Bank gets all tangled up in Bach
NewsThe violinist Viktoria Mullova is having money transfer problems because a bank refuses to recognise Bach.
She seems to be handling it quite well.
This is what my Bank wrote to me this morning. And here is my reply pic.twitter.com/2RX1ZJwycV
— Viktoria Mullova (@ViktoriaMullova) June 8, 2023
Looks like they are going to be Wise after the event.
A B minor Mess if there ever was one.
LOL!!
Wise is a UK-based foreign exchange financial technology company founded by Estonian businessmen…
There are many Bachs so it is a quite relevant question which Bach is in question… 😉
And how many of these Bachs are notable for being associated with “6 Solo Sonatas Partitas”? That context, coupled with a basic web search (to verify that the account-holder has made one or more albums with the relevant work) should have been enough to clarify everything. The only question is: was the bank’s “review” generated by algorithm without any human involvement, or was it a case of a bank clerk who was ignorant of one of the seminal works of the violin repertoire?
Mullova’s reply is an absolute delight!
I once met a woman whose automobile had the New York state vanity license plate BRAHMS. She told me that her applications kept getting rejected until she finally found a clerk who understood that it had nothing to do with a brassiere.
Gotta watch out for that Bach, and block all potential funding of his anti-Semitic works.
Look, for all of Wagner’s *public* anti-Semitism, not one of his *musical* works mentions “the Jews” by name and saying “They will kill you and think they are doing so in the service of God”, accusing Jews of “perfidy” and “murder”, as Bach explicitly does in his St. John Passion.
(Just saying, Jews don’t go around attending the Passion plays like good German Christians do annually.)
Should have gone with the Handelsbanken.
Somehow this reminds me of a story, told to me as true, of a
conversation/argument overheard at a record store between the young-ish clerk and the customer wandering in the classical section:
“Lady this is a record store. We don’t sell handles to ANYthing.”
She could have also wrote back that they would have difficulty tracking him down because he is too busy decomposing to answer stupid questions
This reminds me of a somewhat similar letter that was received in the 1980s by the organizer of a chamber music series. It came from the Hong Kong Department of Inland Revenue.
“Dear Sir/Madam
It has been brought to our attention that the below named took part in an event in the City Hall Theatre on . . . I draw your attention to the fact that work visas were not sought in advance from nor granted by the Immigration Department as required by law under regulation . . . This Department is consequently unable to assess the Salaries Tax now due by your company as the event organizer under government regulation . . . Please therefore submit copies of each individual’s contract to this Department with full details of the fees and expenses paid within ten working days of receipt of this letter.
The individuals are –
J. S. Bach
W. A. Mozart
Jacques Ibert
G, Faure”
I doubt if the organizer replied with anything like the wit shown by Ms. Mutter!
Your post is very amusing and deserves all the upvotes, but alas, it needs a correction at the very end. The credit for the witty reply belongs to Viktoria Mullova, not Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Oh dear! Reminds me of another quite well known story.
One day when the great conductor Otto Klemperer and George Mendelssohn, the founder of Vox Records, were strolling around in New York they finally entered a record shop. For some reason, Klemperer wanted to buy several recordings of himself conducting symphonies of Beethoven. The salesperson showed Klemperer several recordings of Beethoven symphonies, conducted by Karajan, Bohm or Knappertsbusch, but none by Klemperer. He said he didn’t want any of them.
“Why wouldn’t you be content with one of those recordings,” the salesperson said, “they are excellent”.
“Because Klemperer, that’s me!” Klemperer barked.
“Oh, I see,” said the salesperson, “and I suppose that guy beside you must be Beethoven!”
“Nooo! That’s Mendelssohn!!!” raged Klemperer.