to some backwater English village to help out the local orchestra with a performance of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, with (I think he said) a local pianist. The first movement went off without a problem, audience clapped etc.
Then came the second.
The orchestra played its lovely tune up to the piano entry.
This entry did not happen.
So, the conductor looked over at the pianist only to see a disheartened shrug in reply. Not one to let a good performance go to waste, the conductor begins to sing/hum the piano part.
The same happened for every piano entry in that movement.
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- In Dark FaithLv 51 decade ago
My "moments" pale by comparison with the examples already given. I am truly enjoying the answers. Great question. Thanks for asking. You get a star.
A long, long time ago a friend and I were driving to Houghton, Michigan when the announcer on a college radio station had the opportunity to announce a piece by Karl Maria von Weber. For whatever reason, the volunteer announcer just did not know how to say the name and chose an unfortunate (except for its laughter value) faked attempt: Karl Mmm von Mmmff. Spelling is mine, of course, based on the sound. He did later explain that he had not done his advance work and that when he came to this name, he could not understand how Karl and Maria could be part of the same name. Karl Mmm von Mmmff, indeed.
The other is also a pronunciation moment. A very good friend who typically has trouble with pronouncing various words was telling us (me and the same friend with whom I went to Michigan for von Mmmf) about some music he had enjoyed. It was, he said, "Skarza" by Rimsky-Korsakov. As it turns out, he was referring to "Scheherazade" by Rimsky-Korsakov.
I wish I could offer more, but really I shall enjoy all the answers.
- Anonymous5 years ago
What you're talking about isn't a "near death experience". NDEs are non-physical experiences (hallucinations or "glimpses into the spiritual realm", whatever way you take it), often including "out-of-body experiences", seeing white light, meeting spiritual entities etc. - not [MERELY] life-threatening situations in the real world. EDIT: added "merely" What you're talking about could be described as "looking death in the eye", but isn't an NDE by any means. It would be important not to confuse this stuff, as NDEs sometimes actually include musical sensations, and there was actually some guy who tried to reproduce what he's heard "on the other side" in the real world. This kind of "NDE music" would be something completely different from "nearly crashing into a truck" or "having high fever". "Thanks for your correction; but don't you think you might be "knit-picking"? No one else seems to have had any trouble with my mis-use of the term." You realize that, in the grand scheme of things, knowing the definition of an NDE is much more important than distinguishing between "piece" from "song"... do you? I can already picture you forming your next question: "Have you ever had a lucid dream which evoked strong musical associations in you? I just had one - I was sitting in a dark room, and suddenly there was bright light everywhere... after I woke up and realized it was all a dream, I had to think of "Lux Aeterna" for some reason." Edit 2: "If you thought the topic of this question allowed for humor, I would not want to be where you're coming from." Huh? Last time I checked, the entire premise of your question is that no one actually *died* here... so what's your beef? Satire and black comedy have already been covering much, much more severe topics in their "humor" as far back as they started existing - and yet it's inappropriate for someone to display a light attitude in face of a few "huh, that went just well" moments way back in the past? You are already making light of this "serious topic" by citing music pieces, so please.
- KalibasaLv 41 decade ago
You guys would have *loved* this group- but I'm afraid it was in French. I'll look it up online- something with "Framboises" in the title (raspberries). It was a comedy theatre show they had running in Brussels, extremely popular, and I don't think I've laughed so hard in my life. The audience demanded six encores!!! Finally they came out and said, "We're touched that you loved this so much, but we're out of encores! No more!"
It was just two men, Classical musicians, and a lot of it was the typical combining of classical pieces with "popular" stuff (all classic French songs, many folk songs, a lot of Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf and the like). It sounds typical, but the combinations were unusually clever. For example, they took a scene with a guy in a tree playing the flute- it was a famous French folk song, about a shepherd in a tree. Then all of a sudden you hear the wolf theme from Peter and the Wolf. Of course everyone burst out laughing. They combined the melodies, mostly in counterpoint, and the "wolf" kept showing up throughout the concert like a leitmotif; he was always signalled with a spotlight lurking around the stage at random moments. The Prokofiev theme kept reappearing too; at once point they had a classic French song by Jacques Brel, another classical piece, and then the wolf at the same time. It was HILARIOUS.
Well, the skit I remember best was "The Music Lesson." First they had to get the right lighting- so the "teacher" asked the light guy in the back in Dutch for "music school lighting." Instantly the lights turned to flickering, nasty flourescent lighting. (The Dutch thing was funny too- in Belgium, the French speakers and the Dutch speakers are always fighting, it's ridiculous. So they kept pretending that they had to make things "understandable" for the Dutch audience- they would speak in Dutch, but three times slower.) Once they had the lighting, in came the cello "student"- the other guy hunched over, sulking, holding the cello above him so it looked like it was twice his size. He sat down with unimaginably poor posture and played "Long long ago," squeaking, out of tune, way off rhythm, and totally unaware of the piano accompanist (the teacher) who struggled to keep in time with him. The student of course finished three bars ahead of him.
Sorry to have rambled but it was good. I'll see if I can find "The Music Lesson" online- that one, at least, can be understood by anyone!
Edit: Ok, it's called "La Framboise Frivole," but I'm having trouble finding skits that you could understand. I'll keep looking... :)
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Two goodies :-
Well THE most famous one from the wittiest conductor ever born, Sir Thomas Beecham to a lady cellist :-
"Madam, you have there, between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands, and all you can do is scratch it!"
The playwright and music critic George Bernard Shaw was in a restaurant where there was a rather mediocre band playing. The waiter walked over to G.B.S. and said that the band would like to know if there was anything he would like them to play for him . "Dominos!" came the rather curt reply.
- 1 decade ago
How many can I tell?
Another Victor Borge:
Working with him in rehearsal, I came to a spot in the music where it was scratched out and written above was "Play this" and that was scratched out and it also said, "Don't play this".
Like an idiot I raised my hand and he looked at me with a grin and screamed, "WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" Everyone laughed and I said, "Uh Maestro, I'm not sure what I have at this point." Borge said, "Well, why don't you have a cup of coffee?"
I continued gamely on. "Well, the music says don't play, then it says play, and I'm just not sure whether you want me to play there or not. "
Borge said, "Did you play that time?"
"No", I responded.
"Sounded great!" he said. The orchestra cracked up.
- 1 decade ago
Once during a performance Bernstein's opera "Candide" the performers where "stealing" the conductors baton and then "stabbing" each other in a comedic way. But the one time when they did it they actually broke it ! One piece of the baton fell off , and you could see it sparkling on the stage. They grabbed put it back to together , handed it back to the conductor, and continued on !