A Composer Makes Himself Perfectly Gliere

If you thought some of the names I've been coming up with for characters in my novel, “The Lost Chord,” were groaners - like Yoda Leahy-Hu and Wanda Menveaux - this post may explain a lot.

It was sometime in the mid-70s when I was teaching at the University of Connecticut that I first saw this and it was “old” then. It had been re-printed in something like the Musical Quarterly's “letters” section but since then I've stumbled on it a few times on-line, occasionally updated with newer composers' names.

So I've added a few more myself (including myself) to bring it up to 118 puns...

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A Composer Makes Himself Perfectly Gliere

You can Telemann by where he likes to live. I just Toch a trip Orff into one of the Wilder areas Fauré Wieck, and to be Verdi Franck, it nearly drove Menotti.

I know opinion Varese, but even Vivaldi urban noises, the Bizet traffic, de Falla engines, as well as knowing there are Weill Mennin the streets Callas enough to knock your Bloch off, I couldn't resist the urge to Galuppi home early Satie, and I Haieff to say I Still prefer the Mitropoulos.

The Boyce were Sor that I had Gibbons up and succumbed to the Riegger of the Field so easily, but frankly, my dear, I don't give two Schütz.

I was practically Krein from my Severacs and all the Paine brought on by that brief time in the countryside! All the Tree Spohrs made me sneeze until my Brain Herz. When you're a Walker in the Wood, it can be a real Balbastre and get your Crotch all in a twist. For me, it was a Röntgen experience. My Buns were dragging Long before I was Abel to get home.

Even the sounds got my Dandrieu up. Let me Liszt some of them: the Rorem of the wind, the constant Birtwistle, the Lipatti-Patti-Tippett-Glinka-Poulenc of the rain on the roof, the Gluck-Gluck of the Hahn, and every morning a woodpecker or some other Byrd Chopin holes in a Thuille. It's all Grieg to me.

My only company was a Thorne Busch, a Partch of poison Ives, a Little Braun Babbitt, the occasional Biber and sometimes a Wolf, but not much Moore. It was scary when you Hurd the Ruehr of a distant mountain Lyon. Maybe for a Forrest Grainger it was Fine, Haydn up in a Tower somewhere - it may even be the Katz Milhaud, but I could have died of Borodin.

A friend suggested my making this Tureck. "Abegg your pardon," I said to him, "but what did I ever Dutilleux?" I will not go Offenbach to those Götterdämmerung Hills again. I would leave them Ligeti split! They Suk! I've had it with this Scheidt. What the Fux do I Care?

Another friend suggested next year I go to the Beach instead. So I gave him the Finger.

No, I don't like the Ruggles life, with nothing to Cooke on but a Coleman stove. It Puts the Carter before the horse. It's nice to stop by the Barber shop around the Koerner or visit the Baker down the Street. Plus I like a good Mehul - a little Suppè, some Szigeti, maybe Munch on some Salome while I raise a Glass at my local Taverner, then maybe have a little lime Schubert afterward (even if they don't always brush the Crumbs off the table). Plus I like to Locatelli while I'm Eaton Maderna at night. Is that Eskin for Egk in Meyerbeer?

Let me make myself Clare: for me, living the Pastoral life would be the Straw,ser, that Bruch the Kamal's Bach.