Although Beethoven never married, it was
not for want of trying. In 1809 he was given an annual stipend of some
4000 florins (about HK$90,000 at today's values) and decided that, with such
wealth, he could afford to support a wife. Accordingly he wrote to a
friend–Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein–asking him to find a suitable young woman
to be his wife.
When asked what his music tried to say, Aaron Copland
replied; "The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is
there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, Yes. And 'Can you state in so
many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, No.
Gershwin once asked Ravel to
give him some lessons in composition. In reply Ravel asked him; "How much do you
earn each year from your compositions?" Gershwin replied "Around $10,000". Ravel
replied; "in that case, it should be you who gives me lessons"!
For a composer who went on to write four concertos for the
instrument, as a young boy Mozart had an absolute horror of the
French Horn. It was said that merely holding a horn towards him terrified him as
much as if it had been a loaded gun.
Whenever Mozart composed he liked to have a
glass of wine to hand. His neighbour in Vienna had a well-stocked wine-cellar
and whenever he heard the sounds of Mozart working at his piano through the thin
wall separating their houses, he would send his servant round with a bottle of
wine for the composer.
Saint-Saëns was a very prolific
composer; "Composing for me", he once said, "is as natural as it is for an
apple tree to produce apples". He was also the first major composer to write
film music. He composed the score for the movie L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise,
which was released in 1908.
The first music ever to be performed in outer space was
Shostakovich's song Rodina Slyshit, Op.81 No.1. The Russian
cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, sang it as he orbited the Earth on 12th April 1961.
