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22 of the best insults in classical music
If you thought classical music was all about peaceful tunes and harmony, think again. The gloves are off and the claws are out as we explore some of the rudest, most insulting composer put-downs in the history of classical music.
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1. Rossini
"What a good thing this isn't music." Rossini on Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique
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2. Copland
"Listening to the fifth symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes." - Copland
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3. Beethoven
"Rossini would have been a great composer if his teacher had spanked him enough on the backside." Beethoven on Rossini
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4. Beethoven
"I like your opera - I think I will set it to music." Beethoven
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5. Rachmaninov
"He was a six and a half foot scowl." Stravinsky on Rachmaninov
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6. Messiaen
"All you need to write like him is a large bottle of ink." Stravinsky on Messiaen
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7. Tchaikovsky
"It is the most insipid and base parody on music." Tchaikovsky on Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov
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8. Stravinsky
"It's beautiful and boring. Too many pieces finish too long after the end." Stravinsky on Handel's Theodora
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9. Elgar
"The musical equivalent of St Pancras Station." Sir Thomas Beecham on Elgar
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10. Wagner
"Wagner has beautiful moments, but awful quarters of an hour." Rossini on Wagner
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11. Berlioz
"A tub of pork and beer." Berlioz on Handel
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12. Debussy
The audience expected the ocean. Something big, something colossal, but there were served instead with some agitated water in a saucer." Louis Schneider on La Mer
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13. Mussorgsky
"He likes what is coarse, unpolished, and ugly." Tchaikovsky on Mussorgsky
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14. Chopin
"A composer for one right hand." Wagner on Chopin
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15. Clara Schumann
"He gives me the impression of being a spoilt child." Clara Schumann on Liszt.
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16. Bach
"All Bach's last movements are like the running of a sewing machine." Bax on Bach
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17. Brahms
"What a giftless bastard!" Tchaikovsky on Brahms
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18. Handel
"Handel is only fourth rate. He is not even interesting." Tchaikovsky on Handel
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19. Saint-Saens
"If he'd been making shell cases during the war it would have been better for music." Saint-Saëns on Ravel
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20. Britten
"I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music." Britten on Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
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21. Strauss
"He'd be better off shovelling snow than scribbling on manuscript paper." Richard Strauss on Schoenberg
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22. Prokofiev
"Bach on the wrong notes." Prokofiev on Stravinsky
