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Composers
More composers
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Fascinating...
More oddities
100
He was obsessed with cats and wrote a duet with a meowing man and wife.
Who is Mozart?
100
He was given the nickname "little mushroom" by his friends because he was short.

Who is Schubert? 


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

100
Mozart went home drunk the night before the performance of this opera, and wrote the overture for it in three hours. The orchestra performed it flawlessly the next day at the opening.

What is Don Giovanni?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5eC9Aa9T5c

100
This part of Haydn's dead body was stolen from his casket and a fake put in its place until 1954, when the original body part was replaced.
What is his skull?
100
Bach and Haydn were both blinded by this same ocular surgeon.
Who is John Taylor?
200
At age 17 he was kicked out of music school for cutting off the pigtails of another student.
Who is Haydn?
200
This composer would count out exactly 60 coffee beans each time he made himself a cup.
Who is Beethoven?
200
He wrote the Surprise Symphony.
Who is Haydn?
200
Cosima, the second wife of Richard Wagner, was the illegitimate child of which composer?
Who is Franz Liszt?
200
Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saens use to enjoy imitating these people when they were at the Moscow Conservatoire together.
What are ballet dancers?
300
This composer wrote "The Coffee Cantata" about a woman trying to kick her coffee addiction.
Who is Bach?
300
He was a constant overeater and would often order enough food for three people.
Who is Handel?
300

Russian composer Alexander Scriabin had this rare neurological condition in which two or more senses intertwine. He heard music as colors and invented a piano-like instrument that could project colored light into the concert hall.

What is synesthesia?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-v0yDiG7W4

300
Jean Baptiste Lully liked to keep time on the ground with his staff, but once he missed the ground and put the staff through his foot. It got infected and he died as a result. From which place and musical era is Lully?
What is French/Baroque?
300
Robert Schumann ruined his own career by using this homemade device while practising on the piano.
What is a finger stretching device?
400
This composer ate only white food.

Who is Satie?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Xm7s9eGxU


400
He was simply known as "The Uncle" to family and friends.

Who is Vaughn-Williams?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ius8hx63Hso

400

Robert Schumann did this to heal his ailments.

What is plunged his hands in a slaughtered animal’s internal organs or intestines?

400
Mendelssohn's friend left the notes for this overture in the back of a cab and lost them. But luckily Mendelssohn was able to rewrite the whole thing from memory.

What is A Midsummer Night's Dream?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEkcP8lZvZA


400
Richard Strauss was twice featured on the cover of what magazine?
What is Time magazine?
500
He suffered from triskaidekaphobia--fear of the number 13. And he died on July 13.

Who is Schoenberg?

(his opus 13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf8sqv6Gyz0


500
He wrote the main theme for his cello concerto on a napkin after waking up from dental surgery.

Who is Elgar?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pi7IxZSYfQ

500

This composer was also a chemist, doctor, and avid partier and died suddenly while dancing too hard at a ball. 

Who is Alexander Borodin?

500
Edward Grieg kept this in his pocket for good luck
What is a little frog.
500
The name of Brahms favourite pub, which he visited nearly every day.
What is the Red Hedgehog Tavern?