Best composer anagram, ever

Best composer anagram, ever

main

norman lebrecht

October 21, 2010

I was chatting to the composer Helmut Lachenmann, prior to our gig on Sunday night, and in the course of discussing his impressions of Pierre Boulez he came up with the best anagram I have heard for any leading composer:

Pierre Boulez = Berlioz Puree

One reason this is so telling is that Boulez is very fond of using food metaphors. Maybe because he is one.

Whatever, feel free to contribute your own composer anagram in the space below.

Here’s a few more to get you thinking:

Seduce Busy Lad (easy)

Bach Snored Longer (cool)

A nominal oboist (oblique)

Plan a Coda, Ron (painful)

Halmut’s Grave (yeah, he couldn’t spell Helmut)

 

Late extra:

 

This just in from Thomas Z Shepard): Sondheim = hedonism

Comments

  • Lowell Liebermann says:

    Camille Saint Saens = A Satanic Illness Me

  • Not an anagram, but I did hear a concert announcement on the radio featuring Morton Subtonic.

  • Gill says:

    Norman- Richard Rodney Bennett and I have about 30 amagrams of composer names. The key is they should all sound plausible and not random words which nobody would ever be called. So- RRB is Edna Trident Hornbryce!
    Go on – do some,
    G x

  • Frank Feldman says:

    1)Claude Debussy-though it would have been more appropriate had it been James Levine or Leonard Bernstein.

  • Frank Feldman says:

    Bach Snored Longer = Arnold Schoenberg

  • Jacob says:

    Charles Ives = He’s visceral

  • Paul Rapoport says:

    In the non-anagram category is the famous Beethoven Symphony No. 3, Erotica. I also saw an announcement for Prokof’ev’s op. 37 as The Flaming Opera.
    Anagrams are good. More, please . . .

  • Ghillie says:

    Raving Sky Riots

  • Ulysses says:

    Andrew Lloyd Webber -best I can come up with is:
    Warbler Beyond Lewd
    The other one, not in the category, is Franz Welser Moest, who was ‘affectionately’ refered to as: Frankly worst than most

  • David Leonard says:

    Elgar also enjoyed a glass of lager and had a nasty glare.

  • David Leonard says:

    Edward Elgar OM = Large Dead Worm

  • David Leonard says:

    Edward Elgar KCVO = Ravaged old wreck (sorry!)

  • David Leonard says:

    Sir Michael Tippett: The artistic pimple

  • MOST READ TODAY: