Francois Boi(e)ldieu

So, there I was, sitting in my music history class, awkwardly fumbling under my chair for my phone, which I'd dropped for the second time in about ten minutes, and neither my nimble flutey fingers nor Bryza's sharp guitar claws could find the rotten thing, and people kept straggling in late because the lecture theatre is in a side street, like not even IN the uni, and so our lecturer was getting peeved (but in a musicologist kinda way) and it was all madstressballs - and then this pretty picture came up on the screen, and I was like: thankyou.

His name is François-Adrien Boieldieu. Or Boildieu, depending on who you want to believe, my lecturer or Wikipedia. I know, Sophie’s Choice, right?

Anyway, he wrote Opéra Comique, which actually wasn’t generally all that funny. But Wagner liked him, and Berlioz thought he was alright, so that’s all that matters.

He lost his voice completely later in life, which must’ve been absolutely terrible. No real lulz there, huh? And then he died, as all composers do, in relative not-very-wealthy-ness.

But he was pretty in a vaguely boring lecture. Although I will get told that he is not in fact pretty, by people who know these things, or whatever. But I appreciate his mussed up hair, and exasperated yet fully deep facial expression, and also that mad neck tie-up thing. I must learn what that is called.

He is also either clasping a dog or grasping at a couch because he’s just so overwhelmed by the universe, man. I’m ok with either.

Ian Clarke

Subtitle: Musicjuice Got New Repertoire Today, and Subsequently Googled All Composers in Order to Find Babes; Also Felt Guilty About Neglected Blog.

This is Ian Clarke. He's got a bit of "thinking woman's crumpet" about him. You know: Shaun Micallef, Colin Firth, that sort of thing. If he were a tv actor, rather than a modern composer, he'd probably spend a lot of time being photographed in white shirts and manful watches on beaches, with accompanying articles about his singledom and deep thoughts etc. And the interviews would probably be published in The Sunday Age's "Sunday Life" (*spits*) magazine. Like, often.

Anyway: music stuff. He writes pieces with weird alternate fingerings (LOL) etc. So, good for him.

Yardena Alotin

This woman is a babe. Srsly. This is what I want my hair to look like. Usually, I just look like I've come off a treadmill.

Anyway, enough about me. Alotin was born in Tel-Aviv, and wrote lots of unaccompanied choir stuff. And some other stuff which isn't very interesting. And a flute piece called "Yefei Nof", which apparently is like a total fave of Galway's, and has "become established in the international flute repertory", according to my Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. It was a prize, alright! But anyway: I don't know this piece, so it can't be any good. KIDDING.

ps she's a babe. Nice pattern on shirt as well.

Lennox Berkeley.

I FOUND ONE! I FOUND ONE!
Long had I thought that we had so thoroughly plundered the troves of musical babe-ness that there could not possibly be anyone left to post. Our fount of attractive males had finally been sucked dry. (LOL)
Sure, particularly fastidious bloggers have kept this blog chugging along, but not with any really WOW WATABABEALICIOUSBABE composers.
I wanted a "POW" and I was getting a fizzle.
The end of this fabulous blog seemed imminent to me (although most people will tell you that's because I'm such a cynical doomsayer that I feel like everything ever is coming to and end and we're all going to die over the smallest things)

Then I saw this guy:

and I knew everything was going to be ok.

Man. I am so into this particular photo of this guy. I don't even know much about him, except that he wrote a piece that's in the series 16 grade 6 AMEB piano book. I don't even know what that piece sounds like, because there's a variations on a theme by Paganini that looked like more fun so I played that instead. BUT. What I do know is that I'm a mega fan of his adorable floppy hair. His eyes. His lips. His nose. The things I would do to him if he wasn't so old and dead and British. Man oh man oh man.

Excuse me a minute.

Carl Nielsen

Carl Nielsen, I know very little about you. I was leafing through some old books, trying to find a composer we haven't already perved on (though we're just a little bit guilty of repeating ourselves), and I found you. And I think you're just a little bit cute. You're also Danish, which is pretty swell, and your charming mug is on the hundred kroner note.

You also remind me of someone, and I can't quite pinpoint who. But I like your jacket and overcoat combo, and your middle distance stare. And I think that's quite enough.

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!?

Johannes Brahms

See, THIS is how you find a babe in classical music. (none of this wishy-washy "leftovers" stuff...)


Brahms, other than writing lovely lovely music, seemed like a pretty nice guy too. He hung out with Clara Schumann when her husband was all "Im in an insane asylum..."and (according to wikipedia, which I know is not a scholarly source but REALLY, life doesn't revolve around academic writing I'm not going to bloody footnote everything to university standards, end rant:) he often brought penny candy with him to hand out to children when he went walking in the woods.

Also his favourite pub in Vienna was called the "Red Hedgehog." Now there's a man of taste.

Leftovers

I was scared I wouldn't find anything tonight, and got terribly worried, and so found these stop gaps, who aren't really babealicious enough for their own posts, but make quite a nice package deal.


Giuseppe Gariboldi - good mo, isn't wearing a zip up jumper with a tie. There's two ticks. I'm also quite enjoying his hair.

Aside from having the most awesome name since Johann Joseph Fux, Benoit-Tranquille Berbiguier seems like the lovely forgotten one in a Jane Austen novel - you know, a Weatherby or someone. Once all the flashy ones have gone away, they're the ones left - possibly not terribly passionate, but THERE.

Marin Marais - nothing special really, except you know what they say about men with large gamba...they develop back problems but have a really nice tone.

Ralph Vaughan Williams

While he DOES have a little of the James Fleet about him, Vaughan Williams est pas mal.

He's got dreamy eyes, rather wonderful hair, and the ever popular skeewif tie.

He even looks alright as an old man! Mainly because of the cat, though...

Samuel Barber

I love a composer in profile. I also love that Barber didn't actually align himself with any school of compositional thought - he called himself a "melodist". Bless.