Beethoven Has a First Name (It’s time to “fullname” all composers in classical music.)

Slate ^ | 10/24/2020 | CHRIS WHITE

[Borges]

There will be a time when we’ll go to concerts again. We will buy our tickets, shuffle shoulder to shoulder down the aisle, and find our seats. The lights will dim, and the conductor will walk onto the stage to introduce the program. They might talk about Beethoven, Schumann, and Bartók. And they might talk about Alma Mahler, Florence Price, Henry Burleigh, and Caroline Shaw. Many of us, used to the conventions of classical performance, will hardly notice the difference: “traditional” white male composers being introduced with only surnames, full names for everyone else, especially women and composers of color.

The habitual, two-tiered way we talk about classical composers is ubiquitous. For instance, coverage of an early October livestream by the Louisville Orchestra praised the ensemble’s performance of a “Beethoven” symphony, and the debut of a composition memorializing Breonna Taylor by “Davóne Tines” and “Igee Dieudonné.” But ubiquity doesn’t make something right. It’s time we paid attention to the inequity inherent in how we talk about composers, and it’s time for the divided naming convention to change.

[windsorknot]

Much Ado About Nothing.

[Billthedrill]

If you want a real sign of failure, I give you Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Three names and who’s ever heard of the guy?

[windsorknot]

Rock me, Amadeus.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Anyone with a distinctive name who achieves a certain level can have this happen. Today, it is Bono, Aretha and Elvis. Elvis Costello is stuck with using his full name."

Good points. Also Oprah and Prince, not to mention all the rap and hip-hop performers who go by a made-up stage name of one or more words rather than their real name. Race and gender have nothing to do with it.

[TheWriterTX]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig van Beethoven

[Borges]

And he never even used “Amadeus” except as a joke.

[discostu]

True. But they’re generally talked about as a group. And usually the relationship isn’t even mentioned. They’re the Brontes. Their works are Bronte works. It’s usually only when somebody is getting into comparisons of them that anybody bothers with more than that.

I knew I was leaving a loose thread on that. Thanks

[Fai Mao]

“Elvis Costello is stuck with using his full name.’

And Elvis Andrus has to go by “Big Bear.”

[thesligoduffyflynns]

“What difference does it make” lololololol
yucky cultural marxism

[left that other site]

You left out Goobershnott, from the Phlemish side of the family

[crusty old prospector]

‘Twas tongue and cheek. Although I am a redneck, I even know Nickolai, Dmitri, and Sergei.

[thesligoduffyflynns]

“What difference does it make” lololololol
yucky cultural marxism

[left that other site]

Can you name Bach’s children?

All eighteen of them?

[Fai Mao]

Carson, Letterman, Leno, Ruth, Gehrig, Koufax, Reagan, Obama, Melville, Twain, Poe, Vonnegut, Patton, Sherman, Rommel, Grant, Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Dracula

Just off the top of my head

[Sirius Lee]

Where’s Bach?

In Heaven, looking down on lesser composers - hoping for the best, but knowing from experience that the pygmies, even his own kids, on his shoulders don't stand a chance.

[Agatsu77]

What a waste of time.

[scrabblehack]

Well the name he was born with was
Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
apparently Amadeus was a calque of Theophilus (God-loving)

[rlmorel]

"All eighteen of them?"

Bach walks into the downtown Leipzig welfare office, trailed by 18 kids.

LEIPZIG SOCIAL WORKER: Wow, are they all yours?

BACH: Yep, they are all mine, I've heard that question a thousand times before.

LEIPZIG SOCIAL WORKER: Well, then you must be here to sign up. I'll need all your children's names.

BACH: That’s easy. To keep it simple, the boys are all named 'Bach' and the girls are all named 'Bach'.

LEIPZIG SOCIAL WORKER: (stares in disbelief) Are you serious? They're all named 'Bach'?

BACH: Yes - it makes it easier. when its time to get them out of bed and ready for school, I yell, 'Bach!' and when it's time for dinner, I just yell 'Bach!' and they all come running. And if I need to stop the kid who's running into the street, I just yell 'Bach!' and all of them stop in their tracks. It's the smartest idea I ever had, naming them all 'Bach'.

LEIPZIG SOCIAL WORKER: (thinks this over for a bit, then wrinkles her forehead) But what if you just want one kid to come, and not the whole bunch?

BACH: Then I call them by their first names.

[SoftballMominVA]

Oddly enough, I do know who Davone Tines is. He grew up in my county and was in the middle school I taught in,

Fabulous baritone

[jonascord]

"It was that of a lady named Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, who had in her lifetime managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in central Europe. And, among these lovers who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which is what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry:

One of the leading composers of the day, Gustav Mahler,composer of “Das Lied von der Erde” and other light classics, one of the leading architects, Walter Gropius, of the “Bauhaus School of Design”, and one of the leading writers, Franz Werfel, author of the “Song of Bernadette” and other masterpieces.
It’s people like that who make you realize how little you’ve accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.
It seemed to me, on reading this obituary, that the story of Alma was the stuff of which ballads should be made. So here is one."

Tom Lehrer