Nadia Koval - Great musicians and their amusing stories

5. The eleventh variation in the Enigma Variations supposedly depicts George Sinclair’s (who at the time was organist at Hereford Cathedral) bulldog, Dan, after it fell into the River Wye.

6. In 1923 Elgar made a little-documented trip to South America, where he embarked upon a cruise of the Amazon river. The event was fictionalised in James Hamilton-Patterson’s novel Gerontius , which makes a rather fanciful fist of the whole episode.

7. One of the masterpieces of the modern cello repertoire, it is intriguing Elgar’s Cello concerto was not widely performed until Jacqueline Du Pré got hold of it in 1965. The premiere recording was made by Beatrice Harrison, with Elgar himself conducting in 1920.

8. Elgar was one of the first composers to fully embrace recorded music. He regularly teamed up with the team at HMV to make premiere recordings of his works, including the Enigma Variations , the Cello Concerto, and Symphonic Study “Falstaff.”

9. As well as being behind some of the most beloved English music of all time, Sir Edward Elgar was also a keen amateur chemist. He would happily spend hours in his shed tinkering away at little experiments, but the culmination was most certainly his invention of the Elgar Sulphuretted Hydrogen Apparatus, a device for synthesizing hydrogen sulfide which briefly went into production.

10. Inoperable colorectal cancer was discovered during an operation on October 8, 1933. He told his consulting doctor, Arthur Thomson, he had no faith in an afterlife, “I believe there is nothing but complete oblivion.” Elgar died on February 23, 1934 and was buried next to his wife at St. Wulstan’s Roman Catholic Church in Little Malvern.

Edvard Grieg (1843—1907)

1. Born on June 15, 1843, Edvard Grieg is Norway’s most famous musical son, although the Scots lay claim to him being one of their own. His Scottish great-grandfather immigrated to Scandinavia after the Battle of Culloden.

2. A fortuitous encounter with a family friend, the violin virtuoso Ole Bull, resulted in the 15-year-old Grieg’s immediate transfer to the Leipzig Conservatory. Yet in his own words, he left the Conservatory “as stupid as when I entered it.”

3. Grieg did not particularly enjoy his time away from Norway, but he did gain the opportunity to hear performances from the likes of Clara Schumann and Richard Wagner.

4. In 1866 Grieg gave a concert of his own music, including some piano miniatures and the First Violin Sonata , which proved to be a sensation.

5. Following Grieg’s 1867 marriage to his cousin Nina Hagerup and the birth of their baby daughter, Alexandra, he composed his first and most enduring masterpiece, the A minor Piano Concerto , in a flurry of inspiration.

6. Grieg was determined to make his mark on the world with his first full orchestral piece. The Piano Concerto was an instant success and many expected Grieg to follow it up with a second. But he never composed another.

7. In 1874—76, Grieg composed incidental music for the premiere of Henrik Ibsen’s play, Peer Gynt , at the request of the author. The opening movement, Morning , and In the Hall of the Mountain King have become staples of the concert repertoire and have featured in many TV commercials.

8. In 1885 the family took up residence in Troldhaugen near Bergen, where Grieg was to stay for the next 20 years. His piano piece Wedding Day at Troldhaugen , taken from the Lyric Pieces , was written to commemorate his and Nina’s own silver wedding anniversary.

9. Grieg was given an honorary degree by Cambridge University in 1894. Straight after the ceremony he rushed to the post office and sent a telegram to a friend, a physician in Bergen who shared his surname. He signed his telegram “Doctor Grieg.”

10. In the summer of 1906 Grieg penned his final composition – the Four Psalms – and then, seriously weakened, left for the comparative warmth of a hotel in Christiana. He was on the verge of undertaking a journey to Britain in the autumn of 1907 when he suffered a massive heart attack, dying in hospital shortly after arrival.

George Frideric Handel (1685—1759)

1. George Frideric Handel was born on the 23rd of February 1685 (the same year as Bach) in Halle, Germany.

2. Handel’s father, a lawyer by trade, was not a huge fan of his son’s musical ambitions. In fact, when he was a boy, Handel had to sneak to the attic to play a clavichord which was hidden up there.

3. Handel was a hit in London, as evidenced by the very generous salary of £200 he received from Queen Anne when he moved there in 1712.

4. Handel’s successes in London continued, and he was eventually made the musical director at The Royal Academy of Music.

5. In 1711, the Queen’s Theatre in London was treated to its first ever opera composed specifically for it. The premiere performance of Handel’s Rinaldo took place there on February 24th in Haymarket.

6. Handel was such a popular opera composer he was allowed to pick his own leading ladies. However, this perk led to an almighty bust-up between sopranos Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni, two rival singers of the day, who ended up having a scrap on stage during a performance of Giovanni Bononcini’s Astianatte . They both had to be dragged off stage to stop them pulling bits off each other’s costumes.

7. Some of Handel’s biggest and best works were composed in the latter stages of his life. This might not sound too impressive, but he did suffer from a stroke in 1737, was involved in a coach crash in 1750, and had cataracts before going blind after a botched eye operation 1751.

8. Handel’s final oratorio, Jephtha , was a heartbreaking experience for the composer. He was rapidly going blind during its composition, eventually leading him to write on the score, “Reached here on 13 February 1751, unable to go on owing to weakening of the sight of my left eye.”

9. When, after a life of chaos and incredible music, Handel succumbed to his afflictions in 1759. His funeral was attended by 3,000 people and was a huge state affair.

10. Praise does not come much higher than from Ludwig Van Beethoven, who said of Handel’s works, “Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects, by such simple means.”

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732—1809)

1. Franz Joseph Haydn was born in the village of Rohrau, Austria on March 31, 1732 to poor parents. His father, Mathias Haydn, was a master wheelwright while his mother, Maria Kohler Haydn, was an under-cook for an aristocratic family of Count Harrach. Haydn had eleven other siblings, but six of them died in infancy.

2. The other Haydn, Michael Haydn, was also a prolific composer and indeed related to Franz Joseph Haydn. They were brothers.

3. Haydn was famous for his pranks. While studying at St. Stephens Cathedral, he cut off the ponytail of a fellow chorus member. He was suspended and summarily dismissed with no home to go to. While on the street, Haydn became a “street serenader” and was soon discovered by a successful composer who took him in as a student.