{"id":46903,"date":"2024-08-26T10:18:44","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T08:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/6b3a97f8-6c0f-498f-bf4b-7384753aeefe"},"modified":"2024-08-26T11:07:20","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T09:07:20","slug":"he-kissed-the-skulls-of-beethoven-and-schubert-the-bizarre-obsessions-of-some-of-classical-musics-greatest-composers","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/he-kissed-the-skulls-of-beethoven-and-schubert-the-bizarre-obsessions-of-some-of-classical-musics-greatest-composers\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He kissed the skulls of Beethoven and Schubert’: the bizarre obsessions of some of classical music’s greatest composers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Monday, 26 August 2024 at 08:18 AM<\/p>

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\u2018It consists of many parts created by many different components. Everything has a purpose and role, and the result is amazing.\u2019 This is composer Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k<\/a><\/strong> discussing not an orchestra nor a symphony, but something equally dear to his heart: the steam engine.<\/p>

The Czech composer was a big fan of locomotives, which burst forth into the same mid-19th-century world as his music. Indeed, he once famously declared, \u2018I would give all my symphonies for inventing the locomotive.\u2019<\/p>

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k is just one of a handful of composers who harboured extra-musical obsessions throughout their lifetimes. Let\u2019s meet some of these compulsive composers, starting with the rail-obsessed Romantic<\/a><\/strong> himself\u2026<\/p>

Eight fascinating composer obsessions<\/h2>

Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k: Trains<\/strong><\/h3>

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s life story and that of the locomotive ran, for a while, along similar tracks. The railway reached his hometown of Nelahozeves during his childhood, bringing workers from across the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the construction project. <\/p>

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k had a great love of trains from an early age. Pic: Getty Images – Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>

From the family home, across the street from the train station, the young Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k would watch the new iron dragons pull past, laden with soldiers and civilians. This love of trains persisted throughout his life, and on moving to Prague, he designed a morning walk that took him above the tunnel through which trains would pull out from the city\u2019s imposing main station.<\/p>

‘His precious information was greeted with a snort of laughter’<\/h4>

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k once asked his student and future son-in-law Josef Suk to make an early-morning trip to note down the engine number of the Vienna express train. Suk duly set his alarm clock and headed off, opera glasses in hand, to get the crucial information. After the train had whistled through, he dashed to Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s flat to show him the number.\u00a0However, his precious information was greeted with a snort of laughter: instead of the engine number, Suk had noted the tender number at the rear of the train. Rookie error.<\/p>

Where, if at all, can this love for locos be heard in the great composer\u2019s music? It\u2019s not always obvious, though for many the gently rocking motion of his famous Humoresque, Op.101 No. 7 recalls the movement of a train. And if you think that the main theme from the first movement of his great Seventh Symphony has a certain rhythm of the rails, you\u2019re onto something. \u2018I got this theme when the festival train from Pest was arriving in the State Station in 1884,\u2019 reads Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s note on the score.<\/p>