Archives: Anekdote

Haydn was the musical celebrity of Vienna, and young composers were always asking him for help. A pianist named Kozeluch wrote an E-flat concerto and wanted to dedicate it to Haydn. He sent the score and asked what the dedication should say. Haydn replied politely but honestly. He could not accept the dedication, he said,…

Kreutzer became famous for his playing and for his method, and he loved to improvise variations. Once he arrived at a musical party and found Beethoven and other musicians gathered around the piano. They were trying to work out a set of variations Beethoven had written. As Kreutzer listened, he realized Beethoven’s variations were clumsy—written…

In sacred music, holy words can become an excuse for showing off. When the music is great, we forgive repetition—think of Handel’s huge ‘Amen’ chorus in Messiah, a dazzling fugue spun from a single word. But repetition gets risky when the composer isn’t Handel. In Latin church texts, phrases are often repeated, and unless you…

Every conductor has a signature move: some draw circles in the air, some pump straight up and down, and some flail so wildly you wonder how anyone keeps the beat. Mark Twain once joked that much conducting is just ‘ornamental beckoning.’ But for Jean-Baptiste Lully, baton-waving had real consequences. While conducting a Te Deum before…

Gabriella was said to be generous and kind, but she also knew her worth. When Empress Catherine II summoned her to St. Petersburg to sing at court, no fee was agreed in advance. Soon after her arrival, the Empress casually asked what terms she demanded for singing before the royal audience. Gabriella decided that a…

Plenty of great composers had little patience for medals and ribbons. Oxford University made Haydn a Doctor of Music—and you can imagine how Beethoven would have taken that kind of pomp. His attitude showed clearly when the Prussian Ambassador in Vienna offered him a choice: fifty ducats in cash, or the insignia of a high…

Stories about music “curing” madness can sound like fairy tales, so take this one for what it’s worth. When Madame Camporese was singing in Milan, a friend told her about a man in the hospital who had become a musical fanatic and gone mad after one of his operas failed. Hearing she had arrived, he…

Madame Malibran wasn’t just an opera superstar—she was famously generous. On a tour stop in Venice she found a brand‑new theatre on the edge of bankruptcy. The manager had spent a fortune finishing the building and had counted on the King attending opening night to fill every seat. Then the King died, and ruin seemed…

Even theatre professionals—people trained to treat emotion as part of the job—can be overwhelmed by real artistry. A striking example came in Rome with Gaspare Pacchierotti, a celebrated singer of the last century. In one opera he sang with such beauty of tone and such genuine feeling that, after a solo passage that should have…

At Rome, part of the service sung in the Pope’s chapel was guarded like a state secret. The famed Miserere by Allegri was kept in the chapel archives; any singer caught copying it or passing even a note to an outsider risked excommunication. Only three authorized copies were ever sent out: one to Emperor Leopold,…