Thread: Composers and Cats

Source attributions:
http://user.xmission.com/~emailbox/cat_lovers.html
http://www.bartleby.com/234/8.html

Alexander Borodin had many cats. From Rimsky-Korsakov's autobiography:
Many cats that the Borodins lodged marched back and forth on the table, thrusting their noses into the plates or leaping on the backs of the guests. These felines enjoyed the protection of Catherine Sergueïevna. They all had biographies. One was called Fisher because he was successful in catching fish through the holes in the frozen river. Another, known as Lelong, had the habit of bringing home kittens in his teeth which were added to the household. More than once, dining there, I have observed a cat walking along the table. When he reached my plate I drove him away; then Catherine Sergueïevna would defend him and recount his biography. Another installed himself on Borodin’s shoulders and heated him mercilessly.
‘Look here, sir, this is too much!’ cried Borodin, but the cat never moved.

Frédéric Chopin's was composing alone in his music room late one night. While he was sitting on the piano, suddenly a small kitten ran across the keys. Chopin likes the strange melody so much that he created an entire piece called "The Cat Waltz" around it. (George Sand reportedly ate her breakfast from the same bowl as her cat Minou.)

Andrew Lloyd Webber's 6-month-old kitten Otto in 2007 wiped out the score to his sequel to Phantom of the Opera by stepping on the keyboard. "I was trying to write some new music, he got into the grand piano, jumped onto the computer and destroyed the entire score for the new `Phantom' in one fell swoop."

Modest Mussorgsky included a song called The Pirate Cat in his song cycle Five Children's Songs.

Sergei Prokofiev chose the clarinet to represent the Cat in Peter and the Wolf.

Maurice Ravel had several beloved Siamese cats. He penned L'enfant et les sortilges ("The Child and the Enchantments") in collaboration with the French writer Colette. The opera has a bravura cat duet sung by the Tom Cat and the She Cat in an authentic-sounding feline 'language'.

I always thought The Cat Duet was composed by Rossini. Per Wiki:
While the piece is typically attributed to Gioachino Rossini, it was not actually written by him, but is instead a compilation written in 1825 that draws principally on his 1816 opera, Otello. The compiler was likely the English composer Robert Lucas de Pearsall, who for this purpose used the pseudonym "G. Berthold".

Domenico Scarlatti's cat Pulcinella composed a fugue. The cat was fond of prancing about on the harpsichord and wrote Fugue in G Minor, L499; better known as The Cat's Fugue. Per Claus von Bülow: The first three measures present the mechanical promenade of the cat across the keyboard (the theme proper); the following ones exhibit the justificatory touch of the master-hand, thoughtfully arranging the first chaotic ‘product of Nature.’

Igor Stravinsky composed a set of four pieces called Berceuses du Chat "Cat's Lullabies" for female voice and three clarinets.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky included a dance for Puss 'n' Boots and the White Cat in Sleeping Beauty in which the dancers simulate a lively scene between two cats and the orchestra imitates the sounds made by the animals including, of course, a realistic spit.

***
Johannes Brahms hated cats and used to shoot them in his backyard with a bow and arrow.

Giacomo Meyerbeer also hated cats, but his retribution is undocumented.

for something completely different:

Poor Mozart Cat. Once "in the cold Austrian night," he "sat slumped in a musical blight."

Mozart suffering from "composer's block? Well, once in a while, maybe. Or so he does in this delightful children's book by Jeannine Kadow. Published by Cheval Creative, it is the first in a series of interactive musical books, toys, CDs, DVDs, Internet and high tech apps designed to "educate and empower children by teaching classical music."

The accompanying CD is narrated by conductor James Conlon, who shows a distinct flair for storytelling: "Where is my MUSIC?" Mozart yowled as he prowled, while far off in the forest, a wild wolf howled . . ." Illustrations -- vivid and charming in full color -- are by Olo.

See Mozart Cat in white wig and red coat wandering through a forest full of animals to find notes for a new composition "for music quite light, lilting, uplifting and danceably bright." He gets help from a red-legged thrush, tortoise, rabbit, squirrel, owl, snake, spider, cricket, raven and most of all a fish at the bottom of a creek. And dance they do as Mozart Cat plays on a fiddle carved by a woodpecker.

The lesson learned is "even if you're a kitten, you too can compose."

The 50-page, hard-cover book contains a glossary of words used in the story and activity pages. The three-track CD contains music by Mozart (from his Symphony No. 40 in G Minor and "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik") and an interactive educational track aligned with the activity pages.

Originally Posted by Lunasong

Alexander Borodin had many cats. From Rimsky-Korsakov's autobiography:
Many cats that the Borodins lodged marched back and forth on the table, thrusting their noses into the plates or leaping on the backs of the guests. These felines enjoyed the protection of Catherine Sergueïevna. They all had biographies. One was called Fisher because he was successful in catching fish through the holes in the frozen river. Another, known as Lelong, had the habit of bringing home kittens in his teeth which were added to the household. More than once, dining there, I have observed a cat walking along the table. When he reached my plate I drove him away; then Catherine Sergueïevna would defend him and recount his biography. Another installed himself on Borodin’s shoulders and heated him mercilessly.
‘Look here, sir, this is too much!’ cried Borodin, but the cat never moved.

HAHAHAHAHA That's hilarious!! Ohh my dearestly beloved Russians!

This is the perfect thread to share a photograph a discovered a while back:

Glazunov, and Balakirev holding a ghost cat

Ever since I saw this picture, I've thought Henry Cowell was cool.

Henry+Cowell+Henry++Cat.png

[QUOTE=Lunasong;364449]Source attributions:
http://user.xmission.com/~emailbox/cat_lovers.html
http://www.bartleby.com/234/8.html


Andrew Lloyd Webber's 6-month-old kitten Otto in 2007 wiped out the score to his sequel to Phantom of the Opera by stepping on the keyboard. "I was trying to write some new music, he got into the grand piano, jumped onto the computer and destroyed the entire score for the new `Phantom' in one fell swoop."

Give that cat a knighthood.

***
Johannes Brahms hated cats and used to shoot them in his backyard with a bow and arrow.

If I caught him doing that I'd shave his beard off.

Nice compilation of cat/composer anecdotes, Lunasong!


[QUOTE=elgars ghost;364481]

Originally Posted by Lunasong

Source attributions:
http://user.xmission.com/~emailbox/cat_lovers.html
http://www.bartleby.com/234/8.html


Andrew Lloyd Webber's 6-month-old kitten Otto in 2007 wiped out the score to his sequel to Phantom of the Opera by stepping on the keyboard. "I was trying to write some new music, he got into the grand piano, jumped onto the computer and destroyed the entire score for the new `Phantom' in one fell swoop."

Give that cat a knighthood.

***
Johannes Brahms hated cats and used to shoot them in his backyard with a bow and arrow.

If I caught him doing that I'd shave his beard off.

A million likes for this post!

ComposerOfAvantGarde used to be a cat person, had several friends who were cats, but since discovering bearded dragons he can't choose what animal he likes more.

Originally Posted by Lunasong

Johannes Brahms hated cats and used to shoot them in his backyard with a bow and arrow.

The full anecdote says that he pulled the harpooned cats into his room and then transcribed their death screams into music.

It's not true, though. Some British musicologist found out that Wagner had invented that story to discredit his rival.

Originally Posted by Lunasong

Johannes Brahms hated cats and used to shoot them in his backyard with a bow and arrow.

Giacomo Meyerbeer also hated cats, but his retribution is undocumented.

Well, now I can say I dislike their character as much as their music.

Young Shostakovich

Rossini. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vt-LyL_wqI

Antonio Sacchini (1730-1786), a leading composer of opera seria, reportedly told his friends he could only compose when surrounded by cats.

Samuel Barber included "The Monk and his Cat" as the eighth song in his song cycle Hermit Songs.
The poem is a translation of a text by an anonymous Irish monk who lived sometime between the 8th and 13th centuries. The English translation used by Barber is by W. H. Auden. In the song, the monk talks to his cat, Pangur, about their daily lives.

Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are
Alone together, Scholar and cat.
Each has his own work to do daily;
For you it is hunting, for me, study.
Your shining eye watches the wall;
My feeble eye is fixed on a book.
You rejoice when your claws entrap a mouse;
I rejoice when my mind fathoms a problem.
Pleased with his own art
Neither hinders the other;
Thus we live ever
Without tedium and envy.
Pangur, white Pangur,
How happy we are,
Alone together, Scholar and cat.

Originally Posted by Andreas

The full anecdote says that he pulled the harpooned cats into his room and then transcribed their death screams into music.

It's not true, though. Some British musicologist found out that Wagner had invented that story to discredit his rival.

The complete anecdote as recorded by Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856).

“Brahms, so it is said, was an avowed enemy of the feline tribe. Unlike Scarlatti, who was passionately fond of chords of the diminished cats, the phlegmatic Johannes spent much time at the window, particularly of moonlit nights, practising counterpoint on the race of cats, the kind that infest backyards of dear old Vienna. Dr. Antonin Dvorák had made his beloved friend and master a present of a peculiar bow and arrow, which is used in Bohemia to slay sparrows. In and about Bohemia it is named in the native tongue, ‘Slugj hym inye nech.’ With this formidable weapon did the composer of orchestral cathedrals spend his leisure moments. Little wonder that Wagner became an anti-vivisectionist, for he, too, had been up in Brahms’s backyard, but being near-sighted, usually missed his cat. Because of arduous practice Brahms always contrived to bring down his prey, and then—O diabolical device!—after spearing the poor brutes, he reeled them into his room after the manner of a trout fisher. Then—so Wagner averred—he eagerly listened to the expiring groans of his victims and carefully jotted down in his note-book their antemortem remarks. Wagner declared that he worked up these piteous utterances into chamber music, but then Wagner had never liked Brahms.…”

Cat who has earned more for her composition than most of us.
The announcement of her prize-winning composition for the Paris New Music Review’s One-Minute Competition.

“We gave the piece serious consideration because it was quite well written,” Guy Livingston, co-founder and editor of the review, said in 1997. “It reminded us of Anton Webern. If Webern had a cat, this is what Webern’s cat would have written.”


Ketzel, the composing cat.

Pinterest board.
Composers with cats. Lots of pictures.

I like cats. I'm shooting at dogs

Another interesting 'cat' work is from Benjamin Britten's cantata 'Rejoice in the Lamb' op. 30 on texts by Christopher Smart, an asylum inmate from the 18th century (not that that would necessarily make him insane) - the second part is 'For I will consider my Cat Jeffrey' where he exalts in his sole companion being one of God's creatures. The work itself is quite moving - other subjects include praising God for flowers and mice and comparing his incarceration with the misunderstanding and subsequent persecution of Jesus.

The image provides a telling glimpse of American composer Henry Cowell (1897-1965) — who composed the song “Because the Cat” — hard at work at his home in upstate Shady, N.Y. Cat fanciers will be pleased to note how the composer can focus on his work and still be accommodating to his feline friends. But are Cowell’s charges a-mew-sed by his latest piece? Sure doesn’t look like it.

Cowell and cat.

***
a bit of a stretch?
Claude Debussy and Eric Satie were regular visitors to a Paris cabaret called Le Chat Noir, located in the bohemian Montmartre district of Paris. The latter worked there as a pianist.