riding on the coat tails

I'm just jealous that a certain other blogger got to this lovely lothario before me. So I just wanted to add my favourite photo of him. If only he liked the girls.

Rufus Wainwright

I am very much liking this trend we have created here of posting photos of wonderfully attractive young musicians, not widely known for their compositional skillz, then having an AHA! BLAM! KAPOW! moment of revelation, proving, with references to Wikipedia, that they, interestingly enough, WROTE AN ENTIRE SERIES OF 14 SYMPHONIES ALL BASED AROUND A SINGLE, PARTICULARLY DISSONANT INTERVAL AND ARE IN FACT A GENIUS, BETTER THAN BACH, BEETHOVEN AND MOZART COMBINED.

So, with that in mind I give you... Rufus Wainwright.

"What??" ("What??" with TWO question marks!) I hear you cry! "But he is just a wonderful and attractive singer/songwriter who does fantastic renditions of Judy Garland songs!"
AHA! BLAM! KAPOW!
Not ONLY does he do all of these things. HE ALSO WROTE AN OPERA. WITH THE LIBRETTO ENTIRELY IN FRENCH! FRENCH!!!! Which he actually co-wrote. None of this "I'm just going to take someone else's play and make it musical" - I'm looking at you Verdi.

Oh if he wasn't gay, IF HE WASN'T GAY....the things I would do to him...
LOL

Jonny Greenwood

Hello, and Welcome to Indie Town. Population: You.

This is Jonny Greenwood. For those poor uniformed souls who are lacking a bit of indie music in their lives (I'm looking at you Gnus), Jonny plays (primarily) guitar in Radiohead and is kinda sorta a prodigy. In fact, Wikipedia informs me that he plays guitar, keyboard, viola, xylophone, glockenspiel, ondes martenot (????? halp plz), banjo, harmonica and drums fluently. FLUENTLY.
And yes, I hear you yelling at me in your screechy music geek voices that this does not a composer make. BUT WAIT!!!! THERE IS MORE!!!
Yep, I keep you guessing. Anyway, he is also the composer in residence of the BBC Concert Orchestra, as well as composing the entire soundtrack for "There Will Be Blood".
Incidentally, he fulfills a certain role in Radiohead that Thom Yorke does not: Pretty. Jonny Greenwood is very pretty.
And for all of Thom's amazing super pro ace skillz, I would still probably not tap that, to be honest.

xx

P.S. CHECK THAT HAIR FLICKING.

Arnold Schoenberg

Alright, so our beloved Arnie "Twelve Tone" Schoenberg is actually in no way a babe.

However, I could not live with myself if I didn't share this photo, stolen most gratefully from Celebrities Playing Table Tennis, an excellent page in dire need of someone who can make things look pretty.

Cécile Chaminade

Probably best known for her run-tastic Concertino for flute - typical French composer: lures you into a false sense of security with a pretty, achievable melody then BAM SEMIQUAVER SEPTUPLETS! - Cécile represents the vast majority of under-appreciated lady composers.

Even though almost all of her nearly 400 compositions were published, her profile actually took a dive throughout the 20th century, as everyone went nuts for modernism and dismissed late-Romantic French music (but it's so pretty!). According to The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers (that's right, I own this book), Cécile's fall from the popular table is also due to the socio-aesthetic conditions affecting women and their music.

AND THEY'D KNOW.


I also particularly like her range: she can do haughty AND ennui-filled.

Edgard Varèse

My, oh my, am I on a role with the awesome haired men today. Piercing eyes, a mane of hair and the "Father of Electronic Music", there's not much there that's NOT good. (Zappa was a fan of his too. Go him.)

Ignacy Paderewski

This crazy-haired Polish dude somehow managed to be fairly attractive, a really really good composer, and the third Prime Minister of Poland. He was totally one of the guys who signed the Treaty of Versailles. (Yeah! take that Beethoven! How many wars did HE end?) He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame too. (I think all this success was entirely based on his hair, but then, I could be wrong...)
Not entirely sure why, but apparently after he died, his heart was encased in a bronze sculpture that is now in the 'National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa' somewhere in America. (Does any one find that slightly creepy?) Yeah, and apparently his ghost haunts some Polish building somewhere.

Fun facts aside, I think he was a nice looking guy. Oh and did i mention the SWEET MO!?

Philip Glass

Alright, so he's kind of a bit of a grouch. And that face says "are you seriously still making jokes about Bach killing kittens? How old are you, four?"

However, imagine doing something to make that craggy old face smile. Or even LAUGH. Not in a gross way, creeps, just maybe you called it hocket when he had the hiccups and all of a sudden he realised he was in love with you. In that kind of way.

Joseph Schuster

So, it's been a quiet afternoon here at the workplace. Taking advantage of the fact that I work in a music type place, I decided to raid the Groves.

After a disappointing rendezvous with the term "Schusterfleck", I stumbled upon Joseph Schuster. Sure, he might not give you an immediate POW!, but give him time, he'll totally grow on you. He'd get you home on time, bring you corsages and probably build you a piano or something. And look totally pretty doing lots of whistful glances and shizz.