Anecdotes and madness of pianists in history

The musicians… those strange beings once called minstrels. Of course playing an instrument is in itself a skill that creates a lot of impact on the people around you. But does that cause musicians to be especially curious or passionate people?

Musicians may be totally normal people, simply that they have a somewhat curious skill. Or maybe musical intelligence and creativity make them a little crazy… There’s everything in the world and it’s the same with pianists.

In this article we’re going to bring out the curious and a little wild side of some of these characters who have made history.

We began to tell you curiosities about Master Beethoven, he had a curious character.

Beethoven, the unpleasant genius

Beethoven was a genius, no one disputes that and his way of playing the piano is probably one of the wildest and most inspiring that has ever existed among pianists. Mozart was elegance and beauty, Beethoven was unbridled feeling and passion. And this can be certified by those who repaired his piano. They said that after 4 months their way of playing damaged the piano keys, almost the whole keyboard had to be changed.

He was a genius, but all that was good at playing the piano was missing in the sociable. He was sullen in character and used to be very unpleasant. He hated to teach unless they were very virtuous students.

Although not a nice person thousands of people joined in procession to his burial, chroniclers of the time describe it as a weeping to the vanishing beauty.

Igor Stravinski, good music for fights

One of the most important pianists of the 20th century and also a somewhat provocative man.

In several of his premieres he always made it very clear that his intention was to send everything to the hell and that the whole situation ended in a bizarre way. And we can say that he did it successfully because in the premiere of “The Rite of Spring” he got the public to end up with a clean slap and the need for police surveillance in the second act. That’s what creating passions is all about.

Schuman was a very ambitious pianist, he wanted to become a virtuoso and to play some passages he needed a longer hand, which included more notes. So he thought, “What if I build myself a device that pulls on my fingers for a long time? Will my hand be extended? Exactly, like when we were hanging from the goal’s crossbar to grow a few centimetres…

They say the contraption was like a mini crane pulling his fingers. Evidently the only thing he could do was cripple his finger. It has to be said that later he focused on the composition and there he stood out a lot.

So don’t try it, no lengthening your fingers or anything else… it always ends in the worst way.

Gottfried Silbermann and his hard to understand jokes.

This cheerful German was the first great German piano builder. Apart from a great craftsman he had other great obsessions or hobbies. He was a predator with the opposite sex and a very desperate joker. Which created problems for him with quite a few people.

In 1683 in his small village of Sajonia he spread the rumour that there was a treasure buried in ruins. When several neighbors went to look for him with their weapons, they stumbled upon a trap-string that he had set himself and that activated a piece of artillery. Evidently he gave them a brutal scare. Our beloved prankster had to get out of his village although it seems he spent some time in jail for being a prankster.

Years later he ended up in Freiburg and had to run away from there for sexual slaps and catapulted his fame by trying to kidnap a nun for strange reasons…he was a great piano maker, that’s for sure.

There are many more stories but we will publish them in other posts so as not to make a very long one. If you liked this post, don’t hesitate to share it on social networks. Thank you for reading it!